Tiny Bathroom, Tiny Budget, BIG IMPROVEMENT

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Once upon a time, a girl loved a guy and they got married and bought a house. That guy was great at making all of the girl’s DIY dreams come true for that little house, but he claimed to not have any design vision himself. That was fine, as she had more than enough to keep them both busy. Except when it came to the small little bathroom in the basement that no one ever used. Why try to improve it when no one even used it? Besides, it had a BLUE toilet. I mean, what can be done with that unless you spent the money to basically gut the thing and start over?!?

Pretty soon, this girl and guy had a couple of kids and life was going fine…you could hardly even tell the toilet was blue because of how dim the lighting was in there, right?

And then, 2020 came and suddenly the basement was the guy’s main office space, AND the kids’ main play space. And suddenly the little forgotten bathroom was working double time and feeling the strain.

And then…well, that guy made all the girl’s dreams come true again when he helped her transform that sad little blue and brown bathroom into this (all for only about $200!):

Wanna see that comparison again?

I do.

Total spent to get from before to after was $203.76.

To be fair, we had all the paint on hand, the hook for the towel, and the frames (and art supplies) for the artwork on hand. And we did use a $5 gift card to save a bit of money on the faucet. I suppose I also didn’t include the towels themselves, but they were purchased with other rooms in mind too since we got a set of them that can rotate into our other bathrooms/kitchen. Is that fair? I don’t know.

But still…this could easily have been a $250 or $300 bathroom reno and been just as impressive, right??

I think we did three things that made the biggest difference, and they are all TOTALLY repeatable in your home!

Painted the walls white (and removed the popcorn ceiling) You can see our tips for that, HERE.
Covered the existing vinyl floors with stick on tiles. You can read all about that process, HERE.
Sanded down the decorative edge on the wooden vanity (and then painted it!)

This made the biggest difference in the room feeling like we spent a lot more money than we did. (See my post about the floors for more of that!) But the vanity cabinet looks like a totally different one…for a cost of $0.

Yep. $0.

Wyatt had the tools (basically just a sander and the saw) as well as one small scrap of plywood on hand. And I used the old paint from when I painted our front door black way back in the day.

Also, this was totally Wyatt’s idea. I was going to just paint them and call it good. He BLEW MY MIND with this, you guys. Seriously.

Anyway, if you want the details on how we went from the dated old style of cabinet door to the modern, simple edge we have now, watch the video below. And feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

So there you have it, friends…

I have also gotten so many requests for links of the items we used in our bathroom, so I’m including all the ones I can for you here!

Towel hook is something basic and old I had on hand from Ikea and spray painted black.
Towel is from amazon: https://amzn.to/3rfdetU
Toilet paper holder is amazon: https://amzn.to/3rf6tYP
Mirror is amazon: https://amzn.to/3tfEb2t
Faucet: https://amzn.to/2LahpHQ
Frames are Ikea
Artwork is DIY
Flooring: Floorpops. (Full review post here: https://lovinghere.com/honest-experience-floorpops-stick…/)
Cabinets are Beluga by Behr (https://www.behr.com/consumer/ColorDetailView/770F-7)

Even the blue toilet somehow looks gray (better lighting anyone??) This photo is a bit skewed because I had some extra artificial light on (no windows makes it hard to photograph unless I’m at the right time of day with the window out in the hall.)