DIY Bathroom Drain Cover

Hello everyone and happy Friday! The weekend is here, and I am excited to get some much needed painting done. Painting is a hard job without kids being around, add a helpful toddler or two and it's basically an exercise in patience. The kids are going for a visit at their grandparents for the day tomorrow and I plan on getting a ton of stuff done. Plan being the key word.

Today I want to show you guys an easy way to cover an ugly drain pipe that can be seen when you have an open vanity in your bathroom. It is actually a really easy solution and won't take too much time or effort.

Back when we finished the basement renovation a few years ago, which included our half bathroom, we ran out of steam and left a lot of the decorative stuff for later. The bathroom sat like this for a long time and I got sick of looking at the drain pipe every time I was in there. It's not exactly the nicest thing to look at and always made the bathroom feel dirty, even though it wasn't. Maybe I'm alone in that feeling, but I thought that covering the drain while keeping it accessible would look much better.

So I asked Luis to make a cover for the drain using scrap wood from the basement renovation. He used some of the thin plywood that we have used in tons of projects (Tray update; kid safe coffee table inserts) and two pieces of 1x2 scrap wood. I told him I was going to be painting it and it would be mostly hidden so it didn't have to be beautiful.

It's nothing to call home about unfinished and sitting by itself but I knew that it would work perfectly to cover that ugly drain. So to recap, it's literally five pieces of wood that are nailed together to make a screen. We did a test fit to make sure that it wasn't too big and that it covered enough of the drain without taking up too much room. The shelf that it sits on is the main storage place for the vanity, so really don't want to lose that.

Already better. After a light sanding I grabbed the leftover wall paint (Turtle Dove by Behr) and gave it two quick coats. I didn't fill the gaps or anything crazy because I knew this was going to be almost completely covered once in place. Once dry I just put it around the drain, leaving a little clearance around the pipe. I didn't  want it to touch the pipe, just sit in front of it. Then I put our basket full of extra toilet paper rolls back in it's place. 

It looks so much better to me, almost like the drain is in the wall. And this keeps the drains fully accessible in the future so no worry about anything permanent to prevent a plumber or us from doing any work. It was such a quick and easy way to cover the ugly drain, and I love how much cleaner the bathroom looks.

Kerby