DIY floating shelves (bathroom progress)

Hello there and happy MONDAY!! It’s feeling like one to me today. ;)

So you remember that one time when I started two bathroom renovations and took for-absolutely-freaking-EVER to get them done?

Yeah. Well, it’s time to get them done. I’ve set a rule for myself – no gardening or outside projects till the bathrooms are DONE. I may cheat a little only because I am just one person and DANG it takes a long time to finish it all up.

The basement bathroom has come up from nothing, and I have only really showed you the tile so far here. Other than that the big stuff had been installed – the sink, toilet and shower. But the room sat half painted for months.

I was determined to get this bathroom done last week and I almost got there. Just a couple more projects to finish up and I’m moving on! WHOO!

This is how the space looked up till last week – you can’t see that the wall to the left is half way painted but just imagine it. It was pretty:

Since I hadn’t installed baseboards yet I just had to tape off the shower and light fixtures with my loverly Frogtape in preparation for paint. I’ve gotten pretty good at cutting in on the ceiling so that saves a lot of time.

I finished up the paint (I listed all the paint colors for the basement here) and realized again that you can’t even tell the difference between any of the colors – I could have just painted the whole basement the same color. But OH WELL. It’s done. :)

I installed all the baseboards and quarter round:

It looks like poo there but just wait till you see the power of caulk and filler. ;) Wish I could use some caulk and filler.

Once I got the trim done it was time to address the little nook next to the shower. Yes, the shower is tiny. When it came time to decide what we were doing we realized the space would only allow for a couple shower inserts (I had originally planned on tiling the shower but didn’t for cost and time reasons). The size that worked best was this shower – and it is small.

But I have to keep reminding myself this is a basement bathroom – we will hardly EVER use this shower. Some guests might, but even that will be rare. So I would rather have some storage than a big shower we’ll never use.

So storage it was – I had the guys frame out a little spot in the empty space by the shower. All along my plan has been to put some shelves in there, and I finally got it done!

I started by adding supports – I just used scrap wood from the garage every 18 inches or so:

I was going to add a support along the back but realized it wouldn’t be needed since the space is so narrow. I only installed these with a nail gun – on our library built ins and the pantry redo I used long screws, but I knew this wouldn’t be holding a ton of weight so the nails were easier and faster.

I had a piece of 1 by 12 I cut down to use as the shelf, but it was just a smidge too small:

I ended up finding more scrap wood in the garage, took it to Lowe’s and had it cut just a bit wider than the other wood, and it worked pretty well – I stained them before I installed (for once! Are you proud of me?):

I used the dark Kona color I used here as well. Love it.

I just nailed the shelves down into the supports:

I made sure I had the right thickness of wood for the fronts before I started – I wanted it to cover the top shelf, the supports, and an extra board I installed underneath to give it a finished look:

I actually had most of that front trim too – I only had to buy one small piece to finish it up.

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out! It’s a great use of an awkward little spot:

Let’s talk about that shower curtain shall we? I went through my normal Goldilocks routine to find that one (the one I LOVE).

I started with this one, but the blue tone was off with the walls:

I really loved this one and the colors were perfect:

I’m trying to go with a slightly funkier vibe in the basement and I thought that was fun. But I wasn’t crazy about it when I got it up – too graphic for this little space I think?

And then I found the one that was just right. It had a bird on it:

And there. you. go.

Since the shelves only cost my $3 for a small piece of trim (BOOYAH!), I had fun gathering a few new accessories for this spot, at Tarjay of course (all Threshold items):