Quantcast

Bower Power

· 101 Comments

The Playroom Bathroom Plans

Bathrooms

Is it weird that I am always working on bathrooms?

First it was the first floor bathroom de-bloodification.

Then the kids bathroom makeover.

I did a little art hanging in our guest bathroom.

And then we redid the basement bathroom for my sisters wedding.

 

I don’t really know why I work on bathrooms first.  Probably because they can be done cheaply.  And I am nothing if not ridiculously cheap.  If I was a hooker, I’d be paying you to pick me up.  Of course, I’m not. mom.  But you get the point.

So that is why I am really excited about making over our office bathroom.

What does cheap have to do with it?  Well…let me explain.

You know how I have partnered with Lowe’s Creative Ideas Magazine for the past few months?  And they made it possible for me to decorate our porch for Halloween, they sponsored some fun tablesetting ideas for Thanksgiving, they were the fire power behind our toy box for Will’s room and they helped me reorganize our kitchen desk.

Whew.  They have been good to us Bowers.

Well, like any good lovah, they are saving the best for last – A BATHROOM MAKEOVER!  Yup.  They are giving us 500 smackers to redo a bathroom!  Yes my inner cheapskate is jumping up and down.  And it has been ever since the news.  It’s a very fit cheapskate now.

And since I have no money – this couldn’t come at a more perfect time.  It’s like a birthday gift to me from one of my favorite stores…and I have to do all the work.  But I’m cool with that.  Because in the end, it means one totally new bathroom just for me.  Enter one giant smiley face here.

I honestly couldn’t wait to share the news – and this makeover is probably gonna take me all month – so I figured that instead of having the room completely done, I’d share more of a play-by-play as I get it done…reality-tv-style.

First the bathroom…

Yeah.  So the bathroom is pretty BLAH.  There is a basic builder’s grade vanity…with the top NOT attached (who knows why Napolean did that?! Napolean is the previous owner by the way.)  And why yes, that is a floor vent right in front of it – exactly where you stand.

So after a little number crunching, we decided to keep the vanity – since it was in fine condition – and the toilet – also working.  And even though the top and the toilet aren’t my favorite (they are almond colored to match the floor) I figure I am just gonna make them work until the budget allows for replacement or they die and go to toilet heaven.

The shower is slate.

Don’t ask me why I hate slate in a shower because my head might just explode from the tension.  But I do.  I hate it.  Call me weird but I like to see the dirt and black moldy growth in the place I like to get clean.  And the devil I can see is a lot better than the devil I can’t.  Yes that is gold all up in there too.

The light fixture absolutely needed replaced.  There was no saving that one with a coat of spraypaint.  And the mirror was actually something I had in my very first and very tiny studio apartment….so it is munchkin sized.

The floor will stay because 1.  it’s marble and b. it’s in great condition. and d.  it’s not hideous and I can work the almondy toilet in with it.

Like I said before the vanity is gonna stay – but we need to modify it.  First we are gonna move it over a bit so it’s closer to the toilet.  And then we need to make sure it’s pushed up all the way to the trim.

Right now the pipes get in the way.  Oh Napolean.

So we will be cutting out around where the pipes go so that the vanity will be properly installed and permanent (vs. the wobbly mess it is right now).

Color me crazy but I am gonna paint this bad boy.  It’s gonna be fun.  and feminine.  and flirty.  and thirty (just threw that one in there cause it seemed to fit).

I absolutely want to switch out the gold.  I feel gold for a lot of things…but not in here.  I’m thinking chrome…because its sparkly 🙂

Above the sink, I’d love a low profile shelf that could be good for added storage (like a place for a candle and a glass of flowers).  If it doesn’t fit there, then I can totally see it above the toilet…two very viable options.

ABSOLUTELY we need a new light and a new mirror.  And I’m thinking a few black & white photos would look good here too.

Since this is an office bathroom, I don’t think the shower will get very much use.  At first I thought I would spray the door frames to make them fit in but everything I’ve read online is more supportive of making them oil-rubbed bronze and I wanted polished nickel so the plan is to completely remove them and get a shower curtain instead.  The fabric should allow for a little more pattern and softness in here too…

We definitely need to paint.  Yes the walls are a fleshy mauve color and the trim is a red chocolate brown.  Wicked ugly.

