Main Bathroom Budget Makeover Before Tour

I updated our boring, builder grade bathroom with a ton of DIY projects that gave the room a facelift without a full renovation. Here’s the before tour of the bathroom.

It’s time for another round of Calling it Home’s One Room Challenge!  If you haven’t heard of it before, this 6-week challenge calls a group of fabulous designers to make over a room and post their progress over the course of six weeks.  Additionally, any bloggers that want to take on the challenge can do so as well with the same goal – makeover a room in your house in six weeks.

Each week, I’ll be posting my progress on our bathroom refresh, with the final reveal in mid-November.  Speaking of that final reveal – I am going to cross the finish line this time and finish my room.  Last Spring, I participated in the challenge by gutting and rebuilding our cottage bathroom, but I wasn’t able to finish in time.  (It’s done now, six months later, and I’d love for you to check it out here.)  But this time it will be different.  First, I’m not gutting this bathroom (it’s requiring everything I’ve got to restrain from ripping it all out).  Second, this bathroom is in the home I live in, not 90 miles away, which will allow me to work on it throughout the challenge.  Finally, I’m stubborn.  I’m setting a realistic goal for myself, and I’m going to do everything I can to complete it.

I have all intentions of completely remodeling this bathroom in a couple of years, but it’s just not in the budget right now.  I’ve actually always planned to overhaul this bathroom, but other projects like flooring, doors, the kitchen, and the other bathroom have all come first.  Because I plan to remodel it one day, I’ve just let it be.  It was painted when we moved in, and that’s about it.  The grout is cracked, chipped, and pretty gross.  Some of the tiles are cracking.  The laminate counter top is black with white flecks, and I just don’t like it.  We honestly have no organizational system in here.  Oh yeah, our faucet doesn’t work.  Now is the time to give this bathroom a little bit of special attention.

Again, no big projects here (oh, how I’d love to replace that acrylic tub surround…and install new tile…), just a lot of little projects that will update the space and give it its own personality.

What personality am I going for in this space?  Great question – I don’t know yet.  Maybe next week I’ll have a mood board created, but I don’t always roll that way.  I like to figure things out as I go (I’m clearly not a true designer), with a few basic ideas fluttering around in my head.

If I had to give my ideas a name right now, I’d say this bathroom is going to take on a rustic and industrial personality, but we’ll just all need to wait to see how that goes.  Either way, it’s not going to look like it does now!

If you know anything about me, you know I always remodel on a budget, and I like to get creative with reusing items in new ways.  This year, my budget for this space is $200. For the last challenge, I gave myself a little more moola, because it was a complete gut, but we still finished this bathroom decorated with vintage and antique finds for a little under $1,000.

Progress Photos

The grout was cracked and dirty, dirty, dirty – even after a nice scrub with bleach cleaner.  My floor and I got to know each other well this week, but the couple of hours I spent on the floor with an eyebrow brush were SO WORTH IT.  I’ll be posting later about the product I used and all the tricks I learned.  For now, look at the difference!  It’s by no means perfect, and I wish more than anything I could just replace the tile, but for the time being it’s a huge improvement, and very friendly on the budget!

The second project this week was the “new” counter top.  I read some articles about using a feather finish concrete over existing counters, and I gave it a try.  I’m still going to dye it and seal it, but I already love the industrial, imperfect look of it.

I cut a small hole in the wall that is going to be a little cubby to hold toothbrushes and toothpaste and free up some counter space.

I am most excited about the vanity top.  Remember it used to be a faux granite-looking black?  I told you last week that I used concrete feather finish to cover it, but I didn’t want the dark color of natural concrete when it’s sealed.  I figured out a way to lighten up the counter for $11, but I’m not done yet.  I have one more step before this baby is finished.  I’ll share more details next week.  So far, I’ve only put in $27 into updating this vanity!!

Final Reveal

After resurfacing the counter with concrete, installing a rustic plank wall, painting the vanity, and installing some DIY towel racks and storage, the bathroom makeover is complete. You can see how the bathroom turned out in this reveal post: Rustic Bathroom with Vintage Touches.