Okay so I had this wild dream last week about the perfect bathroom. Woke up sweating at 4am with the whole design burned into my brain – floating sink, those pebble-floor shower things, and jungle plants everywhere. My actual bathroom? Standard landlord special with cracked tiles and that gross peach color from the 90s. Figured why not try making dream-bathroom happen in my tiny rental.
Step One: The “Planning”
Grabbed my sketchbook and started scribbling while eating cold pizza for breakfast. Drew three terrible versions before realizing I can’t draw straight lines. Went full caveman mode – ripped pages from home decor mags and taped them to the wall like a serial killer’s mood board. Found this marble-effect contact paper at Dollar Tree and thought “that’s the secret sauce right there”.
Operation Cover-Up
First mission: hide the ugly tiles. Measured wrong three times, cut the sticky vinyl too short, almost gave up. Then remembered YouTube comments saying “just overlap that shit”. Smoothed bubbles with an old credit card while sweating bullets – dropped the scraper tool in the toilet twice. Took five hours just to do one wall and looked kinda wavy near the ceiling.
- Pro move: Used hair dryer on stubborn bubbles
- Fail moment: Accidentally stuck my sweater to the wall
The Plant Phase
Dream bathroom needed greenery but my black thumb kills everything. Bought fake vines from Goodwill, soaked them in tea to look less plastic. Macgyver’d hanging planters from plastic yogurt cups and twine. Nearly fell off the toilet tank trying to screw in hooks – landlord’s gonna hate those holes later.
Shower Drama
Couldn’t afford pebble flooring so got river rocks from Petco’s aquarium section. Glued those little rocks to a plastic mat with this industrial glue that made my kitchen smell like Satan’s armpit for two days. Worst part? Those suckers are slippery as hell – nearly cracked my skull during the first shower test. Now there’s a non-slip bath mat permanently hiding my masterpiece.
Final Touches
Got cheap LED strip lights from that sketchy electronics store downtown. Half the lights turned purple after the steam from one hot shower. Battery pack died after 4 hours because I forgot they need constant power. Currently running an extension cord from the hallway like a total fire hazard.
Finished version’s this weird mashup of spa luxury and college dorm hack-job. Honestly? Looks more like a serial killer’s wet dream than my actual dream. But I can stare at my fancy fake marble wall while brushing my teeth and pretend I’m some rich Instagram influencer. Next project? Fixing the damn leaky faucet that’s been dripping since Bush was president.
