Guest Bathroom: Closing the Curtain

We're in the final stretch of the guest bathroom right now, so we're at the point where I need to be making up my mind about the finishing touches.  Artwork, shower curtain, and the fluffy stuff that Mr. GI doesn't have to do I get to play with.  I had been thinking about bringing in a burlap shower curtain into the guest bathroom, for two reasons:  first, it introduces a neat texture into the room where just about everything is painted (vanity, crates) or ceramic-ish (toilet, tub); second, burlap is dirt cheap.  Think under $3/yard from Wal-Mart cheap.

Image here

I had pretty much decided how I was going to make the shower curtain, and I also found some tutorials that helped (Trish at Life to the T's how to was pretty straightforward).  However, when I went to Wally World to check out my options, I was almost bowled over by the smell.  I remembered a similar smell when we were using jute twine for our redneck chandelier*, but it was easy enough to ignore since the twine is so tiny.  But I was really worried about the smell multiplying with a shower curtain, so I started doing some research about washing burlap fabric.

It wasn't good.  This post at Our Southern "Country" Home and Farm about washing burlap had lots of comments that talked about the smell being formaldehyde (can anyone speak to this?), that burlap shed even after several washings, and that the fabric could shrink several inches after the first washing.  Uck.

So I'm closing the curtain (pun always intended) on the burlap shower curtain and thinking about some other options.  I thought about DIYing a curtain using some of the tips I've pinned in the last few months.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Mrs. Great Indoors on Pinterest

Source: brooklynlimestone.com via Mrs. Great Indoors on Pinterest

But I'm really crushing on this shower curtain we found at Target last night for $24.99.

via Target

Or maybe this one, although it's more expensive at $34.99.

via Target

I could definitely try DIYing these with the Pinterest tutorial.... or I could make my first splurge of the bathroom and grab up my shower curtain crush.  We've saved so much money since Mr. GI has plucked out so many great colors from the oops bin (seriously, the only thing we've paid full price for was the wall paint), but then again we had to do a lot more work to the bathroom than we originally planned for.  Hmmm.

Have you ever used burlap fabric?  What was your experience?


*Can I just say that when I Googled "redneck chandelier" the fourth hit was a pin of our Pinterest project from March?  How funny is that?!

Follow along with the rest of our bathroom adventures: our dream, the before, mildewwww, every day we're drywalling (another a terrible pun), the our thrifted finds so far, ripping out wallpaper, making up my mind on a wall color, rehauling the vanity, an updated to-do list, a teaser of the floor, cleaning and wallpapering, painting, laying flooring, polishing up our light fixture, solving the mildew mystery, hanging some crate storage, plus my Pinterest boards for the guest bathroom and master bathroom.