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Moving into a new house can come with a lot of expenses. There may be a lot to do to make it feel like home and it may seem impossible to do an inexpensive bathroom makeover that looks nice. I am here to share my DIY bathroom makeover that (I think) looks expensive but that we totally did on a budget.
It has almost been a year since we have been in our new home. We bought in the middle of Covid which was pretty stressful. Houses would come on the market and sell under 24 hours (if you were looking or bought during this time then you know how crazy it was). In that kind of climate you really did not have any time to sit and think on anything – if you liked a house you put an offer in immediately. And that is just what we did.
We love our house and are so grateful that we found something, but if I’m being honest, our house had a lot more work that needed to be done then I remembered. It was almost like we were on this crazy roller coaster ride and once we finally got off and got our focus back, we saw things that we didn’t see when we first walked through the house. I totally chalk that up to buying in the craziness of a pandemic.
Long story short, every bathroom in this house needs some sort of update. Every fixture, paint color, vanity, you name it is circa 1992. With 4 bathrooms in this house, that thought is a little overwhelming. But here we are and we are trying to conquer one bathroom at a time.
This first bathroom that we updated is the main bath that everyone uses that comes into our home, so it felt like a no-brainer to start here. I am going to walk you through our DIY bathroom makeover that came in at just under $500!
This post is all about our DIY bathroom makeover.
So this is the bathroom before. I totally forgot to take a picture of the bathroom before we taped up the mirror (woops), but you get the picture. BTW, if you’re removing a mirror similar to this one I highly recommend taping it up to prevent it from breaking. No one wants 7 years bad luck – amiright?
This bathroom wasn’t horrible (just wait until you see my kids bathroom – YIKERS) but ya know, it wasn’t cute. She def needed a facelift. We didn’t want to get too crazy and wanted to do a fairly easy bathroom makeover.
Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate the warm oak. I know, I know – you think I’m nuts, but I think against crisp white walls it would add a really nice warmth. We ended up painting the cabinets because of the vanity top.
One random Sunday we were at Lowes looking for something for another project and this vanity top was just sitting on a cart. It looked pretty, looked like the right size AND had a clearance sticker on it. I show it to Mitch and he had no interest at all and started saying how it’s probably not the right size…blah blah blah. I reassure him it is, but then he continues to question me and we’re awkwardly standing there arguing – mind you, we had ZERO plans to start a bathroom reno… if you’ve followed along on our stair journey, you know that project is still awaiting completion hahaha…… yaaaaa…. So anyways, we’re standing there and the manager walks past, sees us discussing the vanity and says “I’ll give it to you for fifty bucks. I need it gone.” SOLD. A marble vanity top for $50.
And that is what started this whole bathroom journey.
This is the after! Isn’t she GORG?! Now if you’re a DIYer you would know that a DIY bathroom makeover on a budget does not come without its bumps in the road… so lets take a look back at the not so fun hiccups we ran into.
DIY Bathroom Makeover : The Hiccups
You know when people say that once you start opening up walls and tearing things up you are potentially opening up a can of worms? Well, it’s true. We didn’t run into anything terribly bad but it definitely required some thinking.
- Removing the mirror (and old screws, nails, etc.). I don’t know what in the world the previous owners of this house were hanging up in their bathroom but the size of the nails and screws that we pulled out of the walls were INSANE! This created a bit of an issue because getting those suckers out was not easy and resulted in some damage to the walls. Also, when we removed the mirror it took off some of the dry wall in places. We did not want to do a ton of patching so we had to weigh our options. Initially it was not our plan to take the bead board up so high but after thinking it through we didn’t feel confident that the walls would look right after all of the patching that needed to be done.
