A 1908 Home’s Bathroom Gut Reno Adds Vintage Charm Back In
Wallpaper in a bathroom is like icing on a cake; it’s a special design touch that can make a powder room or a primary bath feel like a jewel box. When Diana Di Poce (@diana.dares) added wallpaper to her freshly remodeled bathroom, the colors and patterns really tied her over-100-year-old home together.
Wallpaper was the final step of an extensive bathroom renovation — one that required a total demo of the historic home’s bathroom. (In fact, Diana and her husband found newspaper clippings from 1908 used as insulation in the walls!) When the couple moved into their older home, they knew that it would take some DIY elbow grease to make it their own.
There’s luxe tile and a new stained glass window.
Diana and her husband DIYed much of the bathroom, but they did have new tile professionally installed in the shower and throughout the bathroom. For the walls they chose white square tiles with a chair rail, and for the floor they chose a beige and white 12×12 marble checkerboard pattern. “It’s a beige, but I wanted these peachy tones through it,” Diana says of the darker-colored tile on Instagram. “I love this color palette, and I love the checkerboard. I just wanted something timeless and classic.”
They also had a stained glass window in a similar color palette custom-designed by a local maker, YABA.
The vanity was a DIY project — and it’s perfect for the small space.
Diana and her husband made all the measurements for, cut, and assembled the vanity themselves. It’s customized for the bathroom’s small square footage and has an undermount sink, three functional drawers, a recessed toilet paper holder on the side, legs from Etsy, and knobs from Rejuvenation.
“This whole thing was such a puzzle to design and figure out,” Diana says on Instagram. “This was our first time doing any type of cabinets … I’m very proud of us.”
The cabinet is painted the same creamy white as the walls, Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee, and is topped with a stone countertop left over from the couple’s closet renovation.
The wallpaper was installed by hand.
In addition to building the bathroom cabinet vanity, Diana and her husband also decided to install the room’s eye-catching wallpaper themselves. They chose a wallpaper featuring soft pastel florals. “[We learned] so many DIY skills — painting, trim, installing doors, wallpaper … the list goes on!” Diana says.
If you’re new to DIY projects, Diana stresses the importance of not being too hard on yourself throughout the process. “We would often think our work wasn’t good enough or that we couldn’t do something,” she says. “But we could, and we did, and we figured it all out!”
There are antique details throughout.
Although scouring Facebook Marketplace and antique stores for decor often takes more time and effort than simply ordering a similar product from sites like Amazon, the result is often even more personalized, Diana advises.
She sourced antique doorknobs from The Door Store, and one of her favorite pieces, the mirror, was an Etsy find. For more vintage-inspired bathrooms brimming with cool antique details, check out this 1910s bathroom makeover and this dreamy blue bathroom.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.