And left over money will go toward new light plates and switches and maybe a couple hooks for towels 🙂

So are your eyes burning?

Did you throw up a little in your mouth?

Are you not wanting to eat lunch ever again?

If so – mission accomplished 🙂 Yes, that bathroom is a hot mess…and I hope that with our budget, we can put in a little more swagger.  So here’s the plan –

It all came from the idea that we need to work with the existing pieces and really spend the bulk of the money on fixtures…like a new sink faucet, new light, and new shower fixture.  Half of the budget would be for fixtures…and then add about $50 for paint…$50 for a mirror….$50 for new shower curtain/rod/hooks/liner….that would leave us $100 to use toward the vanity makeover, a glass shelf, hooks, new knobs, and possibly new door hardware and light switches.  Eek!  Hope we squeeze all that in!

So that’s what I’m dwelling on right now…how bout you?

p.s.  the art is from my print shop, the towels are from Bed Bath & Beyond and the turtle is from West Elm.  All other products are from Lowes.

0 Shares

Comments

  1. Are you going to keep the slate? It looks like there is some slate on the moodboard you created. I like your plan – and the fact that you aren’t getting rid of stuff just for the sake of it.
    -Diana

  2. Katie,

    I love slate…I don’t know if I would put it in a shower, but it is what it is. However…I would recommend regrouting it with dark grey. the white grout really jumps out at me, What was Napolean thinking? I would just go right over it with the grey, wouldn’t try to remove the white! Love your Mood Board!

  5. I love the mood board! It’s going to look great! Did you say where that shower curtain came from? Lowes? Love that too!

  7. Love Love Love the blue tone you are going to use with the slate and almond! This is going to turn out beautifully! Good luck, can’t wait to see it!

  9. Good lord! How many bathrooms do you have in your house? What I would do for that many bathrooms 🙂

    I love the blue/green wash of the vanity, that will look great! Can’t wait to see how it unfolds 🙂

  10. Yes, I was definitely in all-out hurl mode…until I saw your makeover plan at the bottom of the post. Phew! I’m excited for the reality tv coverage to begin.
    p.s. Cutest ceramic turtle EVER.

  12. Oh I love everything about your moodboard!
    Tell me where that lovely shower curtain is from, pretty please? 🙂

  13. You can do it! I am excited to see what you pull off. Budget makeovers, and working with what you have are always inspiring for renters (like me) and for those looking to buy fixer-uppers (also like me).

  16. Love the mood board! I’m typically not a fan of paint treatments on vanities but that blue wash is really cute. I love the overall feel that it has. I’m interested to know if you’re planning on darkening the grout in the shower. I don’t dislike slate but the white grout really hurts my eyeballs. The picture you chose for the mood board is much nicer with the darker grout.

    Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

    Emily

    PS I want that turtle so hard. He was pinned and sent to my husband in an e-mail as soon as he first popped up on my Pinterest board!

  17. You have to run out of bathrooms soon don’t you? The only thing about this post that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little is how many bathrooms you have to clean in that house of yours. Looks like it will look great when its done though!

  19. Love the mood board you’ve created! The bathroom is a bit of a hot mess right now but I can’t wait to see how you beautify it! We’re in the beginning planning stages of a master bathroom makeover so I need all the inspiration I can get. 🙂

  20. Love your bathroom plans! The turtle box takes me back to my childhood and all the cool stuff my brother and I found. Is the shower curtain from Lowe’s?

  23. Love the mood board – good luck! We have two of those mirrors in our Master Bath and love them!

  24. Love the design you came up with. Question – when you remove the shower door, is that going to damage/disrupt the tile?

  25. Are you going to finish the cabinet in the washed out teal effect you show in your board? If so, I can’t wait to see that tutorial!

