hi it's carrie from lovely etc and i am super excited to share the before and after
of my $100 bathroom makeover with you guys today. i would consider myself pretty good at making over
a space on a budget but even i was surprised at how much i was able to transform this space with
only a hundred dollars. and now after having lived with this
dated bathroom that i hated for years i'm just asking myself why did i not do this sooner.
okay so first i'm going to show you what this bathroom looked like when it started because
i want to make sure you understand this was not just a kind of bland bathroom that could use maybe
some personality. this bathroom was straight from the 1990s. so here's what we were working with.
We've got some blah cabinets. the toilet unfortunately is the very first thing you see
as soon as you walk in the doorway - which that we won't be changing so that's something we're just
gonna live with. oh and of course this wallpaper is everywhere and it is very very much not for me.
we also have lots of gold accessories - mirror, towel hooks, faucet, shower doors - it's all shiny
shiny gold. there's the builder basic vanity with some hardware that could really use an update.
a basic sink, this huge medicine cabinet which i will admit is great for storage but
is incredibly ugly especially with that attached light at the top. i am so excited to see that go.
and then moving on around we have our shower which is actually a huge shower it just has a little
tiny door for some reason which makes it really dark and one day i would love to open it up,
but for now i'm just hoping to do something about that gold shower door.
on the other side we just have lots and lots of wallpaper still. and that is our bathroom and
i cannot wait to give it a $100 makeover and see just how much better it can look for super cheap.
and here is my bathroom now after my $100 bathroom makeover. i am in love with how it turned out.
so i didn't change most of the fixtures or any of the layout in this bathroom. this is
all just changing up the details. even so what an incredible difference. so the first thing
i did was get rid of all the wallpaper that was everywhere and just made this tiny room
look incredibly busy and dated. and that alone made a huge difference.
i painted the walls valspar's white dove which is just a fresh white color that i had left
over from another project. one of my biggest tips for making over a room on a tiny budget
like this bathroom is use what you have. if you have leftover wood use that. if you have leftover
paint use that. if you have stuff in your basement that you're not using for something pull it out
see if you can make it work. so the second major thing i did was paint the vanity and oh it looks
so much better now. i'll be sharing a video with a full tutorial of how i painted this vanity
and in particular how i got such an incredibly smooth paint finish on an oak vanity. you cannot
see a bit of the super deep wood grain and i think it looks beautiful. the color is general finishes
persian blue and it's just the perfect color and i also updated the hardware at the same time.
luckily i had this hardware stashed away in the basement just waiting for the right project
so that part was at no cost. i also changed out the mirror. you may recall the gigantic
medicine cabinet light combo that was in here. ugh that thing had to go. so this mirror is a mirror
that i picked up at a yard sale last year for five bucks. it's from an old dresser and i'm always
snatching up vintage mirrors at yard sales. it's one of my favorite things to find. it had a bit of
an issue because somebody at some point had carved their name and some other stuff into the bottom
of the wood frame. but i was able to sand that out and just restain that part and i think it looks
beautiful. this light was a really lucky break for me because i had it stashed away
just waiting to go into this bathroom. i had taken it out of a bathroom in another project
so i will admit that if i had had to buy a light i probably would have gone over my
hundred dollar budget. but if i hadn't had this beauty tucked away i definitely would
have been hitting the habitat restore and looking for a light that i could upcycle.
one of my goals for this makeover was to get rid of all of the shiny gold. as you can see
in the shower there is still some shiny gold but it's tucked away and i can handle that. the door
got a makeover - i have a video if you want to watch it - with some black spray paint and
it looks gorgeous now. so much more up to date. this faucet was another thing that really needed
an update .the old faucet was a basic faucet but in that shiny shiny gold finish that i just hate.
so i was trying to figure out how to update it. i considered spray paint but
to be honest i was a little worried about how it would hold up and i knew i would rather just
switch the faucet out. you can get a pretty cheap faucet for only about thirty dollars but
i didn't have that left in my $100 budget. so i was thinking and thinking where can i get a
faucet when i realized i already had a perfectly good brushed nickel finish faucet on my kids play
kitchen. several several years ago i made a really cool upcycled play kitchen for my kids
and i wanted to use a real faucet. so i found a faucet at a yard sale for 15 bucks and it even
came with towel rings that matched - hello - and i put it on my kids play kitchen. and
it was gorgeous and it was even featured in better homes and gardens. but my kids haven't
been playing with it that much and even if they were i thought you know what i deserve to have
a nice faucet in my master bathroom even more than they deserve a nice faucet on their play kitchen.
so they get the shiny gold faucet and i get the basic brushed nickel not offensive faucet.
okay so the other major change on this wall. this is a herringbone wood wall it was super
cheap to make. all the wood for this wall cost about 30 bucks and i have a full tutorial if
you're interested in how to do it. it's a lot easier than it looks. i know the pattern looks
a little complicated - it's really not. this is super simple and i love how it adds some
texture and some interest to the wall without being super busy like that old wallpaper.
over here there was a big old cabinet. i just replaced it with some open shelving
and on my open shelving i added an old train case and a little wooden tool tote. those are good ways
to add some hidden storage to open shelves and so you can add a little bit of decor and a little
bit of storage and it's perfect. little vintage suitcases like this are one of my favorite things
to snap up at yard sales because they are perfect for storing things away in plain sight and still
looking really cute. that's probably my second biggest tip for making over a space for super
super cheap and that is buy stuff used. you can go on facebook marketplace. you can go on craigslist.
you can ask your friends and family. i'm a huge fan of yard sales, estate sales are also great,
thrift stores are great. that's where the mirror came from. that's where this
little tool box came from. that's where this train case came from. and that's where i get
lots of the stuff that i furnished my house with because it is super cheap. okay so i keep
talking about this $100 budget. where exactly did i spend the money? the wood for the wall was 30.
i spent 20 on the paint for the vanity and the paint and primer for painting the shower
door frame was around 10 bucks. and the rest went to little details. like i bought new
baseboard so i could get rid of the weird tile border that was here. i bought some spackling,
little things like that. and it all added up to just under 100 dollars which i am thrilled about.
i have a full list of all of the sources for the things i used in this room and links to all
the tutorials for all the projects on my blog lovelyetc.com. and you'll also find there that
this $100 bathroom makeover was actually part of a 100 room challenge where a whole bunch of other
bloggers also worked on a space in their home and worked to give it a makeover for only $100.
and i am always blown away by the things that people are able to do with such a tiny budget. so
you may want to head there and check out everybody else's spaces and get some inspiration.
and if you haven't i would love for you to subscribe to my channel lovely etc where i share
lots of inexpensive diy projects and decorating ideas for creating a home that you love.