copycraft: chevron wall mosaic

One of the first decorating footholds I nabbed in our house was creative control over the guest bathroom. (Yes, guest bathroom, this is how uncertain Jason was of my decorating eye at the time - he gave me literally the ONLY room in the house he had no reason to enter. Ever.) Still, I'm happy to have one room in our house of blended tastes where I can do whatever I want. 

When I came into the picture, the bathroom was completely bare. I'm talking white shower curtain, two white bathmats and a bar of dial soap. There were a few mismatched white(ish) towels and that was it in the way of "accessories." The huge white-cabinet vanity was topped with some version of plastic faux marble, with ample counter space and nothing to live there. Top it all off with a huge rectangular mirror and some fluorescent lighting, and we had ourselves one cold and stark bathroom. (I wish I had had the foresight to take a picture, but now our wall art is up and hung and getting Jason to take the thing down and rehang it for one picture would probably require cashing in a chip that I'd rather save for a rainy day so... my incredibly vivid description will have to do.)

Anyway, for a while I was stumped on what I wanted to do because the thing lacked any sort of starting point whatsoever. The one thing I did latch onto was the gray color of the walls. I actually really liked how it matched up with the white of the plain shower curtain, giving it a sort of modern color palette. When I stumbled upon this bath rug on sale at West Elm (read further about my love affair with WE in this former post), I knew it was perfect. Plus since the moment I joined Pinterest, I kind of feel like the chevron pattern has been everywhere just screaming to be incorporated into our decor somehow. I adore it. 

The mat definitely spiced things up, but once it was in there it just made the walls look so bare. And I simply could not have a mullet of a bathroom. (Ya know, business on the walls, party on the floor? No? Yeah, it was a stretch.) Anyway, here's the inspiration photo for what I finally decided to do:

via Spunky Junky

Love the asymmetry of it, but also love how the pattern virtually matches up so your eye travels from piece to piece. This blogger used old shoe boxes (awesome recycling idea!) but I decided to use cool brushed metal frames that went with the rest of the hardware in the bathroom. I printed out her pattern and followed the simple steps she had on her blog.

First I laid out my frames in the pattern I wanted across some sheets of thick poster board (I wanted something sturdy enough to be painted on.) I went with an asymmetrical look like the inspiration photo using different sized frames, but of course you could just as easily do any arrangement you like. 

Marking where each frame would line up with one another (and numbering the positions as well as the frames so I'd know how to put them back together), I transfered the pattern by tracing it with a thick permanent marker and taped off the pattern.

Using acryllic paint (I simply mixed black and white to make a gray to my liking), I painted over the tape, making sure to cover all the areas that would be shown in my frames. 

After the paint dried, I cut out each section (based on the previous lines I had marked) and put them in the frames. If you look closely, you can see some of the lines became a little jagged due to imperfections when I lifted up the paint. To fix this I simply went back with some white/gray and touched them up so it would be crisp and straight.

The bathroom is definitely not done, but it's certainly an improvement. Some new crisp white bath towels, along with dark gray accent hand towels and washcloths help tie in the bath mat and mosaic. I especially love how you can see the reflection of the mosaic in the mirror from the doorway. I hope to get some pops of color in there eventually and some more accessories (not to mention ripping out the off-white toilet, awful vanity and terrible tile...), but for now I'm happy with how it looks. 

If you're as obsessed with chevron right now as I am, I definitely recommend this project! It's a fun one! 

(To keep your eye on future copycraft ideas, feel free to follow my Crafty Pants board on Pinterest.)