Cream panelling gone grubby, plain white floor tiles, grout that had given up, and that specific beige heaviness that shrinks a small room. Everyone knows the rule about a space like this: painting over the tile is the shortcut that gives itself away within a month.
She replaced not a single tile in this room. The floor that looks like patterned cement, the walls that read as a fresh remodel, the whole thing that racked up 12.5K loves: all of it is paint, panelling, and a stencil over the surfaces that were already there.
The before-and-after most people scroll past hides the real lesson in a room like the one @ebonybasten started with. The window is in the same spot. The toilet is the same toilet. The footprint never changed. What changed is that every dated surface got covered rather than carted out, and none of it touched the plumbing.
Her own words on the before state are blunter than anything we’d write: it was dirty and ugly, and at least now, she says, it’s pretty even when it’s waiting to be cleaned. What follows is how a tired 1×2 metre toilet became a room that stops people mid-scroll, one decision at a time. Steal whichever ones fit your space.
The floor is the trick, and it’s the one nobody believes
Start at the bottom, because that’s where the doubt lives. Every comment that matters on her post circles the same nervous question: does painted tile actually hold up, or is this a six-week miracle that chips back to grey?
Here’s the honest version. The “new” floor is the old white floor tile, painted and then stencilled. No rip-out, no tiler, no new substrate. She used a dedicated floor tile paint rated for grout as well as tile, which is the detail most DIY attempts skip and then regret.
The reason hers reads as real tile and not a craft project comes down to two things she’s said outright in the comments. The prep was heavy: the floor was cleaned within an inch of its life before a drop of paint went down, because paint only grips what’s truly clean. And the stencil was done in the same tile paint, not a regular wall paint, since regular paint on a floor would be gone in a month. That single decision is the line between a finish that lasts and one that peels.
A year on, by her account, the floor still looks like the day she finished it. That’s not proof you can frame, it’s her word, but it’s backed by a method that makes sense rather than luck. If you’ve been circling a budget bathroom refresh and stalling on the tile question, this is the move that unlocks it.
The wall tiles got painted too, and that’s the bolder call
The floor gets the attention. The walls are arguably the gutsier decision, because painting over wall tile is exactly the move the internet loves to warn you against.
Roll white tile paint over the grey, grout lines and all, and the busy gridded wall simply disappears into a clean base. That’s the foundation the rest of the room is built on. Without it, the panelling and the soft sage would be fighting a grey grid for attention. With it, the eye reads one calm surface and never clocks that tile was ever there.
The lesson is quieter than the floor’s but just as useful: a surface you hate isn’t always a surface you have to remove. Sometimes you just have to stop it from competing.
Panelling over the existing wall, no kit required
The sage tongue-and-groove is what gives the room its whole personality, and it went straight over the existing wall. No replastering, no specialist trade.
The panels are standard VJ sheets, the wide 1200mm kind, fixed up as full boards rather than fiddly individual strips. The fine vertical beading that makes it look custom is just how the board is milled, not a detail she had to fabricate. Behind the toilet, where everyone assumes it gets impossible, she gently pulled the pan forward while it stayed connected and wiggled the sheet down behind it. That’s the entire trick.
The colour was a mix of leftover greens, but she’s noted it lands almost exactly on a soft, gumnut-style sage, the kind of muted, grounded green that’s carrying small spaces right now. Paired with white above the rail and warm timber trim, it does the heavy lifting a tiled feature wall usually gets credited for, at a fraction of the spend.
The styling is what sells the “expensive” lie
A renovated surface can still look flat. What pushes this room from tidy to magazine is the layering on top, and none of it is precious.
One oak shelf above the cistern carries a ribbed vase, dried eucalyptus, a speckled canister, and spare rolls that read as styling rather than clutter. Brass hardware on the door and the marble-topped paper holder add the small jolts of warmth and shine that make the whole thing feel considered. A windowsill that used to hold a spare roll and a cable now holds a vase and a candle.
Nothing here is rare. A shelf, a vase, a stem of dried foliage, two brass fittings. The skill is in restraint, in letting a tiny room hold a few good things instead of a lot of forgettable ones. That’s the same instinct behind rooms that look finished without a full remodel: edit hard, then style with intent.
The thing to take from Ebony’s little 1×2 metre room isn’t a shopping list. It’s permission. The next time someone tells you painted tile always looks cheap, you’ll know what the honest answer is: only when the prep is lazy and the paint is wrong. Get those two right, and a year later, no one can tell.
Follow @ebonybasten for more of her room-by-room renovations. Textured gum-leaf artwork by @art_of_thyme_.
