How to Accessorize a Bathroom

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 3:44


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: Ready to give your bathroom a touch of style? I’ll show you how. I’m Kristan Cunningham, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

So this is a pretty standard bathroom. You’ve seen a hundred of this exact bathroom in apartments and homes all over the place – the linoleum, the formica countertop, the mirror that was stuck up years ago and you can’t get down - and even if you could, you’d have to drywall the whole wall – and, of course, the lovely builder’s special faucet.

But, believe it or not, this bathroom can look pretty custom with some really easy additions. Let me show you how.

Okay, no remodel happened here. It looks like a completely different bathroom. And this was all done in an afternoon.

So let’s talk about where we started. I wanted to kind of un-new the bathroom. It was very, very new-looking. So we went with factory-style sconces; didn’t even hardwire them. We ran the wires right around the mirror and covered with a cord cover. Next we layered on top of the mirror. There was no way we were getting that bad boy down, and we didn’t want to have to deal with the drywall anyhow. So a little hook went at the top. We added some chain. And the layered effect takes away from all of that new-feeling mirror.

Next we took the doors off the cabinet, added in some baskets. And again, it helps break up so much cabinetry, new cabinetry, and make it feel a little more like a found piece. Replaced the kind of standard knobs with something a little chunkier, a little more industrial-feeling; gives it a little bit of interest. Threw down an indoor-outdoor rug; can get right out of the shower on this. You’re not going to hurt it. You can actually hose it right off. But it makes it feel a little more upscale in here, and also adds a whole lot of warmth.

Also doing the trick is furniture. If you’ve got the room and you can add a little stool by the bathtub to put some accessories or even a chair to stack towels, it adds such a finished quality to a space that sometimes goes really ignored. And it’s really unexpected to see a furniture piece in the bathroom.

Added some art over here. Be careful that it’s not a piece of art that could get damaged with the steam of the room. We’ve just got a shell in here, so it’s a no-brainer.

And finally, for the accessories, we mixed and matched. Instead of going to the department store and getting the whole set that goes together and matches the towels, we got kind of vintage pieces. We put our mouthwash into a decanter, which makes it very, very fancy; and then different mix-and-match pieces, some that feel a little older; a set of rolled towels. And instead of the basic, again, cup that you’d find at the department store, we did something that felt a little more rustic. And we swapped out the faucet, which probably gave us our biggest bang for the buck in here.

And that’s it – a whole new bathroom. I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret about how to class up your bathroom with just accessories.