- Uneven walls. When we removed the old vanity top and the mirror we discovered that the wall that the mirror was on was very uneven. Since the old vanity top had a backsplash that butted right up to the mirror, there was no way that anyone would had known. So we really had to put our thinking caps on. If we just put the bead board on that wall without addressing the unevenness, there would have been a huge visible gap where the bead board meets the vanity top. What we had to do was basically shim behind the bead board with extra pieces of bead board that we had to create the illusion of even walls. This was another reason that we brought the bead board up high. We wanted to make sure that no one would be able to see the gap. Of course caulk and stuff helps fool the eye but we still felt better bringing it up high so that any imperfections weren’t so noticeable. Below is a picture of the extra layers of bead board behind our main piece. We brought it up a few extra inches so that the trim piece would also be shimmed out.
- Light Fixture. I really wanted to reuse the current light fixture and just update it with new glass, but it just didn’t work out. I was going to use rub n’ buff and the tube I got was bad. And then after taking the fixture down we realized it could only function with a very specific bulb that wouldn’t work with the glass I wanted. So, we ended up buying a new light fixture. Not in the plan or budget but I do love how it tied everything together.
DIY Bathroom Makeover : The Breakdown
Here is the breakdown on how we transformed our bathroom from 90s blah to cozy modern.
- Replace Vanity Top ($50): Like I mentioned above, we got VERY lucky finding an extremely good deal on this marble top. I definitely recommend keeping an eye out for items like this when you are doing any sort of renovation. You’d be surprised at what you can find!
- Faucet ($200): This was not cheap, but I thought it was so beautiful and would add such a timeless look. Not at all upset about this money spent but there are definitely options that are cheaper if you’re looking to save a little money. This exact one that we got is linked here: kingston brass english classic
- Painting the vanity (already had on hand): This is definitely an area in which you can save money. Your vanity can get a total transformation but a simple coat of paint. I already had this paint on hand from a previous project. It ended up not working our for what I had intended but was perfect here! TIP: Try your paint out in different rooms even if you think you don’t like it. Paint can looks EXTREMELY different in different rooms. This paint (Black Fox) looked super brown in my kitchen but looks like a warm dark gray in the bathroom. Below is the paint I used from Benjamin Moore and I REALLY liked using this!
- Changing the hardware ($28): If you only do two things, paint and change the hardware. Doing these two things alone can really make a difference. Before the vanity had handles on the doors and the drawers but I wanted knobs thrown in the mix, too. Simple fix – fill the holes with wood putty, sand, drill a new center hole, paint and Voila! Ready for a knob. Here is a pic of the process of filling the holes and another pic of the hardware. Link to this hardware is here : liberty drawer pull
- Bead Board + trim – optional ($150): This was an extra detail that we wanted to throw up on the walls (if only it was that easy haha) but you definitely do not need to do this if you don’t want to. The main reason that we did it was because we had a lot of damage on the walls. It adds a little extra something but a simple coat of paint can definitely do the trick, too. We bought the bead board bubt had the trim on hand from when we had work done on the house.
- Paint (already had on hand): We used paint that we already had on hand from another room. When we moved in we basically painted almost every room on the main level and all of the bedrooms. We had quite a bit of paint to spare so, if you already have some – USE IT!
- Lighting ($97): We REALLY did not want to buy new lighting. It was definitely not in our budget for our DIY bathroom makeover, but the other one just didn’t work out. I had painted the other one black and had the intention of using the rub n’ buff over it. It ended up looking absolutely horrible. I have head such great things about rub n’ buff so I was really surprised. Anyone have experience with this?
- Mirror ($99): I found this mirror at Homegoods and thought that it would look perfect in the space. I Love it!
Grand Total: $474.88 (not including bead board).
My advice to anyone who is ab out to tackle a reno : expect some bumps in the road. Check marketplace, thrift stores, etc. for anything you need! I have found SO MUCH stuff second hand. I wish I would have found more for this project but I really just wanted to wrap up this makeover. And lastly, have fun! You will learn so much doing these projects. It is not going to be a cake walk but try to enjoy the ride 🙂
That’s it! I hope you learned a little something from this post. As always, if you have any questions about this makeover, feel free to message me. I am also on instagram and will always answer DMS.
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