Home Tour: Laundry + Bath Makeover

I’m SO excited to share this DIY project with y’all! We replaced the floor tiles in our guest bathroom and laundry room and it looks BOMB. It’s one of my favorite transformations. The laundry room get’s a lot of foot traffic since it’s the way to get to Avery’s nursery. I walk through this area 10+ times a day. I wanted the floors to be bold and a fun statement, so patterned cement tiles were the perfect choice. I found this black & white graphic tile from Riad Tile called Estrella Black and I never looked back. The pattern felt fluid, cohesive, modern, playful, eclectic, and basically perfect in every way.

Click HERE to see our WOOD FLOORS before & after photos

Click HERE to see our PAINT before & after photos

We’ve never done any tile work so we hired a reputable company who assigned installers to complete our job. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend them. At all. After they demoed our previous tile, they began laying our brand new cement tiles. Before they moved on to the next step, I ran my hand along the tiles and they felt like a rollercoaster. Sloping hills ALL over the place. Some of the tiles were cracked. Ugh, a shoddy job. I shared this experience on my Instagram stories and many of you encouraged me to have them redo it. SO, I asked them to rip it out and try again. The next attempt was better. But they also should have sealed the cement tiles to cure overnight (since it’s a natural stone) before grouting the next day. Instead, they left for the day and everything looked like a disaster. My husband spent 4 hours that night cleaning and sealing the entire space. The next morning they showed up and started to grout. We chose a black grout which can be tricky to use on a light stone. They stained the first few tiles because the grout was left on for too long. They were frustrated and left for the day. So, my husband spent a few hours cleaning, sealing and re-sealing the tiles. The install crew didn’t show up the next day and they didn’t know when they’d make it back out. By this time it was a couple days before Christmas. And this was a high foot traffic area! We decided to buy a dark charcoal grout and Aaron spent the day grouting the tile (after consulting YouTube) to finish the job. And it turned out fantastic!

He re-sealed the tile and re-installed the toilet and sink in the guest bathroom (thank you again youtube for the tutorials!). Afterwards, he reinstalled the Samsung FlexWash & FlexDry. We found this laundry set last fall and are still IN LOVE. And they match the new tiles perfectly— win-win! If you’re in the market for a new washer and dryer, pop on over to THIS POST HERE for all the details.

Open shelves VS closed cabinets? I added open shelves to our kitchen but I didn’t like that idea for the laundry room. We need a lot of storage space in the laundry room and there’s nothing pretty enough that I wanted to be displayed. I mean, nothing’s cute about dryer sheets and liquid detergent! So, I nixed the open shelving idea and we added the cabinets from our kitchen (where we now have open shelving) and placed them in the laundry room. Easy Peasy and super functional! Aaron painted the dark wood cabinets white and we chose black hardware pulls.

Next up, I’ll add finishing touches to this laundry room. Maybe a few candid black and white photographs of the kids blown up, light fixture, pressed & folded towels, faux plants or leaves, baskets, etc. And I’m still looking for the perfect mirror for the guest bathroom. I’ll share more pictures once it’s complete!