Budget Bathroom Makeover

Our new house had a powder room that was pretty desperate for a makeover. This is the only bathroom on our main level, so it is the one used by all guests and our entire family of seven whenever we are downstairs. It was in pretty rough shape.

Our house was built fifteen years ago, and the builder-grade finishes were starting to wear down. The previous owners had painted the vanity and stenciled the tile floor, but unfortunately the paint was not holding up well and the floor looked dirty no matter how often we cleaned it. There was also a large chip in the sink, and the outdated faucet was difficult for our children who have dexterity challenges to use.

Here is what it looked like before. It wasn’t horrible, but it also wasn’t good.

We started by covering the existing tile with peel and stick vinyl. I will include affiliate links in this post to the products we used. This brand of flooring is called FloorPops. We ordered it from Walmart, but they also sell it on Amazon (although I think the pattern we used may be discontinued). It was only $30 to cover the entire floor, and I think this made the biggest difference!

Next, we started researching vanities, but we discovered that in order to replace our existing vanity, buy a new countertop, and get a new faucet it was going to cost us at least $500. That seemed excessive and wasteful because there wasn’t really anything wrong with our existing vanity besides the sink. And if we were going to spend $500, we wanted the entire room to look cute, not just one small corner.

So $500 became the budget for this makeover.

It seems like a lot, but remember we were replacing some of the plumbing, which can get pricey.

Also, there were holes in our wall that were made from removing an old towel rack. (Why was there a full-sized towel rack in a room that doesn’t even have a shower? Your guess is as good as mine.) Rather than try to patch our textured walls, we decided to cover them with vertical shiplap. This was the most expensive part of our remodel, but I love it. We bought pre-primed tongue and groove shiplap from Home Depot to make this project as easy as possible, but you could create your own shiplap if you were on a smaller budget.

The shiplap, trim, and wood for our counter added about $250 to our budget.

The rest went toward the sink, faucet, and blue paint. We also needed to buy some plumbing supplies to refit the sink, and we purchased two black knobs for the cabinet.

Thankfully, we were able to reuse quite a bit of what we already had. The vanity cabinet, mirror, light fixture, toilet, and accessories like our hand towel ring are things we already owned. We also used some trim, paint, stain, and caulk we already had in the garage. Sure, the light fixture doesn’t match the faucet, but it seemed silly to buy a new one when what we already have is working well. (Although we do have black spray paint and may update it that way later.)

Eddie created a fame for our existing mirror out of some scrap wood he painted white and we attached it with mirror adhesive.

He made our counter from two pieces of 2×12 board that are stained with a Jacobean color and a few coats of polyurethane. He drilled a hole in the top for our sink plumbing. Then we made a new backsplash from some smaller wood boards.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out!

How we spent our $500 budget:

• Shiplap, wood, and Trim: $250
• Paint, caulk, and adhesive: $50
• Sink, faucet, plumbing: $150
• Floor: $30
• Hardware: $6
• Miscellaneous (nails, rollers, brushes, etc.): $14

If you like this remodel, be sure to check out the bathroom we remodeled in a previous home that started with brown shag carpet! And don’t forget to pin and share!