  26. Awesome deal you’ve got from lowes!! And this could not have come at a better time. We are currently finishing our basement and the vanity I like is $90, but the one my hubby likes is $30 (it’s cheap looking, white on white, something that’d be in an apartment). Maybe now I’m up for the challenge of buying the cheaper and painting it. But I have no clue what color to paint it…..any suggestions? Keeping in mind it’s a basement with no natural light in the bath, the top of the cheaper one is white, the trim will all be dark wood and fixtures will be chrome since we already have those:) I’d love some help or ideas….thanks.

  29. I love the plans for your new bathroom! I love the green for the vanity and the round mirror. ALso, being from New England I loved your use of the word “wicked”!

  30. I love how beachy it feels! The color you are doing the vanity is just gorgeous with the shower curtain… Way to use your $500 smartly! 🙂 can’t wait to watch it all come together!

  32. Haha, that whole flirty and thirty thing just makes me think of 13 Going on 30:
    “I want to be thirty, flirty, and thriving!”
    Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

  33. I’m loving the pieces you picked out looking forward to the updates on this project. Our bathroom is in dire need of some fix-ups.

  34. Congrats on the $500! I know you will stretch it to its fullest 🙂 I love the mood board you came up with and how you brought out the green/blue color from the slate. Can’t wait to follow along with the transformation!

  36. Wow the bathroom is a hot mess indeed. I always wonder who decides to put ugly bathrooms like that in new houses.
    I know it will turn out beautifully once you are done and I can’t wait to see the end result.

  37. I am going to pick up on the one thing only a New Englander would.

    You used the word “wicked”. I have *never* heard someone outside of New England, particularly Maine and Massachusetts, use the word wicked.

    I like you more now, Bower. I like you more.

  38. I desperately want to remove our moldy sliding shower doors with a shower rod. I’m pretty much a DYI virgin….is that an easy project for someone like me? 🙂 We also have wood cabinets that I would love to paint. Basically, I can’t wait to see how your bathroom comes together! Maybe I’ll be inspired to give ours a try….

  41. I sure do LOVE that turtle box! Can’t wait to see what you do with it…especially the vanity. We have one in our downstairs hall/public bathroom and I wasn’t sure what to do to refinish, so I’m eager to see your ideas and try a few of them! 🙂

  42. I love the color you chose for the vanity…and the new shower curtain makes me smile. It looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you. 🙂

  44. So much fun! I love the challenge of staying within the 500.00 budget! It makes things so much more creative! I look forward to the coming posts….those pertaining to bathrooms and your “side job” haha…loved that hooker line!

  45. No no! Those comments should SEE the light of comment-area-ness. 🙂 We all gotta let our freak flag fly (reference my previous comment-area-ness word creation for an example).

    -Meg

  46. It’s so tragic what those poor, colorblind people did to that house before you guys moved in. Katie Bower to the rescue!

  48. i love the vanity color! i’m thinking i might just borrow that color bc our daughter’s bathroom is almost exactly like your board except i didnt know what in the world to do with the vanity! taaa-daaa you’re just brilliant 🙂 can’t wait to see what you do with this bathroom!

    ps: i loathe almond color bathroom stuff (our house has it too) and slate – bleh

  49. Very fun! I love starting from scratch and completely transforming a room. My husband and I are getting ready to makeover our bedroom. We’ll start the process and will blog about it starting next week! Thought it would be a good Valentine’s Day present to each other. 😉

  50. Woman. I’ve been subscribed to yo’ blog for awhile and I sincerely love reading every post. Thanks for the fun reads.

  54. “Is it weird that I am always working on bathrooms?”

    Actually, it makes sense. They say if you don’t have time to clean the whole house before company comes over, you should clean just the bathroom. It’s the only place your guests will spend several minutes alone with no conversation or food to distract them.

    I’d presume the same goes for makeovers. 😉

  55. Okay, I just waved it. And now the neighbors turned off all their lights and locked their doors. Pretty sure their index fingers are hovering over ‘send’ to put a call through to the police too.

    Not for certain, but I bet they’re boring and unimaginative.

    You have a cute blog, Meg!

