A Nautical themed bathroom is fun and still kid and adult friendly. Great for a hall bathroom used for kids and adult guests!

A Multipurpose Space

Our upstairs hall bathroom is mainly used by our 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. But often, it is also used by guests.

The bathroom is in need of a makeover. It’s never been touched. Almost 3 years after moving in, the bathroom was still builder-white.

With two little people using the bathroom, the walls are starting to look dingy from wet hands and water splatter on flat white paint. The bathroom needs a satin-finish paint job to protect the walls and clean it up.

Plus, with a colicky baby keeping us home more than usual, I am in desperate need of a manageable project.

Bad.

With a start and finish.

What we need, is a bathroom with some elements of fun for children, but that can also hold up over time with water splashes and bumps from small children. And, since this is also our guest bathroom, it’s an added bonus if it’s enjoyable and comfortable for adults too.

A Nautical Themed Bathroom

I roped my husband into the project when a simple paint job became a slightly larger project. We picked out navy paint for the space, but quickly realized navy was just too dark for the window-less bathroom.

To keep the space bright, and protect walls from the wear and tear that is inflicted by small children, we decided to add white bead board.

Ah, bead board. How I love you.

Home Depot carries this two-foot width bead board product with pre-cut grooves to fit seams together. We needed just 5 two-foot boards for our small bathroom. We spent $35 on bead board and under $10 on chair rail and caulking.

Who knew the spendy part of this project would be the paint? Sherwin Williams matched white paint to our existing trim. One gallon of satin Super Paint along with velour rollers for an ultra-smooth finish was $50, even with a $10 off coupon!

Yikes.

But now we have enough high quality white paint to use for our future mud room lockers and bead board border. This paint smooth and thin. With multiple coats, we hardly used a quarter of the paint.

Paint completed, we just needed a few finishing touches.

We found a wooden ‘Splash’ sign for $15 at Home Goods. If you like this one, you can find a similar sign from this Etsy shop.

We found this wooden Whale on clearance for $7 at Hobby Lobby. You can find a similar sign here.

Hand towels are hung using $9 wooden fish hangers from Marshalls. I also like these fishing hooks from Anthropologie. Or these cast iron fish hooks from Amazon.

The space was completed with the Wave Blue shower curtain from Target. Usually $17, we paid $14 using a 20% off Cartwheel deal.

Voila.

It’s amazing how just one little project can make you feel energized…and ready for the next one.