Recently, I took up a challenge to makeover our guest bathroom within a budget of $500. Guest Bathroom is one of those space that gets least attention and mostly neglect. Since its not a frequently used space, its only logical to not spend too much for a renovation. But still it doesn’t mean you cannot achieve the stylish high end look within limited budget. Let me show you what we did, how we did and our Guest Bathroom Makeover Reveal along with the project cost break down.
BEFORE
This is a small bathroom with boring interiors and outdated fixtures that were installed in early 90s. Being a windowless room its always dark and depressing in here. The bath tiles are beige, vanity top is cream color with lot of stains and trim, baseboards & red oak cabinets. The door to the bath used to be in red oak wood too, but I recently painted the door during the hallway Makeover.
INSPECT before DIY
First, I carefully inspected everything here thoroughly. I made a list of objects that are in good condition, the ones that need only a touch up / clean up and all others that need to be completely removed or replaced. If there is more demo & replacement involved, then the budget will raise too. So, its important to figure out everything that can just be cleaned and reused. And, only replace the absolute necessities.
In this case, I decided to replace almost all the hardware and fixtures except the shower fittings & shower curtain rod. In order to stay within budget, I decided to paint the counter, add some design to the cabinets and do a stencil pattern on the wall. spoiler!! Things did not go as planned!
VISION:
To me, its very much important to brighten up the space and break the dull vibe. I decided to use refreshing color palette, modern fixtures and accessories that will help create a retreat-feel bathroom. Here is my material board and the palette that I put together.
VANITY:
I updated the same oak cabinet doors with fluted pattern and painted the whole cabinet to a shade called ‘pear cactus’ from Pittsburg. If you want to try this transformation, then check out how I did!. It turned out to be the highlight of this Makeover project. The counter on the other hand was a roller coaster.
I chose to paint over the cream cultured marble with white epoxy paint kit, as its much cheaper than replacing the whole top. But, the paint kit was very hard to find as it seemed to be out of stock everywhere in stores and online. Somehow, I bought one after a long drive to a home improvement store. I followed each and every instruction by the product manufacturer. It has a time consuming process of cleaning & sanding to prep the surface before painting. Then, painted the first coat. So far everything was going good. Things changed right after my second coat. I had lot of drip patterns that I could not fix. I think, I might have gone a little overboard while picking paint on my brush. Anyway, it was such a disaster that I had to replace the counter :). This made the budget go a little overboard. 😛 but not by much, thankfully. I will tell you how.
the counter fail!!!
With that disappointing attempt to paint over the counter, I searched so many stores looking for a budget friendly vanity top options. But, cheap ones don’t look good or quality really sucked. Good ones start at $200 price range for 31 inches wide counter size. I was particularly looking for white cultured stone or white marble with little veins on it. Luckily, I found a $190 worth marble vanity top for $100 from clearance in mint condition. How cool is that!!! 🙂 It was our lucky day I guess. Its called as Vanilla sky from home decorators collection. I am unable to find the product online anymore to show you guys, I guess it was a close-out item and hence over 40% discount.
I paired the vanity top with brushed single lever brushed gold faucet and 10″ deck plate to hide the holes. The cabinet knobs from Ikea are also in gold to brighten up the green cabinet.
WALLS & BASEBOARDS:
The entire wall is painted with Whisper white from Behr and Ultra pure white for the baseboards and trims. I wanted a pattern wall on the vanity side, but that did not turn up like I wanted. So, I repainted the wall.
On the opposite wall of the vanity we have a fluted horizontal trim at 5ft high and beautiful a modern design towel hooks below that.
BATH:
The bath area has beige tiles with chrome bath fixtures. The grouts are clean with no mold and joints caulked neatly. Well! I am not a fan of those beige tiles, but gutting them and adding new tiles is gonna ruin the budget. So, I decided to leave those as it is and give a good clean up before hanging the new black shower hooks and curtain.
DECOR:
I added light pink accents in the décor to break the monotony. As soon as you enter the room, you step on a super soft plush pink bath runner that extends to the whole length of the bathroom. The vanity wall light is a mix of gold and black metal accent and the vanity mirror is 22×30 inches size with slim black frame. Rather than choosing all the metals in same color, I have mix matched the colors to bring out the beauty & balance in each other.
I printed that quote with Cricut machine, fixed the letters over a pattern sheet and inserted into the white frame. Check out how to make a framed quote. This saying is so true for me. I get most of my creative ideas while in shower 🙂 How about you?!!
Some fresh hand towels, plants and candles always add that special spa touch to any bathroom. The toilet paper holder with a small shelf is a good amazon find. They are useful to place your phone or gadget.
Here is the cost break down of this project!
* Some of the items in the above list were bought while they were on sale. I always put the item I like on my amazon list and keep checking every day for deals and buy them at the right time. 🙂
