Once upon a time there was a plain beige bathroom

Thanks to Susan for hosting Metamorphosis Monday. Click the butterfly to the right and it will take you to Susan's site for a list of other great projects.



Before


This past week I have been very busy trying to take my sons' boring beige bathroom and turn it in to something they would love. Their rooms are upstairs and they share this bathroom. They hated it and would never use it, even in the middle of the night they would come downstairs, at 2 a.m., turn on all the lights and use the bathroom downstairs.

One day I was reading Nester's blog and she said something about, "it doesn't have to be perfect". Nester also had a post about how they fixed their kitchen up to sell the house and how she wished she had done it long ago so she could have enjoyed it. I decided I wasn't going to wait for a carpenter or someone to come do it for me, I was going to do it all by myself, it didn't have to be perfect. Thanks Nester!

This is what I started with, a boring beige bathroom

One week and $400.00 later, this is the after.

At first I was just going to paint the bathroom and buy some matching towels. Well, you know how one thing leads to another. One day while reading Karla's blog
It's the little things that make a house a home I came across this. (Hi Karla, hope you don't mind I stole your picture)
I knew this look would be perfect in the bathroom. Go check out her blog, she gives directions.

I called my friend, Cindy, told her to come over I had a project and this is how we spent the day. That is me in the photo.



By the end of the day, this is what we had accomplished. Is it perfect? No. Does it matter? No.




Next came the paint. I found several old looking sports pictures, I pulled the colors for the paint from those pictures. I love the red.


We started out with the cheap premade cabinets that you buy at Lowes or Home Depot. Even though this bathroom never was used, the cabinets looked pretty sad. I painted them black. So of course, they needed new handles and hinges. I can't believe what a difference the handles made, cost was around $30.00
Before
After

The nice new paint job on the cabinet made the big plain mirror look terrible. I bought trim, cut it to the length I needed and attached it to the mirror with Velcro. The trim for the mirror was $30-$40. The nice new trim around the mirror needed a new light, $100.00. I called the electrician to come hang it for me. He couldn't come until next week, so I did it myself. And Hey, it works!!
After
Before

Next came the accessories. I knew my kids would never fold towels neat and place them on towel bars, so I put up hooks. I think they were around $5- $6 each at Home Depot. I am loving these, I will probably put these hooks in all of my bathrooms.



To finish the bathroom I hung shelves, place hand towels in old locker baskets I got from our local grade school, added old tins that I bought years ago, placed soap and other bathroom items in jars that I found at Wal-Mart on clearance, added a light because that was one of the things you need in Nester's post on "Having a bathroom you love". And there you have it, hopefully a bathroom my kids will use. And I can not tell you how satisfying it is to be able to say that I did everything in there by myself (My friend, Cindy, did help me hang the boards).




Thanks for stopping by my blog. Keep scrolling down to read each day's progress and the "how to" on framing the mirror.

Boys' Bathroom- Lights

My husband worked late and the kids went roller skating. I have the house to myself on a Saturday night, what should I do? Well, of course, put up a new light.

I called the electrician but he won't be here until next week. I can't wait that long! So I decided to do it myself.


Here is the before, Yuck, Ugly, Bad!


This is much better. The light is centered. The angle of the picture makes it look off to the side, but I assure you, it is in the middle of the mirror.


Yes! It works!


Granna: if you have a light there, you are going to have to put your new light in its place. Otherwise you will need to patch sheetrock, and that's a lot more work than I want to do. If the location of your old light is in a bad spot, I would suggest hiring it done. They will need to move wires, patch sheetrock.

Boys' Bathroom- Frame the Mirror

Today I framed the mirror. My mirror is 4' x 3' and I have less than $40.00 in this project.

Here's the before, Boring!

And here is the after. I can't believe the difference. Oops, sorry about the white boards to the left of the picture, I should have moved them.

And here is how you frame your mirror. It is so simple you will want to frame every mirror you own. I buy the little, fancy squares so I don't have to do a lot of angle cutting. By using the squares you can make a straight cut.

Here you can see I have all of my boards cut the length I need. Next place your vel-cro to the back. You don't need much, this stuff will stick FOREVER! I have it in my master bath and tried to pull it off a couple of months ago to take a picture. I didn't think I would ever get it pulled off.

Then just stick it up. How simple is that?

And you end up with this.


