How To Paint A Herringbone Accent Wall To Instantly Update Your Small Bathroom

Cheap small bathroom makeover idea

This DIY tutorial will show you how to create an amazing herringbone design. Our small bathroom makeover started with a simple beige bathroom and ended up looking completely brand new bathroom accent wall.

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The “Before” Small Bathroom

First Time Bathroom Makeover

We had “redone” it once before to become a neutral bathroom until we really decided what we wanted to do. The previous owners even had carpet in the bathroom and the cabinets were the construction grade oak cabinets from the ’90s.

After we bought this house, we had previously used gel stain on the construction grade cabinets and we tiled the floor ourselves when we first moved in.

This is a picture of the in-progress gel-staining from our master bath and this small bathroom. As you can see, carpet was in the bathrooms (all of them in this house when we moved in)…

yuck!

The gel stain was easy to use and still gave us that warm wood feel. A few years later, we painted two other bathroom vanities made out of the construction grade oak.

If you want to learn more about gel stain, here is a midcentury modern dresser that was redone with gel stain! Even after the gel staining of the bathroom cabinets, it still felt…

Blah (to put it nicely).

Apparently, 5 years ago, I thought beige was an okay color to paint things. I don’t know what I was thinking and now I am completely want to make my new neutral to be gray.

How to cheaply makeover your bathroom using paint?

While we have not completed all of these DIY bathroom paint projects, we have completed the fun accent wall and here is how we did it!

Did you also know that one of the big box stores has free shipping on 8 oz. paint samples!!! I just figured this out and can’t wait to just order online in the near future!!!!

If you want to have a different color than the current wall for your tape lines, you will need to paint that. After you have your base coat, you are going to tape out your herringbone design.

How to create a painted herringbone accent wall

1. Decide on how far apart you would like your designs. Our lines in my herringbone design come together at the point every 7″ down and 12″ apart.

2. Measure 12″ across your wall. Mark in 3 places. Line frog tape up in order to get straight lines vertically. Keep the tape straight and pull it tightly when mapping out your herringbone design. This will help you get clean and crisp lines.

2. For each line, measure 7″ down and tape diagonally from one to the other. So your first diagonal line starts at the ceiling and goes down to the 7″ mark on the next line.

3. Keep repeating to make the herringbone pattern. REALLY PRESS THE TAPE! Use your fingernail to really make the tape stick and I also suggest that you take the foam roller (without paint) and run it over the tape. I have also used an old credit card before to push the tape on nice and flat.

4. Once the herringbone design is completely tape, use a small roller to paint the whole surface. You may need two or three coats.

5. Once rolling and trimming is done, it is time for the FUN! I like to peel the tape when the paint is dry, but I do not let it dry too long. Some painters will want you to wait a day, but I am just too impatient for that!

6. Carefully peel off the tape. I find that pulling straight with design can help. If there are any bleeds, you can always touch up the design with the base coat. I did have to touch up a few spots, especially along the ceiling.

7. Clean-up (My least favorite part) and ENJOY your new DIY herringbone accent wall!

8. Have a blast decorating your new bathroom or space that you chose to TRANSFORM with a painted accent wall.

What type of DIY bathroom shelves look good over the toilet?

Here we made these industrial shelves with a little help buying these Industrial Pipe Flanges from Amazon. I love how they look against our DIY herringbone accent wall. It ends up being much easier to have everything we needed for the pipes for the industrial look to be sent to us.

I had priced out the pipe fittings at the local big box store and looked at a lot of industrial pipe tutorials. However, instead of searching for the parts, we thought it would save us time if we just have the parts sent to us.

Read more: 40+ DIY Shelving Ideas For Any Home Decor Style

We did have to buy and stain our own wood with our favorite wood stain color. However, these turned out way nicer than anything we could have bought. We also were able to make two towel racks out of the same $25 piece of wood bought at the local lumber supply.

We even used these industrial flanges to make a corner shelf for under our TV in our living room. Once you find a product you love, you keep using it!

A little elbow grease and you can make any room a special place in your home!

Originally I had planned on only talking about how to paint this gray herringbone wall. Then I realized that we also have other budget-friendly decor ideas that others might want to know.

Upcycle old jars and items for shelving decor or organization

Here we used old ghee butter jars to help store q-tips and other bathroom essentials our guests might use. The jars were the perfect size to even store hotel samples if someone needs something super quickly.

Create your own drying hooks for towels & hand towels

Instead of purchasing a hook unit, we decided to make matching hooks for our guests to hang their towels. Using the leftover wood from the shelf, we stained it that same color and added hooks.

You can find a variety of hooks or hardware at places. I found these hooks in the clearance aisle of HomeGoods, but I do love the selection at places like World Market (like using these knobs instead of hooks) or even like these hooks on Amazon.

We even used a square wood piece to add a hook for hand towels next to the sink. Considering we used supplies we already had, it was a completely budget-friendly addition to our bathroom.

We love our painted accent wall in our small bathroom (as well as all the other bathroom DIY projects)!

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