Before and After: A $1,000 Powder Room Refresh Features a Copyable Conversation Piece Accent Wall
Apartment Therapy has featured plenty of envy-inducing spaces for bookworms over the years, like this apartment with cute book displaying ideas, this one with a designated mini library, and this one, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a bookshelf ladder.
Book collections are most often on display in homes in living rooms and bedrooms, but homeowner Sandy Jandu found a creative way to showcase her passion for reading (and her allegiance to a very strong fandom) in her powder room.
When Sandy (@elleehome on Instagram) first moved in, the powder room was “a brown-y beige-y disaster,” she says. She wanted to “give this tiny space a big makeover.”
She was eager to try out Kit-Kat tiles in a project and thought the small bathroom would make the perfect canvas for the tiny tiled look. She pulled out the old vanity — a challenge in itself — installed a new vanity, and then affixed the new tile by hand. “I tried using a tile adhesive mat product and the tile just fell. TWICE,” Sandy remembers. “So I removed all my hard work and used tile adhesive to adhere the tile the right way.”
Although it was difficult, the new tile adds so much sparkle and drama to the new space. “I’m most proud of how the space all feels intentional,” Sandy says. “There isn’t one piece of this puzzle that feels out of place.”
Sandy’s next project is for all the book lovers out there: She created an accent wall by using pages from a novelization of “Star Wars” as wallpaper. It’s a totally copyable DIY that could be done with the pages of any book, if you can bear to part with something from your library (or if you have two copies of a favorite).
“It was a simple project with a little help of Mod Podge,” Sandy says. Mod Podge rings up just under $4 on Amazon, so if you use a book you already have, this could be an under-$5 way to achieve a vintage wallpapered look in your home.
Sandy’s final DIY in the space was a stenciled floor; she used paint and a stencil made with a Cricut cutting machine to create the speckled look. “The floor painting process was super easy and quick, and created the perfect ‘faux-razzo,'” Sandy says. “It looks like expensive concrete terrazzo in person!”
Although there are lots of design elements, like the black paint, the new ornate mirror, the book page accent wall, the gallery wall, and the DIY stenciled floors (which are Sandy’s favorite part), they all work together to create a moody, eclectic, conversation-starting powder room.
At $1,000 and completed in eight weeks, Sandy is proud of the hard work that went into the space. “The best advice I can give is to take it one step at a time,” she says. “Make a list of the things that need to get done and create your order of operations. This way, you know what needs to get done when and you can schedule tasks around your busy life.”
Inspired? Submit your own project here.