Phase One Master Bathroom Reveal

Today I’m finally revealing our master bathroom “Phase One” update!

I wrote about the start of our plans and progress in this blog post but in case you missed it, the goal wasn’t to make this space the bathroom of our dreams. Eventually, we plan to gut the bathroom and change the layout but we are waiting to tackle that until all Justin’s student loans are paid off and we save up to do exactly what we’d like. We’re probably at least 5 years out being able to do a full renovation, so in the meantime, we wanted to do some very budget-friendly updates to freshen up the space and make us fall in love with what we already had.

A reminder on where we started:

The first thing to go was the carpet and I was more than ready to say goodbye. We ripped up the carpet, carpet pad, tack strip, and alllll the staples (tedious, but rewarding!). After painting the floor with a primer, we set down these peel and stick vinyl tiles. Honestly, I was intimidated by the thought of these but they were SO easy to work with! They are super sticky but once they were down on the floor, you could slide them around a bit if needed and even peel them back up if you needed to rearrange.

LJ learned firsthand just how sticky the bottom of the tiles are – haha!

There are a lot of different angles in the room but the tiles could be cut with a regular scissors which was great! We were able to cut down on a lot of waste by using the same tile to cut multiple smaller pieces to fill in when we just needed a little bit to reach the wall. To cut unique pieces, I first took a piece of cardboard that I had cut to be the same size as the original tile, then I cut the cardboard to the needed size through trial and error and used it to trace the correct shape on the back of the tile. Then all I needed to do was cut the tile, peel the sticker back (where I had trace lines) and place it down!

Originally we thought we’d have to put down quarter round but the tiles slid right underneath the existing trim and we were happy enough with how it looked that we just decided it was good enough for phase one!

The one thing that was frustrating with the tiles is that the edge patterns didn’t always match up. I often had to rotate it around several times or try different tile combinations to find the best fit. There are a lot of tiles that don’t exactly match up pattern-wise, but the overall pattern is busy enough that I don’t notice it unless I’m looking for it.

I was glad to see the brown go, but I’m still not totally satisfied with the color of the walls. I was shooting for a light gray and even tested out a few different colors. I chose Sherwin Williams Gray Strand and it looked gray in the can, looked gray in the paint tray, looked gray when tested on the wall (surrounded by white primer), but now that it’s fully covering the wall, it often tends to look blue. Argh! I think there are multiple factors here: the brown trim brings out warm tones and there is a lot of natural light that does the same thing. At night or on a cloudy day when there is less natural light, the walls do look grayer, and that’s what I was shooting for.

I considered re-painting a different color but honestly, for a phase one, I think I’m just going to deal with it. Plus we already painted a LOT – one coat of primer and two coats of paint on the wall, then two coats of paint on the ceiling. We hadn’t originally planned on painting the ceiling, but the ceiling color was a creamy, almost yellow looking offwhite and I wanted a true white to help bring out the cool tones of paint on the wall. I do think it helped make a difference, plus it just looks nice and crisp now.

When we eventually redo the bathroom we will replace the vanities, but in the meantime I wanted to give them a fresh face lift. I had some paint leftover from our previous house (Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze) and I love how it totally changed the look of the vanities for no additional cost. I picked up some new drawer pulls at Lowe’s to complete the facelift. We also ended up re-doing the caulk around the vanity top and sink since the old caulk was peeling and discolored.

We hadn’t planned on replacing the faucets, but while painting, the faucet on Justin’s head was knocked into and broke – you could no longer shut off by lifting the handle up and down but had to slide it to the right and we had to shut off the cold water valve because it never stopped flowing. Honestly, the old faucets were both not super functional and you had to push down the handle in a particular way to keep it from continuing to drip, so even though it put us over budget we decided to take this opportunity to swap them out for some new ones. I love the clean and simple look of these matte black ones and love the way it gives the vanity a cool mixed metals look with the brushed nickel drawer pulls.

Painted walls, refreshed vanities, new floors, some simple decor from things we already had (amazing what you can put together when you “shop” your own house) . . . I smile every time I walk into the bathroom now! It may still not be the bathroom of my dreams, but this little phase one update made me SO much happier with the space in the meantime. I’m loving the transformation!

I love it so much!

Rough budget breakdown (we bought paint supplies like brushes trays, etc for multiple rooms of the house so I didn’t include them in this list):

New Vanity Handles: $19.07

Faucets: $189.57 ($89 each)

Toilet Wax Ring: $6.90

Paint: $30.87

Misc (chalk line, plumbing lines): $54.18

Vinyl: $332.21

Total: $632.80

We had hoped to spend $500 or less but once we decided to change out the faucets we knew we’d be going over. Justin and I are both still happy with the transformation and would definitely do it all over again. It was definitely worth spending a little now to love the space we’re in for the next 5 or more years. Honestly, even if we were never able to do more than this update, we would be content with the changes. It just goes to show you that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to love a space!