The last bathroom post!

You know, I was all proud of myself for holding back on posting every little update, so that I’d have a real REVEAL to show off in here….but the downside is I kind of feel like these little posts about specific projects afterward are a bit of a let down.

So with that enticing introduction out of the way, let me tell you about this boring, anti-climactic little bathroom project ;).

I was always planning to put shelves and vintage planters on the wall above the tub, but way back a long time ago I thought we’d build our own floating shelves, like these that Catilin from Desert Domicile made. But then as the bathroom reno went on and on and on, my motivation for tackling another DIY project waned.

So when I found these Ikea Bjarnum shelf brackets, I decided they would be the perfect thing for easy sort of floating shelves. They only come in a silver finish, so I spray painted them with Rustoleum Champagne Mist. That’s the hack that’s not even really a hack that I mentioned before: spray paint the shelf brackets! I’ve got Champagne Mist all over the place in this bathroom–on the light fixture and the towel racks in addition to the shelf brackets–it’s a really subtle gold with a vintage feel. The finish on the shelf brackets is brushed rather than glossy, and it took the paint really well (no prep work needed).

I’ve seen people use the Bjarnum brackets with wooden shelves rather than the particle board ones they sell to go with them at Ikea. We considered going this route, but I didn’t really want more stained wood right next to the bamboo shades, and it didn’t make a lot of sense to buy real wood just to paint it. So we got the dark shelves to go with the brackets (when I look on the website, I’m seeing shelves in shiny black, but I’m pretty sure mine are the “espresso” that looks black. I would have bought shiny black if I’d seen them).

We got lucky in that the premade shelves are pretty much exactly the right length for the space, but the shelf brackets cover the sides of the shelves, so you can cut them down if you need to.

And then we put planters on them!

I’ve been putting the planter collection together for a long while now. Vintage planters are a great thing to collect, it turns out, because there are a ton of them out there and they’re really affordable. I found a few at thrift stores and was given a few as gifts, but I also had really good luck picking them up at lower end antique mall type places for under $10. I got a few on ebay, too….they sell cheap on there, but the shipping adds enough to the price that you’re probably better off getting them locally. You know, unless there’s a burro that you really need:

I’m kind of talking as if I bought way more planters than are actually here….and that’s because I did. They did not all make it onto these shelves.

All the succulents and cactuses came from Home Depot. It’s kind of a pain to actually transplant things into the vintage planters, so small are the spaces in some of them. But I persevered.

And that’s really all I have to say about that! And, thus, all I have to say about our bathroom!