Ideas For Adding Vintage Charm In The Bathroom

Hello friends and Happy Friday, Farmhouse Friday that is!  It is the 4th Friday of the month which means I am teaming up with some of talented bloggers to share our ideas and love of farmhouse style.  Be sure to check out their inspiration at the end of this post.  Today's topic is "floral accents" and I have to admit that I don't have much floral anything in our home other than the fresh flowers I buy at Trader Joe's each week.  Living in a house full of boys, our master bathroom has been the one space in our home that I allow myself to make a bit more feminine and pretty (apologies to my husband, Billy!). This DIY bathroom is now 3 years old and I still love this room, but I thought it would be fun to make a few small changes.  Today I am going to share a bit about my crazy thought process and shopping habits when I set out to refresh a room.

Idea # 1 ~ Think Outside The Box:

I started with a change to the back of the built-ins by adding some floral drawer liner paper.  When I spotted the drawer liner at Marshalls, it reminded me a bit of the watercolor floral wallpaper that is popular from Anthropologie.  The box of liners was $4.99 and I started brainstorming ways to use it in my bathroom.  I considered using it as, well, drawer liner in the vanity. But that just seemed boring. Then, I considered framing a piece of the paper and leaning it on one of the shelves. But then I came home and decided I wanted to go bolder.  So I got out my "tools" (scissors and regular scotch tape) and got busy covering over the bead board with this paper.

Easy peasy and it took me about a half an hour.  I am frequently drawn to the look of bold wallpaper but always talk myself out of it because I tire of decor so frequently.  So this is a temporary (and affordable!) alternative for me.

Idea # 2 ~ Shopping the Bathroom Department...and Beyond

Once the "wallpaper" was up, I had fun with adding some new accessories.  I enjoy shopping the bath product aisles at Marshalls and HomeGoods.  They often have great quality products at affordable prices. The black and white enamel soap bowl (affiliate link) recently appeared in my "things you might like" feed at Amazon.com and I thought, "Yes!  That is exactly something I like."  The folks at Amazon are brilliant like that.  The wire wastebasket on the top shelf is recent purchase from the Target dollar spot and I thought it would be perfect for holding a few rolls of toilet paper.  

Idea #4 ~ Add Unexpected Items

I found the Penguin Classics books on clearance at TJ Maxx for $5 each.  How cute are the book jackets on those?  I love the vintage vibe they lend to the space.  I wouldn't store special books in the bathroom because of moisture, but these clearance books are perfect for in here. 

Idea #5 ~ Make Useful Items Decorative

We replaced our linen closet with these built-in shelves so they need to remain functional, as well as pretty.  The glass canisters holding the bath salts and soap are from the kitchen department at Target. Speaking of Target, the "don't quit your daydream" towel is a recent find from the kitchen department as well.  

The baskets on the shelf under the vanity hold our less pretty bathroom items.

Have you ever tried the "Au Lait" bath products by Scottish Fine Soaps?  The Bathing Milk is my very favorite bubble bath.  I highly recommend it!  Look for it at, where else?, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and HomeGoods.  I think we need to come up with a name for those 3 stores combined since they are all sort of the same place.  The enamel tray is from the kitchen section from HomeGoods.

I gave our chandelier a good spring cleaning and she is sparkly again.  There was a lot of hair spray and dust build up on there and it was looking very dull.  I also gave all of the shelves a good wipe down when I took everything off to add the shelf paper wallpaper too.  We used vinyl bead board in this room and that was pretty much the best decision every.  I wiped down all of the bead board too.

 As always, I had a helper with me for this project.

I love to see how a few little changes can make the entire room feel so different.  I also appreciate that I can just pull off the floral paper when I want a cleaner look again, which will inevitably happen.  The only thing constant around here is change.  :)

Ready for even more ideas for using floral accents?  Check out the posts below!

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