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See How DIYer Jenna Pilant Freshened Up Her Half Bath

Bright tile, bold wallpaper, and a whole lot of whimsy create an entirely unique space

By Wendy Manwarren Generes

One Room - bathroom

One Room – bathroom

Upholsterer, designer, and host of YouTube’s Room Bloom, fearless DIYer Jenna Pilant always seems to be tackling some area of her Pauma Valley home. She’s rebuilt a fireplace, constructed furnishings, reupholstered pieces, and painted something in every room.

This spring, as part of the Jeffrey Court Spring Renovation Challenge, Pilant transformed her powder room using the company’s tiles and her own colorful style to create a bold, swank space for guests to wash up in.

Good As Gold

“There’s nothing like adding a design element at the eleventh hour,” says Pilant, who decided last minute to gold-leaf the ceiling. She first painted the ceiling with a red burnish sealer to give the translucent gold-leaf sheets a matte crimson base. Then she waited 30 minutes before applying the sheets using cotton gloves. She did three layers and sealed it with a polyurethane semigloss spray.

Roll With It

Pilant spotted the pricey hot-pink toilet paper wallpaper on a TV show. After hunting it down, she ordered more than she needed since it was coming all the way from France, which proved to be a lifesaver. “It was so delicate that as I was working on one wall, my jeans were nicking the wall behind me,” she says. Pilant used her sharpest fabric scissors to cut individual rolls out to match and replace the damaged ones.

On a Pedestal

The 1928 emerald-green Kohler pedestal sink she scored on Etsy. “I didn’t read the description well, so when I unboxed it, I realized that it was way too short,” she says. So she built a platform to bring her vintage gem up to a comfortable height.

Shaping Up

When Pilant was asked to participate in the Jeffrey Court Challenge, she had already begun planning the design for the half bath, which included the company’s marble-and-gold-metal hexagonal tile. She wanted something vibrant for the wall behind the sink, and found their glossy ceramic subway tile in Galaxy Blue. She rotated the cerulean bricks 90 degrees and laid them in a classic running bond pattern. “I wanted it to feel like water running down the wall,” she says.

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