It started with the floor. Grace O'Heeron, 23, had been watching do-it-yourself home renovations on TikTok when she got the idea to paint and stencil 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 looked...not great.
"I found out I did that wrong. I was supposed to stencil black over white," she said. "It was so bad, and I had spent like a month hand-painting each of those tiles, trying to fix it and stuff."
Thus began a journey that thousands of people on TikTok have been watching with bated breath and hilarious comments. O'Heeron's failed floor quickly snowballed into a monthlong bathroom DIY that saw her covered in stains, desperately using different kinds of paint remover, and determined to end up with a passable finished product.
At every step of the way, a loyal following has been both egging her on and begging her to quit while she's ahead.
After the floor, O'Heeron turned her attention to the sink. She remembered a childhood friend whose garage floor had glitter embedded in it, and she thought, Why not do the same for her sink?
"I thought it was going to be a vibe," she said. But, again, 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 green, using the same paint her dad had used on her kitchen island. But not only was that not the right kind of paint to use, but she also didn't sand the sparkles first, so it all came out kind of chunky.
"I was going to keep the floor as is, keep the counter green, live with my mistakes, but everyone was so heated," she said.
So she kept going.
And going.
And going.
At this point, people were hooked — and also mildly concerned.
Some people also wondered if this was all an elaborate troll or if O'Heeron was unwell.
She said her impulsiveness can actually be attributed to a brain injury. In December 2019, O'Heeron was hit by a drunken driver and suffered an injury to her frontal lobe, which affects judgment and decision-making. She spent much of 2020 in rehabilitation, 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 genuine.
"I wish it was a joke. People kept saying it was a social experiment, but I’d be so much smarter if I’d planned that," she said. "But no, it was literally me messing up."
As the DIY went on, things started to look up.
She got some prepatterned tiles, painted the cabinets, and settled on a color for the counter.
Everyone could see the end was near.
Finally, on Sunday, our long national nightmare came to an end.
And O'Heeron was far from the only one relieved.
It's not perfect. A few tiles are wonky, there's caulking to do, and there are a few more spots to touch up in the shower. But O'Heeron is proud of how far she's come, and she also loved all the support and jokes along the way.
"The comments were hilarious to me," she said, adding she especially loved the ones about how people were telling their therapist about her.
The bathroom may be done (or close enough to done), but don't worry DIY fans — O'Heeron has more in store. The next room she's set her sights on is the office, and she will, of course, document it all on TikTok.
"I think I have to at this point," she said. "Everyone is so invested."