Guest Bath Redux // ORC Week 2

If I have one design quirk, it's my tendency to approach a project with a gross underestimate of time, money and ease (was that just one or three quirks?). I must confess that I've become a little notorious for convincing both husband and dad that whatever idea pops into my little head will be a snap with little hit to our pocket book. Though they may know better, I'm lucky these two fellas love me enough to help me make all my little plans and imaginations come to life. Take note of this piece of trivia, for it becomes a factor in the rest of today's tale. 

It's Week 2 of the One Room Challenge and today, I'm linking back up with an update on our Guest Bath Redux. You can read more about the One Room Challenge, created by Linda of Calling it Home and the Link Up I'm participating in right here.  

Last week, I shared my plans to give our primary guest bathroom a 'desert modern luxe' feel to sync up with the rest of the house. Today, I'm diving right in to share the first and arguably the most impactful element in this transition - the newly paneled backsplash behind the 7 foot vanity.  While formulating my plan for this space, I kicked around several ideas for this wall. But in the end, two things really drove the decision to go with V-groove paneling.

No window // The bathroom sits right in the middle of our floor plan with no window (peeve). We have a standard fan for ventilation, but ultimately I could not bring myself to paper a wall where it would inevitably succumb to condensation. Did I mention that while this is our guest bath, it's actually my favorite place to shower? 

Cost // We only needed to purchase three, 4x8' sheets of paneling. At $75 total, this was an inexpensive way to add visual interest and a contemporary backdrop for the rest of our makeover plan.

We also really liked the way it looked in inspiration images I pulled and the fact that it mirrors other paneled elements in our home made this a no brainer. A happy side effect was that once hung, the paneling also made this galley bath feel much larger and more open - the biggest win in my opinion.

But I naively approached the job with a "we'll just cut it and tack it up on the back wall" attitude. Dad had spent a little more time mulling the idea over and once we dug in, I understood why. Unless you are working with new construction (and even then it's iffy), walls never seem to measure the same height or width from one point to another. The mere fact that we were working with a pre-determined, lined pattern in the paneling would only accentuate this problem- and truth be told, it did.

We had decided to wrap the paneling around the short adjacent wall that feeds into the vanity area. It's the first focal point you see when you walk through the door to the bathroom so it had to be straight. Dad knew to start there. But lining up the paneling once we got to the backsplash revealed what he already suspected from the early project assessment. We'd end up with uneven spacing between the grooves at both the top near the ceiling and bottom at the vanity edge. It didn't help that the 40 year old vanity was not quite level either.

What should have taken only a couple of hours to complete turned into quite a custom paneling job, some extra spending and a good 12 hour day to get it right. Lots of learnings right out the gate. In the end, it all turns out more than ok, I promise. Be sure to check back next week for another update. I'll dish on some of the pretty already happening in here and share some of the easier to tackle DIYs that are helping to bring some of the desert luxe into our more modernized space.  

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Week 1: The Plan