Hall Bath Makeover Reveal

If you recall from one of my early posts back in January, our master plan for this year included renovating our hall bath to install a bathtub before the baby arrives this summer. The previous owners had removed the existing bathtub and installed a handicap accessible shower (they were elderly) and that wasn't going to work for us. We figured it would be wise to knock this out before we have a baby sleeping on the other side of this wall that we need to work around nap times. Renovations are also very messy, we felt it was better for everyone's health to just get it done before there's another person to worry about!

We had a budget of about $3000 to remove our existing shower and install a bathtub with a tile surround. Once we found a contractor that we wanted to work with, we had him price out our options. I was not super concerned about having real tile in the bathroom since grout and tile can be difficult to maintain. Since we plan for this to be the main bathroom for our kid(s), we wanted something that could be cleaned quickly and easily. The only thing I cared about was the aesthetics -- I really, really wanted a white subway tile look. Surprisingly, that was really hard to find in an acrylic surround kit!

We were only able to find one option between Bathfitter, Lowes, HomeDepot, and the rest of the internet. Enter: the Delta Upstile System. We showed it to our contractor, and he was really impressed. He had not worked with it before, but was willing to try it with us and see how it goes. Spoiler: He ended up loving it so much, he's now recommending it other clients with similar projects! After selecting our materials, our final estimate came out to $1400. Less than HALF what we had originally planned. We were pumped! We even had enough  money left in our budget to do our master bathroom shower in the same product. I wrote about that makeover here! 

So, before I get to the goods of how the reno turned out, here's a quick refresher on what our space looked like when we moved in. As with all the other bathrooms (and our kitchen) we had the same salmony tile, cherry cabinets, sandy granite counters, and beige "marble" acrylic surround in this room.

Because there was previously a tub in this space, we didn't have to move any plumbing, or walls to get this tub to fit. SCORE! 

Next, the surround walls went up. The support beams are there to  make sure everything leveled out while the screws and glue set.

As a reminder, here's what we started with: 

And here it is after the tub installation:

All in all, our final bill for this portion of the renovation came out to about $1700 with some additional labor for drywall and plumbing, but it was still less than half of our original budget, and a fraction of one of the estimates we got early on that this would cost $5000 for real tile! The Delta Upstile system is holding up SO well, cleans great, and the real tile just adds that extra personality that makes it super convincing and attractive. 10/10 would recommend. 

Now that the tub was done, the rest of the room was in desperate need of some help! Because we had saved so much money on the tub renovation, I wanted to keep it going and challenge ourselves to spend as little as possible on the rest of the makeover. 

So, I decided to shop our garage paint supply, and I had JUST enough paint left over from our master bath reno to use what we had.  I was able to get the ceiling painted a fresh white (it made such a difference!) and the walls a pretty grey for $0 because I already had the paint. 

The next step was to decide what I wanted to do with the counter top and cabinets. We do still plan to replace the countertop at some point, but for the time being we went with a really budget friendly option: contact paper! We purchased $28 of contact paper at Lowes , and installed it right over top the granite. It looks beautiful, and is definitely super convincing from afar. It's tiding me over until we have the budget and (now) the safety to have someone in our home to come replace it (likely sometime in 2021 after baby is settled). The contact paper really helps aesthetically, but it has already chipped and peeled in some places from moisture so it's definitely not going to work long term (I knew it wouldn't, so it's all good). 

When it came to the cabinets, I had debated a playful navy blue that felt very kid-friendly, and went back and forth with my instagram friends on which we should do! Ultimately, my gut said that a bright white cabinet would really lighten this space up and... man.... WAS I RIGHT!? I am so happy I chose white for the cabinets (it also went along with my $$$ goals, because I already had a can of the exact paint I needed since it's what we use to paint all the chipping trim in our house! Another $0 improvement). 

If you'd like to see more about how I paint cabinets, visit this post all about it. I use the same technique, the only change is the paint. I've since switched from chalk paint to a specific line called Ben Moore Advance. It's perfect for cabinets and heavy use. We used it in our master bathroom, and it's held up BEAUTIFULLY over the last 8 months with every day use. We already had it on hand for our trim, so using it again in here was a no brainer. 

I also reused the existing hardware, so spent $0 there! 

The final result is seriously stunning. This paint is self smoothing and self leveling, so once it's fully cured, it looks like it was always there. At this point, I am SUPER confident that when we eventually get to re-doing our kitchen, we can comfortably repaint the those cabinets ourselves and a have a beautiful, long lasting result. 

These photos were taken at the same time of day (and I don't even have the light on in the second photo!) Having the white cabinets and light counters has made such a difference in the brightness of this room. 

As for accessories, I think I spent about $70 on a new shower curtain, rod, and 2 bathmats for this room. Pro tip!! We really needed an extra long bathmat in this space and could not find one we liked. We ended up buying two bathmats and "linking them" together with these from Amazon. They keep the rugs down so you don't slip on them, and putting them end to end made it look like one big rug! 

