It started with the ground. Grace O’Heeron, 23, had been watching home improvement work at TikTok when she hit upon the idea of painting and stenciling her bathroom floor.
“I was just super impulsive,” she told BuzzFeed News. “I thought I can do it.”
First she painted the floor black. Then, using a homemade stencil, she tried to paint a pattern with white paint. It didn’t look … great.
“I found out I was doing this wrong. I should be stenciling black and white,” she said. “It was so bad and I’d spent like a month hand-painting each of these tiles and trying to fix them and stuff.”
Thus began a journey that thousands of people on TikTok watched with bated breath and funny comments. O’Heeron’s fancy floor quickly turned into a month-long bathroom DIY, covering it in stains, desperately using various kids of paint removers, and determined to get a passable end product.
At every step of the way, a loyal following has both encouraged and asked them to stop while they are ahead.
After the floor, O’Heeron turned her attention to the sink. Remembering a childhood friend who had glitter embedded in the garage floor, she thought, why not do the same for her sink?
“I thought it was going to be a mood,” she said. But here, too, the results were not ideal.
“Everyone when I posted the first video said my sparkles looked like bugs,” she said.
Next she decided to paint it over with green, using the same paint her father had painted her kitchen island with. But not only was that not the right color, it also didn’t sand the glitter first, so it all came out kind of chunky.
“I wanted to leave the floor as it is, keep the counter green, live with my mistakes, but everyone was so hot,” she said.
So she went on.
At this point, people were addicted – and easily worried too.
Some people also wondered if this was all a sophisticated troll or if O’Heeron is not doing well.
She said her impulsiveness could actually be attributed to a brain injury. In December 2019, O’Heeron was hit by a drunk driver and suffered a frontal lobe injury that affects judgment and decision-making. She spent much of 2020 in rehab, some of which she documented on TikTok.
“I’m just happy to be alive,” she said.
As for the conspiracies, O’Heeron said this was all very real.
“I wish it was a joke. People kept saying it was a social experiment, but I would be a lot smarter if I had planned this,” she said. “But no, I literally screwed it up.”
As the home improvement went on, things started to improve.
She got some pre-patterned tiles, painted the cabinets, and decided on a color for the counter.
Everyone could see the end was near.
Our long national nightmare finally came to an end on Sunday.
And O’Heeron was nowhere near the only one relieved.
It’s not perfect. A few tiles are wobbly, there is caulking, and there are a few more spots that can be touched up in the shower. But O’Heeron takes pride in how far she has come, and she also loved the support and jokes along the way.
“The comments were weird to me,” she said, adding that she especially loved the way people told their therapist about her.
The bathroom may be ready (or close enough to be ready) but don’t worry DIY fans, O’Heeron has more in store. The next room she has her sights on is the office, and of course she will be documenting everything on TikTok.
“I think I have to at this point,” she said. “Everyone is so invested.”
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