I’ll never forget stumbling home drunk one night after the event that triggered my bathroom obsession. My friend invited me over for dinner and I was using his guest toilet downstairs when it happened. I peed, washed my hands, stared at the bathroom wainscoting, and decided I was going to do the same to my flat.
He transformed that tiny toilet into what seemed like a real English countryside manor house instead of your typical 90’s builder’s monstrosity. The very next night when I arrived home from work I Googled “bathroom wainscoting” at 11:30 pm. Yes, that late to begin any deep home renovation dive research.
I didn’t stop until my girlfriend woke me up three hours later when she entered my bedroom to find me on Pinterest searching through boards named “Classic Bathroom Ideas”, “Wainscoting Design Ideas”, and “Best Wainscoting Panels For Your Bathroom.” She shook her head and went back to bed. My girlfriend has sadly had years of watching me get overly obsessed with one section of home improvements.
Once I get chewed up by these ideas there isn’t much she can say to stop me.
Our downstairs bathroom was quite gross. The walls were covered in what I can only assume was 90’s go to Magnolia paint colour. You could see every mark on the wall.
I mean every mark. Fingerprints, water marks, random splatters everywhere. I know we all have that one bathroom in our home that no matter how clean you try to keep it, there is always going to be some sort of chaotic mess.
So naturally I thought, wainscoting will fix all of my problems! The walls will be protected from marks. It will look nice.
Problem solved. Insert me being wrong. I made the mistake most newbies do.
I went for the cheapest possible option first. I bought peel and stick panels from B&Q that cost me 43 pounds. Was there anything that could go wrong with that setup?
Anything at all. The instructions made the project look incredibly easy. Peel off the backing and stick them on the wall!
Simple enough right? There was nothing in the directions that stated your walls need to be perfectly smooth to install this product on. Walls in our house are not perfectly smooth.
Our house is Victorian and none of the walls are even close to square. Half of my panels started popping off at the edges because they didn’t fit perfectly. Not only did they look horrible but now they would collect dust in the tiny crevice created by the gap.
I lived with these panels for almost 2 months trying to push the edges down every chance I got. After a particularly steamy shower one day, about half of one panel popped up at the ceiling like a half crumpled potato chip. Game over.
I took down the whole paneling that night and spent hours scraping glue off the walls with a putty knife. Attempt number two was wood. I should have went with wood to begin with but I learn the hard way sometimes.
I headed to my local timber yard and picked up some nice 1×4 pine boards. I painted them white to match the trim we have around our flat. Then I installed them about 36 inches up the wall.
Not only did my bathroom look 100x better but it actually worked 100x better. The section of the wall that gets hit with most of the splattering is now protected by nice paint that can be wiped away, rather than soaking into the plaster. Figuring out the height of the wainscoting took some trials.
Well I didn’t actually trial anything because I’m cheap. I basically held wood up to the wall at different heights and asked my girlfriend if it was too high or too low. If it was too high, it would chop the room in half making it look even smaller.
If it was too low, it would look like I wasn’t quite finished with the install. 36 inches was the sweet spot for our smaller bathroom, but I have seen it look great in taller rooms as well. Material selection was key, and boy did I learn my lesson after my pathetic peel and stick fail.
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At first I wanted to use MDF because it was cheaper than actual wood. My father told me against this idea. “Moisture and bathrooms are not friends of chipboard,” He said. (Yes, that is his exact way of telling me I was dumb) He was right. I bit the bullet and coughed up an extra 20 quid to buy real wood.
It has been working like a charm for the past 18 months. I chose to use beadboard panels with a tongue and groove detail rather than flat panels when we renovated our upstairs bathroom. It was a little more money but the vertical lines really help to give the illusion of height.
This is key when working with such a tiny room that literally acts like your oversize closet. Instead of buying from Homebase I went to my local timber merchant and got better quality wood. Wood that didn’t have knots in the middle of each board.
Putting up the beadboard wasn’t bad once I quit trying to be creative and measured everything properly. On my first attempt I eyeballed every single board and made sure it looked level to me. My eyes can fool me horizontally.
After installing three boards I realised my genius plan wasn’t working. I took down the three boards and installed them with a proper spirit level. I should have used this in the beginning and wouldn’t have had to redo half the project.
What I didn’t expect was how much easier cleaning became. I can wipe down the bottom section of the wall (where everything likes to explode) in seconds rather than having to scrub at it for hours. The semi gloss paint I used on the beadboard wiped right off any potential marking that would’ve soaked into the flat paint.
I did however, fool myself into thinking I could paint the entire thing after it was installed. Instead of painting each board before installing I thought it would be quicker to paint them as a whole. Ugh.
Don’t do this! Trying to get even paint coverage on these skinny strips of wood with them already attached to your wall is a nightmare. It took me triple the time painting them all as a group vs. painting each one separately.
The finished product wasn’t even close to as good as if I would have taken my time. If I ever end up having to do this again I will 100% paint each board before hanging them. Our guest bathroom got the plain Jane treatment.
Flat panels with thin trim around the edges. I created these by cutting large sheets of MDF (Yes I learned my lesson about MDF and bathrooms.) into rectangles. I painted the entire system the same colour as the walls but used a satin paint rather than the flat paint.
The subtle difference in shine creates texture without adding any extra fuss. This whole project cost me around 50 pounds for materials. I got lots of compliments when people finally saw our newly remodeled bathrooms.
My brother-in-law was in awe at how professional it looked and who could’ve done it. It felt amazing to have people praise my work. Usually my DIY abilities are the butt of family jokes.
The downstairs loo now feels like a completely different room. It’s still small, but I like small bathrooms now. They feel cosy.
It also doesn’t feel neglected anymore. Now about six months after finishing both projects, my nephew came to stay for a week during school holidays. Teenagers and bathrooms equal disaster.
By the end of the week my beadboard looked brand spanking new but the wall behind it was ruined.
It was then I realised this didn’t just make the space look pretty. It actually made my life easier.
If I could do anything differently I would not waste my time with cheap products and buy all the proper materials. I would also buy myself a nice mitre saw at the beginning of the project rather than trying to make precise cuts with a hand saw. Lastly, don’t be like me and try to eyeball straight lines.
Use a level! Total cost for materials was around 180 pounds. Total time spend on these projects was roughly three weekends.
I have never been more proud of myself for completely transforming two rooms that once brought me so many frustrations. Not too shabby for a guy who had only completed very basic carpentry projects before this. Like hanging ikea shelves and praying they wouldn’t autumn off.
