It was a great first week of the $100 Room Challenge and with some paint and a few hours of my time, our full bathroom makeover is coming along beautifully. {If you missed all of the before photos and my plans for this month-long challenge, click HERE.}
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I decided to stay with the idea of the two-tone walls and while nothing was wrong with the previous color, it just didn’t feel right in this room. The goal is to let the vintage fixtures and the tile floor take the spotlight, so the room needed a neutral color palette. I would also love to add a little pop of color and the neutral walls will help that to stand out. {Top wall color is Behr Dolphin Fin and bottom is Behr’s base ultra white.}
I’ve got a thing for a clean bathroom and the grime built-up over the years in here from the previous owners had me completely grossed out. It won’t show up in photos {and my family will not even notice} but I spent quite a bit of time on my hands and knees scraping and scrubbing this tile floor and sink. Oh and I discovered that the sink dates to 1928! How amazing is that? And yes, it still leaks…come back in a few weeks for that update.
Our home is heated by a steam boiler system…or something like that…and these heat registers are quite a challenge to clean and paint. I found that using an old paint brush that I don’t care about is the key. Shoving it in there and slopping paint around accurately describes the process.
Now that this full bathroom is clean and painted, what’s next? There is a long list, but let’s stick to the plan for this coming week.
1. Add hooks for hand and shower towels.
2. Add a toilet paper holder that attaches to the wall.
3. Add a “cute” wastebasket…preferably with a lid.
4. My husband says that he doesn’t like the dresser in here. It was a quick fix right after we moved in and we desperately needed storage. I haven’t minded it, but he is right. The door doesn’t fully open with the dresser here and this full bathroom makeover could benefit from a wide open door. The plan is to build a more narrow shelving system behind the door on the smaller wall.
Let’s do a quick breakdown of week one and the budget:
Paint-$0 {Ummm…I buy paint. I never know when I may need it, so when The Home Depot has it’s rebate sale, I stock up. If I just purchase the base color, I can bring it back in for them to tint when I am ready for a color.}
Cleaning supplies-$0 {Elbow grease is free…}
Paint brushes and rollers-$0 {See the paint explanation above…I have the same “issue” with brushes and rollers. Ha!}
The thing that I find with these types of makeovers is that if you compare a before and after photo, it can look dramatic. But, if you only see the after, you don’t think much about it. My husband describes it as: “It looks like that’s how it should have always looked.” And he’s right. From my perspective, this full bathroom looks 100% better because I knew the before. But from the outside, it may look like any other vintage bathroom. And that’s okay. I’ve learned that makeovers don’t have to leave someone in shock. Often, the best makeovers are simply doing “what should have been done all along.”
♥
Leigh
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