Guest Bathroom Facelift
As I’ve been blabbering about as of late, I worked on our guest bathroom this past weekend. With Clay away and entire nights to myself, I downloaded podcasts, poured some wine, and participated in some do-it-yourself delight (which totally sounds dirty, now that I see it typed out…). I wanted to get this bathroom squared away before my sister and her family fly out for a visit next week. I couldn’t in good faith have our first house guests use a bathroom that sported a rifle and duck motif.
Trust me, it was a lot worse in person. To give you a better idea of what we were working with before, let’s look at a pros and cons list…
- PRO
- new tile
- new toilet
- CON
- shower door that wouldn’t close all the way
- rifle wallpaper
- duck border
- duck light plate
- sh*t brown countertop (great condition)
- not so pretty cabinet original to the house (great condition)
- rusty cabinet hardware
- awkward wall shelf
- awful shower head
- not so pretty shower tile (beige..blech)
- poor lighting
As you can see, the CONS far outweigh the PROS. And as tempting as it may be to rip everything out and drop some serious money into the room, we chose to spend our money on more important things, like diapers for the little guy and wine for mommy. In all seriousness, we’re waiting to see just how long we’re going to be living in this house before gutting any bathrooms and spending more than $1000 per room. So I gave this gunshow of a bathroom a facelift. A very inexpensive facelift. I’m not finished yet – still working on the details, but I thought I would share my progress with the world. Or at least the 10 people who read this blog on a regular basis. Hi Mom & Dad!
Not too shabby, right? First of all, I knew that I wanted to work with the beige shower tile. Not only is the tile relatively new (redone within the past 5 years), it is in great shape so I can’t stomach tearing them out at this point in time. So I chose to paint three walls Oregon Coast by Valspar (same as our family room) and then did a stripe pattern (see below) on the fourth wall. Because the room is void of any natural light and a relatively small room, I avoided a bold color and limited the bold pattern (stripes) to one wall only. I also painted the cabinet and wall shelf Cooper Adobe Brown by Valspar (same as our mantle), added new hardware (these guys), removed the shower door and put up a curtain ($13 at Ross), and painted the countertop. Yes, painted the countertop.
Before we discuss the countertop situation, let’s take a look at the stripes. I apologize for the quality of these pictures – I obviously haven’t learned how to use my fancy pants camera to the best of it’s ability. The new bathmat draws out the blue in the shower curtain and I had the green and white towels already.
So the countertop – I know that we will eventually replace the sucker but once I painted the cabinet the lovely Cooper Adobe Brown, it clashed horribly with the existing brown countertop. I didn’t think to take a picture but trust me, it was ugly. Like it didn’t even have an alibi. It was that ugly of a combination. The actual process was quite simple – I used regular latex primer (after sanding, of course), then paint – making sure to let each coat dry overnight – and then used crumpled saran wrap and paint in a contrasting color to make the pattern. Again, I apologize for not taking pictures of the process. If anybody is interested, I can break it down step-by-step (oooh baby, gonna get to you giiirrrlll) when I do this technique for the countertop in the laundry room. I am about 98% sure I’m going to go for it. Again, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this as a 10-year solution (although when properly sealed, it should be no different than any laminate countertop), but it can be a great place holder until a full-scale remodel takes place.
It honestly looks no different than the ‘fake granite’ laminate countertops on the market today. While I’m making headway in the bathroom, I’m not finished yet. I still need to seal the countertops, replace the shower head, and touch up the paint on the walls but so far, I’ve quite happy with the results. I have spent about $36 thus far, which leaves some $$$ to spend on a nice shower head. Happy shopping to me! Have any of you recently avoided a full-on remodel and opted for a facelift instead?