  56. I’ve heard that you can do that if the item is brass plated not solid brass – I could be wrong though. I’ll have to check to see if mine is solid brass or not! Thanks for the recommendation!
    xo – kb

  58. I’m a huge fan of going for color! Maybe you could choose your color based on your art that you put in there 🙂
    xo – kb

  59. It’ll probably be more solid than a wash…just simply because the cabinet has some errors. Like there is a circle cut out on one of the doors and I need to fill the holes left by the knobs and toilet paper roll thingie 🙂
    xo – kb

  62. There is 5.5 bathrooms. Honestly we don’t know why there is an office bathroom and why it’s a full bath to boot…but hey, we’ll take it.
    xo – kb

  65. I never in a million years would have thought to paint the vanity teal, but as soon as I saw your mood board I loved the idea! Can’t wait to see how it turns out! 🙂

  66. i was going to ask about this, too! lots of bathrooms, lucky girl! Was this used as a guest suite or something prior? I guess Napolean didn’t like to have to travel far to shower!!

  67. LOVE the mood board?!

    If someone was interested in making a mood board herself…how would she go about doing so? 😀

  68. I love all your ideas for the bathroom, especially the color for the vanity. A shower curtain is so much easier to keep clean than glass doors. When we redid our bathroom, we put up a rod & curtain temporarily until we could afford shower doors- man, they’re expensive! Anyway, I’ve decided I like the curtain better anyway. I actually just use a liner- we have a short section of wall on the front of the shower and I just push the liner into the corner & it’s invisible.

  69. I can’t wait to see the step-by-step. I get inspired by the process, probably even more than the finished product. I love your mood board. It is going to look amazing!

  70. I don’t know what it is about people and bathrooms and BROWN. My previous owner painted all the trim in the kitchen and bathroom chocolate milk brown. While I feel for your bloodificated bathroom, our bathroom is POOP colored. How’dya like that? Dark chocolate brown TUB, menstrual and poop-colored fake marble floor tiles and BROWN trim. Yucks. So when I saw Napoleon’s brown trim in here, I died laughing. Some people just have no sense of anything — dang.

    Also, dang girl, how many bathrooms you got up in that house?

  71. Hey, I was about to ask this same question! I have a sliding shower door that I, after reading this post, immediately had an “AH HA!!!!!” moment, and decided to take mine out too. I was looking at it this morning, and wondering if taking it out would leave much damage. Just grout, huh? Sounds easy enough!!!! Thank you for the great idea, Katie!!!

  75. ewww… I think I just puked reading that comment 🙂
    And we have 5.5 bathrooms…too many for normal life but it was just enough for the wedding 🙂
    xo – kb

  77. haha…we joke that he probably worked in there and had no bladder control…because the other half bath was literally only five feet further away. Either that or he didn’t want to mingle with his family while he was working 🙂
    xo – kb

  79. Katie Bower, I love your blog. I love how candid you are and I love how you blog on such a huge variety of topics. One thing I wish you would touch on somehow is your financial situation. I don’t expect you to tell us how much Jer makes or how much you make w/your photography. I am more interested in hearing you expand on when you say things like ‘poor’, ‘house poor’, ‘broke’, ‘have no money’. Is it like where at the end of the day when you have maxed out your 401k contribution, put the recommended amount into savings and Will’s college savings, filled you fridge with groceries, filled your SUV with lots of gas, and paid every last bill and have no credit cards and have no money left for home reno type of broke? Or is it like you barely pay the costs of your home each month and who can worry about those other things right now type broke? Or somewhere in between? Again, I’m not asking for your family budget but I am just wondering what poor looks like to you. From the outside looking in, it is very hard to believe you have ‘real’ money struggles and would love to see you blog about it.

  80. I was thinking that turquoisey-beachy-aqua would be an awesome color to paint that vanity and then scrolled down to your plan and saw that you were thinking the same thing! I want something in my house to be that color…I have a vision for a nursery for a baby that I don’t even have and that color is in it. I’m thinking bookcase.