One of my other favorite transformations is this corner behind the door. Our master bathroom had the same saloon style medicine cabinet that was not functional, had mold, and took up the only logical place for towel rack/hooks. We did the same move we did in our bathroom -- removed the medicine cabinet, and "patched" the hole by covering it with a slab of $14 beadboard from Lowes. We nailed it into place, used wood glue to keep it steady, and attached 4 towel hooks at various (kid and guest friendly) heights. 

The LAST bit of this bathroom makeover was giving our 35 year old, builder grade mirror a "glow up" with a little bit of framing. It's amazing what $14 of trim can do to make a space feel finished. We had these cut and measured at Lowes, and then installed it right on the mirror with construction glue. 

And now, we are finished!! Here are my favorite before and afters of this room:

I think that's enough words and pictures about this bathroom, but I am really, really proud of this one! All in all, I think our total spend on this room came out to probably around $1900, give or take. Which, given that an average bathroom remodel costs about $9000.... I'm pretty thrilled with. I'm so thankful we got this project done when we did, too, because if we had waited until our original April/May timeline instead of doing it in Jan/Feb, we would have been up Schitt's Creek  with everything going on with the pandemic. I'm really grateful to have a beautiful, functional bathroom to obsessively wash my hands in 4,283 times a day these days! 

Powder Room Reno Pt. 4: Painting Tile Floors!

Y'ALL. I'm just going to cut right to chase here. This worked SO well. So, so, so well. It's holding up great, and I'm thrilled with how it looks. The end. If you want to know more, you can read on about how we did it, but if you're just here to know "yeah, but did it work?" Yes it did, and I'm obsessed!!

When we moved in, we had the same salmon-y colored tile floor throughout the entire kitchen and all the bathrooms in the house. They look yellow-y in the lighting of this room, but believe-you-me. They were the color of cooked salmon... a light, milky pink. No gracias.

The previous seller renovated the kitchen and baths and must have bought it all in bulk. Lovely. When we re-did the kitchen floors to hardwood, I knew I'd eventually want to get to the bathroom, but figured it would come in time. Well, the time has come and gone! We heavily debated replacing them -- even bought some sample tiles to see if we liked them better. We did love the idea of replacing the tile altogether, but the thought of adding another project onto our already long to do list was overwhelming, and it would have pushed us over budget, even with a small space.

I've already shared how we scored our $250.00 slab of granite (it's true!), and went over budget on the wallpaper because (#icantmath) so any budget we had for flooring went out the window. I had read tons of articles on painting tile floors and I figured, "what's the worst that can happen." Painting the countertops didn't work out well for me, but I wasn't ready to give up on paint just yet.

After reading over a dozen posts about painting tile floors, I decided to go with chalk paint and a heavy duty sealer. I'll link all the products we used below.

It's been about 6 weeks since we did this. We use this bathroom every day, vacuum it every week, and wear shoes in it all the time and there's not one little scratch. It's holding up super well and I am SO thrilled!

Here's how we did it:
- Clean everything with a heavy duty de-greaser. I used this product.
It doesn't say to do this, but I wiped everything down again with water, and dried it with a microfiber towel, twice. Just to be sure!

- I used a heavy grit sanding block to rough up the surface of the tile. I spent a solid 20 minutes doing this, and I think it really helped.

- Tape off all the surfaces and edges

  

- Wipe everything down with water and microfiber tile again. No hair or dust particles please!
Because the surface of my tile is glossy and polished, I used an extra adhesive bonding primer. I highly recommend this if your surface is really smooth. Even after sanding, it still felt really glossy to me. I think this primer is a big part of why it's holding up so well!

  

- Let primer fully dry -- then do a second coat. Just to be sure :)

- Then, I used a small foam roller to apply the chalk paint. I found this awesome chalk paint at my local Ace Hardware by Magnolia. You know I love me some Joanna Gaines so I was excited to use it! I bought a few different white options, but settled on the color ShipLap. Let first coat fully dry. I did 3 coats to make sure I got extra smooth coverage.

- Then, I used a chalk paint sealer. I did 3 coats with a regular paint brush (letting each one fully dry in between applications). The first picture is of me beginning to apply the chalk paint so you can see how it differs from the streaky primer. The second photo is after 3 coats.

  

- Remove tape at a 45* angle.... and voila! Painted floors. Before...

And AFTER!

- Once you are finished, I recommend waiting 24+ hours before walking on them. There's a tiny dark streak in the paint in the first tile (right above my right foot) that you can see in this pic... It's actually an indent in the paint from me walking on it too soon. I thought it was dry about 12 hours later, but because I had done so many coats, it wasn't. I realized it right away and stepped off, but that little indent will always bother me. Spenser says I have to leave it as a reminder to be patient with my projects. #lessonlearned

Before: 

    

After: 

Before: 

After: 

Like I said, it's been 6 weeks since we've done this and we walk on it multiple times a day every day. There hasn't been any wear or tear on it at all. I will definitely be back with an update after 6 months & a year to see how it's holding up! I cannot *wait* to tackle the upstairs bathrooms and finally rid myself of the salmon tile once and for all. And guuuuys! This is my last bathroom reno update! We tackled so much in this project... and a ton of firsts for us.

