A Great Bathroom Facelift on a Budget!

It’s Monday again and I have the privilege of sharing another transformation with our DesignTies readers!! Thanks to Susan from Between Naps on the Porch… she’s the lovely host of the ever-fun and always popular blog party, “Metamorphosis Monday”.

 

For the first time ever I’m also participating in Nesting Place’s blog party “Price My Space”… you’ll read why further down! Thanks to The Nester for hosting this blogsphere gathering!

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

A few years ago my husband and I worked hard to transform our condo. We had a blast doing it and, I think, the end results were fantastic! I’ve shared some of these metamorphoses with you on previous Met Monday get-togethers ~ our family bathroom, the kitchen and the foyer/front hallway. Click on the photos below to be directed to the posts that showcase these transformations.

 

The rest of the condo looked pretty terrific, too…

 

Well…  everything looked great EXCEPT for our master bathroom!

Unfortunately this was one space I’d neglected to take a before photo of. Darn! What I DO have, however, is a before picture of our family bathroom… it’ll give you an idea of what our master bathroom looked like. Here… take a look:

Like this sad little bathroom, our master bathroom had a mirror that extended the length of the room and a strip of uber-ugly gold tiles around the tub/shower. It also had a similar version/colour of counter top, only on a longer vanity. Finally, the tub and toilet were almond in colour… not white and all the fixtures were brass. Very 80s as you can see!

I had grand plans for our master bathroom – I wanted to gut the whole thing down to the studs and reconfigure the space for a separate shower and tub, and I really wanted a double sink in the vanity.

Problem!

The thing was, the market was HOT at the time… we really wanted to purchase a house… so we decided to sell the condo. Timing was everything (and as it all played out, the market started to weaken within weeks after we sold) ~ undertaking a large bathroom remodel would have taken too long and would have cost us more money than we were willing to spend at that time. Here’s that problem I mentioned ~ the whole condo looked great, but this one room was really letting the place down. I had visions of people exploring the condo during the Open House, moving from one room to the next with pleasure – then they walk into the master bathroom and say “Oh… what a disappointment!”

The solution… a facelift!

I started by purchasing a remnant piece of granite from the stone warehouse. Cost = $125! The piece was beautiful… blue pearl, tying in perfectly with the blue bedroom… and was large enough to cover the long vanity and a shelf in the tub/shower area. My granite cutting guy was able to cut and install the pieces for $475… definitely the priciest part of this makeover.

Next, I found a vessel sink for $150 and a faucet on sale for about $40.

In the photo below you can see the granite installed and the sink ready for installation… Brian had removed the huge mirror and repaired the wall, ready for painting. I also had Brian install simple but contemporary chrome handles on the drawers and doors of the vanity… a great and inexpensive way to update a dated cabinet! We picked those up in the states for $2 a piece ~ $12 total.

But what do I do about the uber-ugly gold tiles in the shower/tub?!

I would have loved to tear out all the tiles in this surround, but as I’ve said… time was of the essence AS WAS budget. So I kept the off-white tiles (gave them and the grout a mega-cleaning!) and pulled out the strip of gold tiles.

Using the blue pearl granite as a jumping off point, I opted for a lovely blue glass tile with stainless-steel tiles used as an accent. With the help of my tile supplier, I found a grout that perfectly matched the existing grout… important! By the way… when I say “I”, I really do mean ME… I do all the tiling! :-)  Cost of tiles: approximately $200.

What do you think?!

Things were really coming together!

Now obviously we couldn’t change out the almond-coloured tub and toilet… but we could change all the brass fixtures to a lovely chrome. Shower head, tub spout, tub drain and the flush-handle for the toilet – about $120. What really cost… the tub was fitted with a brass grab handle… it couldn’t be replaced so we had to have it re-coated in chrome. It looked fantastic, but it cost $75!

As I said earlier, I chose the blue pearl granite because it worked wonderfully with the blue bedroom. The other key colour in the bedroom = brown. So when I found a pale blue shower curtain at Pier 1 ($35) with graphic flowers in brown and gold I knew it was perfect. It also made choosing the wall/ceiling colour easy-peazy… a soft gold!

Okay… please ignore the flesh-coloured floor tiles! Maria from Colour Me Happy would say that it had a pink undertone and so isn’t ideal next to a yellow-toned wall, and she wouldn’t be wrong! :-) This particular photo was taken as I was leaving the condo for the last time. When the place was shown, I had a dark brown dressing table sitting on the left wall and a pale blue rug sitting in front of the tub… so while not perfect, it worked well enough.

What other costs? A new mirror for $50, a light fixture for $90, a hotel-style towel rack for $50, paint approx $40.

 

I wish I had taken photos of the bathroom when it was all dressed… it looked fantastic! The photo above? I originally had a lovely plant sitting on the shelf reflected in the mirror. As soon as the condo was sold I moved it out to the living room where – in theory – I would remember to water it. LESSON: when taking photos intended to showcase your space be sure that mirrors reflect pretty things!!! Bad me!!

So… I’ve added up the approximated costs I suggested above and, adding a smidge for good measure, the approximate total of our master bathroom facelift = $1,500!! It wasn’t a perfect makeover, but it made such a difference in the overall presentation of the condo that we rocked our Open House!

In fact… we sold for close to $10,000 over asking!!

Brian and I love our little 70 year old bungalow, but of all the spaces in our condo I think we’d both agree that we miss our bathroom the most!! Hopefully we’ll have a new bathroom to love in our current place very, very soon!

I hope you liked my bathroom’s facelift! A big thank you to Susan from Between Naps on the Porch and The Nester from Nesting Place for hosting 2 great blog parties! Be sure to make your way to both of these terrific blogs to check out their party guests’ contributions!!

And on the topic of blog parties… DesignTies hosts Rewind Wednesday!! To learn more about our weekly blogsphere gathering, and to find out how you can party with us, click on the button found at the top of our side-bar.

Thanks for dropping by!!

Victoria from Edin Interiors