  81. Would love to know the brand/color/material of tile you are using on shower wall. I’m having my kid’s bath tile floors and shower/tub surround ripped out next week and still haven’t figured out tile situation. Thanks! It’s going to be beautiful, I can already see it!

  82. We are gonna leave the tile as is…so wish I could be more help but we aren’t replacing anything. Maybe next time it’s in the budget!
    xo – kb

  83. Okay – let me be frank. Jer’s income is a base plus commissions. Basic sales stuff. In the past he pulled about $70-$75K a year before taxes. This year he made very little commissions…and I supplemented with photography money…but our gross income didn’t come close to that.
    So to answer your question – at the end of the day, when we pay taxes, pay the basic bills like mortgage, water and car note, buy groceries, fill the tank with gas, and pay for the other house expenses (because yes we still have to chip in over there), we have nothing left. Right now we are not able to put anything into savings, retirement or college funds. Yeah. It stinks. And is scary. And I hate it. But it’s our reality. When it comes to things like Christmas – we saved our gift cards from the previous Christmas and bought each other presents. Of course, I do make a little through the blog – but that money goes toward feeding the blog with project expenses and blog costs..so it breaks even and helps when we have unexpected expenses. We do have some savings put away…but it’s more of a small emergency fund. So we are definitely living on a month to month basis.
    xo – kb

  85. Wow- Thank you for your honesty, Katie! I would LOVE to see a blog post from you about how you budget for things like trips or redecorating projects, even your grocery budget…. Im about to have a a baby so I would love to see any tips or tricks you have! Example… do you coupon? price match? do you grow vegetables to save money? any DIY tricks you have learned to save money? and again… thanks for your honesty!

  86. Yes I coupon…yes I grow veggies…yes I invite myself over to my parents house if I don’t have any food in ours 🙂 I save EVERYTHING. I haven’t bought gift bags or tissue paper in years…I reuse everything from cans to egg cartons to unused paint. And I dumpster dive regularly 🙂
    xo – kb

  87. Oh please do a post about this! I wanna see your “hoarder” side!!! Where do you keep it all? Hvae you ever thought of purging and having a Garage sale??

  88. Are you sure you want to remove the doors? If you are adding a shower curtain anyway, could you just put a tension rod in front of the doors?

  89. We are definitely not set on anything…just trying to make the most of the money and not let anything go to waste…so just stay tuned.
    xo – kb

  91. I’m a regular reader and a first-time “commenter,” but I wanted to offer a small suggestion to help make that budget go, maybe, a wee bit further. I had the same ugly, contractor-grade light fixture in my master bath – HATED IT! So I took it down, spray-painted it, hung it back up – UPSIDE down – and added some cute $2 shades to it. I ended up LOVING the results. Happy to send “afters,” if you’d like.

  92. I totally LOL’ed at your “oh Napoleon” comment… our previous homeowner’s name is Chauncy and we’re ALWAYS saying “OH CHAUNCY….” because our house is a straight out of the 70’s, never been remodeled, hot mess.

    Good luck with the bathroom remodel! I think that’s next on our agenda.

  94. Oooh good luck with your newest bathroom renovation. We have our (one[!]) bathroom reno on the back burner (uh, because we only have one bathroom) for now, but I feel you on the inappropriately placed heating vent.

    The only heating vent for the entire upstairs is in the bathroom and it is directly beside the toilet.

    In the winter, sometimes it’s a race of how fast you reach for the toilet paper versus the hot air blasting under you.

  96. I’d love the read a post on this topic, too! I think we’re all house poor but you two seem to make it work a lot better than the fine folks I know!

    Emily

  99. Thanks KB. I can’t wait to see the step by step progress. Gotta love a good makeover on a budget and I love the painted vanity already. Great Job!

  100. Hi Katie~

    We’re about to embark upon painting the trim in our house- one slooow-moving room at a time and I’ve scoured your blog for trim colors but couldn’t find the 411.

    Do you use a standard trim color throughout your house? What color trim do you use?

    Thanks in advance for your help!!

  101. I use just plain old bright white paint base. I ask the folks at the paint desk to just give it to me plain – no tint or additives.
    xo – kb

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get the latest via email!