When we moved into this house, that we lovingly call 214 (our address), the bathroom was the most up to date room of the house. The previous owner had a modern style and, apparently, the bathroom was the only room she had remodeled. Why oh whhhhy couldn’t she also have done the kitchen?! Damn you Karen! (kidding, kidding…)

We absolutely love our bathroom. Nice deep tub with a rainfall shower head. Quirky, awkward sink that seems to float away from the wood vanity…

Wood vanity? Heh?

The wood vanity was really the only thing I wasn’t sold on. Only because I couldn’t wrap my brain around wood+water and not seeing a future problem with that.

Future problem being a week and a half after moving in, I scorched the top with a flat iron. Ugh. This wood vanity and I were going to have some words.

Just so you know what I’m talking about, here are some pictures of the bathroom. The first picture is the day we moved in, 2nd picture is the week after we moved in, and the 3rd picture is 3 years after we moved in:

3 years in and my premonitions were starting to come true. As diligent as I was to wipe up any water that was lying on the vanity, it didn’t matter. Years of water damage were taking its toll in the area behind the sink right under the mirror. I cursed that vanity every time I cleaned it.

Over the years, I always searched for things I could do to save it, fix it, everything short of replacing it. Remodeling the bathroom wasn’t anywhere near the top of my list of things to do. I tried in vain for a DIY post on SOMEONE SOMEWHERE who had the bright idea of putting glass tile on top of their vanity. But then again, who would? I think I was the only person in the world with a wood vanity. So it was up to me. But first, I had to get Pete on board. Ugh.

He didn’t want to do it. So, long story short, we compromised. He could do it his way (sand + stain) and if that didn’t work then we can do my way.

His way didn’t work. To this day, I’m not entirely sure why it didn’t work but trust me when I say it. did. not. work. He was in the bathroom for 20 minutes before he came out and informed me we were going out to shop for tile. YAY!

So hop on board! Next stop- glass tile vanity town!

First things first, you are going to need to get some tile. This was the hardest part for me only because all the tile I liked was $13 for 1 square foot. That wasn’t going to work- I might as well just buy a whole new vanity. While losing patience in either the Home Depot or Lowes tile isle, can’t remember which store because we went to about 5 that day, we found 1 single box of tile that I actually loved. The only problem was that we couldn’t find where it came from. Turns out it was the only box in the whole store and it was on SUPER CLEARANCE for $10! That is 10 sheets for $10. Never again in the history of DIY will this ever happen to me again, I just know it. They found a few more boxes at another store and we ran over and bought those too- because we had not a damn clue as to what we were doing, so extra tile was probably a great idea. We also picked up some grout and a tile cutter that looked like a giant paper cutter but it got the job done. One of the best things I found were these sticky mats that you lay down and the tile sticks to it instead of having to use thinset mortar- meaning you can grout IMMEDIATELY. So easy and clean and they worked great! I totally suggest those, too. You can check them out by clicking here

So here we go with the pictures:

In the first picture you see pete cutting the tile and in the second you can see, all the way at the end, the SimpleMat we were putting under the tile. After we had everything cut and placed down, you can then start applying your grout!

Total project cost about $200 and 1 Sunday of work. Totally. Worth it.

Not sure how long this will hold up but 1. it has to be longer than wood and 2. this isn’t a permanent fix. This was only to hold us over until we decide, one day, to replace the entire vanity in the bathroom.

And here is the finished product complete with faux hydrangeas in fake water which you can learn how to make by clicking here or you can just use the real thing…I suppose…

You can get this awesome shower decal I bought from HappyWallz on Etsy for $18 by clicking here! 1 project done, 1 million more to go…