A Trip to the Fabric Store Is the Key to the Rental Bathroom of Your Dreams

Everyone loves a peel-and-stick tile hack and the simplicity of a straightforward hardware swap. Yet this year’s Brooklyn Heights Decorator Showhouse made us wonder if the key to a before-and-after–worthy bathroom transformation can be as simple as switching out a shower curtain.

Interior designer Kate McElhiney turned to some renter-friendly tricks to transform a 19th-century washroom into an elegant escape with a hint of Parisian flair. Naturally, we had to ask her about how to channel its stately sink skirt, curtained shower and bath, and stained-glass window stand-in without risking a security deposit. Here’s what she had to say.

Get Creative With Window Treatments

Sunlight streaming in through the shower’s stained-glass window gives this bathroom a dreamy air. Except, it’s not stained glass: McElhiney turned to Etsy for a Korean pojagi panel sized to fit the window jamb and hung it from tension rods. The simple solution does some heavy lifting in the small space. “With the pojagi screen as the focal point, your eye is immediately drawn to the point in the room furthest from where you walk in,” she says, “which tricks you into thinking the room is larger than it is.” 

Fake Soaring Ceilings

McElhiney’s trick for drawing the eye up? A ceiling-mounted shower curtain. The header rod that she used to install it will require a drill, but isn’t channeling Eloise at the Plaza worth investing in a tub of spackle? To prevent mildew, the designer recommends making the curtain out of a water-repellent oilcloth, outdoor upholstery, or an extra-long traditional shower curtain liner.

Sport a Sink Skirt

In addition to tucking away clutter, McElhiney’s sink skirt keeps the bathroom truly monochromatic and “takes away the visual noise” of cabinet doors and hardware. While she enlisted Wovn Home to fabricate the custom-size skirt and its sewn-on ikat trim, she turned to the very renter-friendly hack of attaching it to the vanity with Velcro.