After a Makeover, This White Bathroom “Feels Like Stepping Into a Secret Garden”
The wall treatment in this bathroom makeover by designer Jessie Surber (@jessiesurberinteriors) looks like wallpaper, but it’s actually hand-painted — then, in a dream turn of events for Jessie, it actually became wallpaper that you’ll soon be able to buy. “I began with pencil and paper, sketching out a cloverleaf motif, planning the repeat pattern by hand,” Jessie says.
Adding detail to the walls was part of phase two of this bathroom’s lifespan — phase one was actually building the bathroom during a whole-home renovation — and phase two “became about layering,” Jessie says. In other words, phase two involved a masterclass in pattern mixing.
It started with a cute café curtain.
Jessie sewed a café curtain from GP&J Baker’s Knight’s Tale fabric and sewed the striped linen shower curtain herself, too. She says the café curtain “instantly shifted the mood.”
“From there, the room began to bloom: textiles, vintage finds, and a custom cloverleaf motif that transformed the walls into a garden-inspired backdrop,” she says.
The wall design was hand-sketched and stamped.
As she mentioned, Jessie first sketched out the leafy wall pattern with pencil and paper. “Don’t jump straight to carving or stamping — begin with loose sketches, even tiny doodles,” she recommends for a similar project. “For my design, I picked a real clover flower from the yard and sketched it again and again until I had a simplified version.”
Then, she carved her design into a block to stamp on the walls. (“Don’t worry if your carving isn’t perfect — those little irregularities add charm once the pattern is stamped,” she says.)
Next, she experimented to find the right paint to use and found that flat wall paint would stand up best to the humidity of a bathroom. “I stamped the entire pattern in green first for efficiency, then layered in blossoms in pink and red with a second stamp,” she says. She used Sherwin-Williams’ Shamrock and Pink Shadow and a custom match to Farrow & Ball’s Rectory Red over top of Sherwin-Williams’ Snowbound white background.
She says watching the walls “bloom” was satisfying, and the process was “almost meditative” — save for an awkward spot above the toilet she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with. “I had to improvise how the pattern would connect, she says. “It doesn’t line up perfectly, but I saved that section for last — and now, unless I point it out, no one ever notices,” she says.
New sconces and a new rug give the room an ultra-cottagecore look.
Jessie’s vanity is painted in a color match to Farrow & Ball’s Tallow, her new sconces and shades are from Pooky, and her rug is from Ruggable.
“Alongside the textiles and lighting, a few vintage discoveries added charm without stretching the budget: a $10 estate-sale chair, reupholstered in sunny linen, and a secondhand vase from a local antique shop,” for example.
She says the bathroom all together “feels like stepping into a secret garden.”
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