The Beach Glass-ed Bathroom

Wondering what to do with all that beach glass you’ve collected over the years? So was Shanda Gates’ husband. Gates’ collecting began while visiting the Pelee Island in Canada about 7 years ago. The owner of the B&B they were staying at suggested they check out the local beach and all the beach glass it had to offer. Gates found a red and a cobalt on her first glassing hunt. And she was hooked.

Back home in Ohio, she discovered the Ashtabula Beach Glass Festival and enjoyed time at the beach with her granddaughter, Myra. A trip to the Bahamas in 2014 brought more sea glass home and when Gates and her husband were beginning a remodel of their kitchen and bathroom, her daughter, Ashley, suggested using all the beach glass she’d amassed over the years.

And so it began, and what started as possibly a 4 ½ foot long and 4 inch tall wall border turned out to be 12 feet high and almost 10 feet in length. Gates says it was a lot of work. “The grout dries quickly and you have to wipe off each piece of glass as you go,” she says. But, she was more than pleased with the result. She laments a possible future regret, moving from her home and leaving her sea glass behind.

This article appeared in the Glassing Magazine March/April 2018 issue.