How I Designed a Teenage Boys’ Bathroom

I was blessed with 3 wonderful boys who have never been interested in the domestic arts so when they showed some interest in decorating their bathroom, I was thrilled!

Then, they showed me the shower curtain they wanted.

Oh, boy. How was I going to do this? Did I want to do this? At least they didn’t ask for the bloody footprint rug!

Our master bed and bath were downstairs so they pretty much ruled the upstairs, so why not have some fun with this? After all, it is their bathroom.

I took my creative spirit and set out to tackle the impossible! I used that bloody handprint shower curtain as inspiration for the entire bathroom and a theme was born.

The handprints reminded me of the movie Psycho so I ordered a small poster for over the toilet.

I had a large wall to fill. What other movies have to do with blood and water? Jaws! Definitely Jaws. The decorator in me liked the red in the poster to go with the handprints.

A Nightmare on Elm Street had a lot of red in the poster so I ordered that along with The Gremlins. So now I had a trio of terribly bloody and horrific films perfect for teenage boys.

I used a lightish grey-blue from the Jaws poster to paint the vanity. It worked perfectly.

The knobs and handles were gold but I didn’t want to buy new ones, so I covered them in Sculpey oven-bake clay shaped into skulls and bones.

Above: Notice the red hand pump and bloody toothbrush cup!

Since the knobs were metal, they easily baked in the oven along with the clay. When they were cooled, I painted them with very watered-down brown acrylic paint which I quickly wiped off. It gave them a creepy, vintage feel. Perfect.

I needed more red throughout the bathroom so I went to Target for red towels and a rug.

The cage-like drawer shelf for above the toilet came from Hobby Lobby. I found “meat hook” hooks for the towels and the melted clock there as well.

Hubby attached the hooks to a board which I painted the same color as the vanity.

I finished the room off with chalkboard label jars for the boys’ essentials (and so I could label one “razors” - mWAH ha ha ha!) and 3 different mouthwash bottles covered with apothecary labels to look like poison. Enjoy the labels on me! CLICK FOR FREE PRINTABLE MOUTHWASH LABELS