Bathroom Re-do on a Budget
My favorite thing about this bathroom is how big it is. I’ve never had one this big before. It’s the little things, I know!
It took about five and a half months to finish. I would get some work done and then Jason would need to do some things, repeat, repeat…
I started by ripping the beadboard off the walls. I was not anticipating the glue on the walls or a couple layers of wallpaper underneath. Thankfully, the layers came off fairly easy. Then we removed the Victorian style woodwork by the shower. While it was pretty, I tend to like cleaner lines/no fuss. Love how it opened that area of the room.
In the meantime, I picked out bathroom fixtures and put those up. There was nothing on the walls when we moved in, which made this part easy.
Next step was mudding drywall. This took the longest, not because it’s difficult, but because Jason’s good at it and I wanted it to look nice. If I had done it – no bueno! With working full time, having two kids, and two part time side gigs…he doesn’t have a lot of extra time! But he got it done!
Things were coming along nicely but there was still something “off” about the room. I came to realize the various wood tones were not calming to me. The door/window/floor trim is all a beautiful darker cherry. I’m not sure what the vanity is. The toilet lid was golden oak. The ceiling was pine and the crown molding was a different oak.
To change this, I decided to paint the ceiling and crown molding. I had a gallon of darker green paint I intended to use as an accent around the house and it went well with the paint color I had picked out for the walls (same color as living room).
LOVE how much drama it brought to the room. While your attention is drawn to it, it’s not enough to take away from the cherry wood tone. New light fixtures weren’t in the budget; those were all spray-painted oil rubbed bronze to match the bathroom fixtures.
Meanwhile, I decided I didn’t quite love the wall paint color anymore. I didn’t want to spend money on buying more paint, so I took it back to the store and had it darkened. I liked the new shade, but it didn’t blend with the ceiling color AT ALL! Lol
Thankfully, I had a lot of white wall paint left over from the kitchen/dining area and it looked great with the trim and the ceiling. Problem solved!
Amongst everything else I kept playing around with different wall decorations. Found the sign above the toilet at a craft store, fell in love with the saying/color, and it became the bathroom accent color. Not exactly sure what shade you would call it…Teal? Aqua? Had a kitchen towel close to the same color so tried that out for a while. After deciding I liked the concept I purchased some hand and bath towels from Target. Updated the cabinet pulls and faucet on the vanity and got a plain white toilet lid for final touches.
It’s funny, Jason and I didn’t think we were bothered by not having the main bathroom finished, but now that it’s done, we’re breathing easier! Someday we’ll change the lighting and flooring, but for now we really like it!!!
A little bit of new, a little bit of old, and a lot of us!
Budget Side Note:
Confession, I love looking at home remodel pictures where rooms are completely transformed. The downside is I can be super intimidated because our budget seems small compared to ones required for dramatic renovations. Nonetheless, it can be done! Unless it’s listed below, everything else was reused from our last house.
Bathroom Fixtures: $140 – towel bar, toilet paper holder, towel hooks, shower curtain rod all from Menards
Wall Decorations: $8 – Memories sign from Hobby Lobby. Repainted the frame on our “inspiration” board and removed tan ribbon to make it more cohesive. Received the metal Home Sweet Home sign as a gift and I made the wood backing.
Towels: $22 – all from Target
Faucet: $45 – from Amazon
Cabinet Knobs: $21 – from Menards
Paint: $33 – from Home Depot
Toilet Lid – $6 – from Menards
Total Spent: $275.00