- Painting existing cabinet
- Installing wallpaper for the first time
- Our first big reno fail & replacing the counter top
- And our first time painting tile flooring 

We definitely took a risk taking on some of these DIY's, but thankfully all but one turned out better than I expected (and let's be honest, the new granite is the biggest consolation prize ever. Way better than painted counters, for sure!). We've decided we're going to cool it for a bit on home projects and focus on saving up some moolah and dreaming about some bigger projects we may want to do later this year (like more landscaping and possibly a bigger bathroom remodel upstairs). I'm working on our latest quarterly update (I'm a month behind) to show our progress again, so I'll pop in now and again for stuff like that! Thanks for tagging along. 

Powder Room Reno Pt. 3: Installing Removable Wallpaper

I know I'm dragging out these powder room posts, but there really is so much to cover! In this post, I'll be going in depth about the wallpaper we chose for our bathroom, how we installed it, and my honest opinions on the product and process! It's juicy. Er, as juicy as wallpaper can be.

When I walked in the door after 10 days away in Nova Scotia, the first thing I saw when I walked in the back door was my wallpapered bathroom. In that moment, I honestly wanted to kiss my house right on the mouth. Being away for 10 days really made me appreciate how far we have come with this home, AND with this particular project. I'm just so excited with how it turned out and can't wait to walk you through it.

I have been seeing all over the internet that wallpaper is reaaaally having a comeback. It's no longer just for Grandma's house. It's chic, it's punchy, and it can add so much visual interest to an otherwise boring room.

I knew I wanted to do a wallpaper pattern on this powder room ever since we moved here. Something about the angled wall under the stairs just screamed "accent wall" to me and I knew it had to be more than paint. I was super, super inspired by this beautiful laundry room wall by Jenna Sue Design.

I absolutely loved the soft pattern of the wallpaper and the visual interest it added to a typically uninteresting room. I figured if she could do it in laundry, why couldn't I do it in my powder room?  We have an air vent in this bathroom that helps cool our entire first floor, so we are typically leaving the bathroom door wide open. Since it's going to be open most of the time, I might as well make it beautiful, right?

Since we've never installed wallpaper before, I was nervous to commit to full on glue. I have a theory now that glue wallpaper is actually EASIER to work with than the removable kind, but I'll get to that in a bit. I started hunting for a pattern similar to the Jenna Sue room and found one I really liked on WallsNeedLove.com. Our pattern is called Ida, if you're wanting to shop it!

When it came to measuring the wall to order the wallpaper rolls, I genuinely thought I did it right. I measured the height, the width, added 15% for overage in case we needed to make weird cuts (we did). And yet, somehow, we still ran short. I am notoriously bad at math, but I do think something was a little funky with how much this covered. It was a repeating pattern, and because of our angles we had to line them up in weird ways. Maybe I didn't account for that? Either way, I was several square feet short. My best advice here is to order more than you think you need, measure 3x, and don't ask me to do math, ever.

Thankfully, WallsNeedLove had awesome customer service and my extra panel arrived in 2 days! I was able to cut parts of the print to fit in the spaces we needed and fill in our gaps. You can hardly tell there are even seams unless you look really closely.

I will say, installing removable wallpaper can be a little tricky. There were some moments we got really, really frustrated because it kept sticking to itself, or the wall, or us, and it made the process take a lot longer than I think it should have. You know when you're trying to wrap something in Saran Wrap and it sticks to itself as you're stretching it out and then you have to throw the whole thing away? This kept happening to us. It was just always sticking to itself or to the wall and we kept having to stop and fix it. It slowed us down for sure and caused us to have to pause and re-set, re-position, and constantly smooth out air bubbles.

 

If we were to add wallpaper again, I am pretty confident in saying I would choose regular glue wall paper. I had a great experience using the Walls Need Love product, but I think you have a bit more flexibility with installation since it doesn't stick to itself and can be adjusted once it's laid on the wall. Lining up the pattern was also frustrating, and required a reaaaally steady hand since our pattern had so many lines. We would spent several minutes making sure one area was perfectly in line, only to step back and realize it was off in another. It just required a lot of stopping, re-starting, removing, re-applying, and so on until we got it exactly right. At one point we asked ourselves if it was worth continuing and should we just scrap the whole project, but thankfully we didn't give up! Now that it's finished, you really can't see the seams and I'm glad we spent the time making sure it looked perfect.

My best before of this angle was from before I started blogging and was just documenting on Instagram, so apologies for the caption. But wow, what a change!

This bathroom is legitimately my favorite room in our house. It feels like the most "me" project I've ever undertaken and I am so glad I decided to do the wallpaper, even if it was a P.I.T.A.!  Now that I see how great it can look, you better believe I'll be doing it again in another project! 10/10 would wallpaper again!