Our main floor bathroom was a hideous disaster that I'm surprised we tolerated for as long as we did.We went a good 7 or 8 months living with the "before" bathroom, which I actively hated, before I took this renovation on in the summer. Had I known the makeover would have been so simple and inexpensive, I would have done it the week we moved in.
The previous owners had the bathroom decorated like this, and I would actually argue it was better than what we did when we first moved in. At least their shower curtain had a bit of life in it.
We moved in, used an old shower curtain from who knows when, changed out the toilet seat. and called it a day. But, like I said, months of seeing that dank, dark bathroom finally got to me, and for only about a hundred dollars, we were able to transform the bathroom into a much more beautiful space!
The first thing I did in the bathroom was repaint. A while back I scored an amazing deal on paint (25 cans for a buck a piece, that I could come back and retint whenever I wanted) so I brought in two cans and got one tinted in a nice teal color, and a second one tinted in an antique white (to paint the wainscoting.)It took a couple of coats to cover that awful beige, but I was so happy to see it gone.
The wainscoting made the biggest difference in the room. Since the bathroom isn't very big, it cost really little to do. I can't find the exact product we used online, but at Lowe's, we found a big sheet of wainscoting that, when cut in half, gave us the perfect height for what we wanted in the bathroom. Each sheet cost $35, and two sheets was enough to do the entire bathroom. In the interest of keeping it really easy, I had the sheets cut in half at Lowe's, so that we would only have to do minor cuts to fit it in the bathroom.
The installation was super simple, and I ended up doing most of it myself. I placed it over the previously existing baseboards (which were double height for some reason, but I actually really like the way it looks.) I used a nail gun to put the pieces in place, and then topped them off with a piece of chair rail. I then painted the entire bottom portion in the antique white color (baseboards included.)
The last thing I had to do was find the perfect shower curtain, and find a few decorations to spruce things up. It actually took a couple of months for me to find a shower curtain, but I finally came across one at Home Outfitters for about $20 (it was on sale half price) that fit the room perfectly.
Joel's parents had a great old scale they were getting rid of that they gave to me, which matched the walls really well. The old window I got for $5 at a garage sale a few years ago, and I've just been waiting for a spot to put it (it used to be hung here in our kitchen, but we since put in a real window!)
There are many things I'd do if money weren't an issue - I'd love to change the flooring (can you believe that's actually the color of the grout? It's not just dirty!) to something much darker. Maybe a dark, wood look ceramic tile.
If I had the money, I'd also change the vanity to something much cuter - probably to something simple and modern, still white cabinets with a darker counter top. And while I'm dreaming, I would throw in a claw foot tub instead of the standard builder tub that's there right now. But for now, I'm content to live with our inexpensively made over bathroom!
