Main Bathroom Makeover

I sadly realize now that I didn't take enough "before" pictures to show just how dramatic the difference we made. Our house was built in the 60's and still bears many of the original features of that. In our main floor bathroom that both our boys and guests use, that included lovely gold edging on everything, white tile, white shower tiles, white floor, white vanity, white toilet, and very old soap-scummy glass doors on the shower. A serious lack of color aside from all the gold and the pinky-peach marble countertop. This picture was taken after I'd already take down the yucky shower doors but before all the rest. We didn't really remodel since the only thing we removed was the shower doors, but we did a major makeover. And I LOVE IT!

Taylor came home one night in September and asked what it would take for me to let him go to the Utah/Iowa State away game that his dad had invited him to. I thought for a while and decided that I've really been wanting to do something with this bathroom and a weekend by myself to work might just be perfect- peace and quiet and a fun makeover. The week before my mom was in town and helped me plan everything out and then I scoured tons of stores until I found this shower curtain I love and it served as great inspiration for the room.

You saw the before (or what I have at least) and here's the after.

I had Home Depot match the color on the curtain to paint and then went to town on the walls. The ceiling and door got a new coat of white while I was at it and after much sanding and patching and then 2 coats of paint, it looks great. Okay so it needs a little artwork.

Sorry I don't have a before shot from this direction. But here's the vanity side of the room.

I don't actually love the wall-length mirror and weird mirror storage thingy but since it's been bolted in and the bolts were sealed over by tiles, and we'd have to rip out and replace wall board and all the tiles in the room if we messed with any... well I'm willing to live with it. What I wasn't willing to live with was the gold. So we found spray paint for metal fixtures and painted them a rusty brown copper color.

And the vanity got painted. My mother is gasping right now as she reads this because she assured me I could NOT paint it brown but that it needed to stay white. She may have been right and it may make the room look small but I love it. It makes it really stand out from the floor and I'm in love with that chocolate color right now.

And with a fresh coat of paint and some new contact paper to cover stains from the last 40 years, I can finally really use the cabinet. And perfect timing too to store all the freebies I've been getting.

We didn't do anything with the floor (even though there's cracks in the tile and it's outdated) since we have 3 little boys who frequently (ALWAYS) splash in the bath and soad the floor. We'll wait on that until someone can do it professionally.

The amazing thing was all the little things that somehow miraculously worked out. I didn't want to go to the expense of changing out the counter top but I didn't really love it either since it's pinky-peach. But amazingly with the brown surrounding it instead of all white, it looks much less pink. Also the natural brown lines in the stone stand out more and I like that.

Most of the lower part of the room is tiled in white which is good for a bathroom, but then randomly around the room are these kind of brown fleur de lis'. I didn't have any idea how to remove them or hide them so I decided just to ignore them. They actually amazingly kind of match now with the curtain I picked. Several people have commented how neat it is everything in the room ties in. Honestly that's just a miracle cause I'm definitely not that good at interior design.

The light fixture stayed too even though it's not my favorite, but it looks much better with a little spray paint and a good washing.

The transformation has truly been amazing and I'm happy to say I don't cringe when guests ask where the bathroom is. I still have to apologize that it might not be fully clean since 2 little boys with bad aim use it, but at least it looks updated.

Sorry it took me so long to post. It really was all done (except the parts I left for Taylor :) in just that one weekend. And it was nice to do it all in peace and not worry about little hands touching wet paint or breathing fumes.