The only things I have left to do in here is hang the new light fixture above the mirror and find some boards for my shelves. Check back Monday. I'm going to try and post it on Metamorphosis Monday.

Boys' Bathroom- Hang Pictures

Today I went to Hobby Lobby to get my frames. They had all of their frames and Mats 50% off. I can't believe the difference the frames make.
Check back tomorrow, I will be framing out my mirror.

Boys' Bathroom- Black cabinet

Today I Painted the cabinets in the bathroom black. I bought new handles and hinges. I can't believe the before and after.
Before
After

Bathroom- Shopping Day

This morning I dragged my mother to goodwill. She thought I was crazy for wanting to shop there. I told her about all the great finds everyone in blog land were finding. Well, I don't know where you all live, but our goodwill has nothing but junk, no make that TRASH!!! We were in and out in less than 5 minutes. Off to Wal-Mart we go, my home away from home. There I found this little lamp. Just what I was looking for. The lamp was $10.00 and the shade was $10.00
Next we went to Home Depot for black paint. Guess what I forgot to buy? Black Paint. I did find the rest of my hooks. I decided to hang these hooks instead of towel bars. My kids would never fold anything up neat. I thought with these hooks they could just throw their towels on these little hooks when they were not using them.
The picture does not do them justice. The towels hanging look much nicer in real life. Remember Nick picked out red towels? They blended with the wall, so I'm taking them back. I found these red and blue striped towels that I like much better.
I also bought this at Home Depot. It was around $100.00, sent me over my budget. Oh well, it will look much nicer than the Miss Piggy light (strip of lights, I think it is Nester who calls them that).

I was going to come home and paint the cabinets. Since I forgot to buy the black paint, looks like I'm making another trip to town tomorrow.

Boys' Bathroom Paint

After
Before

The wall color is up. I decided to go with the red on the bottom and Latte on top. I really thought about going with white on the bottom, but having only boys, I was scared that it would always be dirty. Now that the color is done I'm going to live with it a couple of days and see if I fall in love with it or maybe I will end up hating it. This was a hard decision, everyone I asked had a different opinion. I took Julie's advice and asked the boys what they wanted. Nick said he want the bottom red and blue striped. NO THANK YOU!!! I am not cutting in around all of those boards. I have always said the only thing I can not do is accessorize, add "cutting in" to the that list.
This morning I am going to buy my trim for the mirror and look for a new light. I think Nester calls those strip of lights "Miss Piggy lights" (now that I type this, I'm not sure if it is Nester)it definitely has to go.

I have almost spent my $250 for this project and I still need a lamp. While I'm in town I might stop by goodwill and see if they have any I like. I think I want a black lamp so if I can find a nice shaped lamp I will just spray paint it.

I just went back and looked at this post. Sorry for the bad quality of the photos. The light is bright and the bathroom is small.

Boys' Bathroom Redo--Paint colors

Today I started the bathroom redo. You can read about it at the bottom of this post. These are the colors I am putting in the room. Help me decide on the wall color. I will be painting the bathroom cabinets black.



These are the pictures.

These are the towels.
So far I only have one coat of paint on. The red you can still see white thru it. If I go with the red, it will be a very dark red. This color is a little off, so if I go with red, I will have it matched to the towels.
Red on bottom, Hopsack (dark Khaki) on top. Hopsack is the same color in my hallway.
Hopsack (dark Khaki) on top, Sawdust (Green) on bottom.
White on bottom, Latte (light Khaki) on top.

So which one do you like? Or do you like any of them. Maybe I should pick entirely different colors.

Boys' Bathroom Redo-- Day 1

Today I started the bathroom redo. My friend, Cindy, came over to help me get started. Here are the before pictures.

The bathroom is UGLY, UGLY, UGLY. We have never done a thing to it. It is just a plain old builder's box. My kids never use it. Even in the middle of the night if they need to use the restroom, they come downstairs and use my bathroom or the guest bathroom. We have lived in this house for 20 years and I think that shower has been used about 5 times. I'm hoping when it gets finished they will start using it.
Here I am getting started. I made a trip to town this morning and bought all of my trim. I'm trying to do this entire bathroom on a budget of $250.00. My trim, nails, caulking and hooks to hang the towels on came to $89.84, minus $5.00 for the bags of candy my kids bought. So, trim came to $84.84.
Here I am nailing the boards on the wall, Cindy is running the camera. Right about now I'm wishing I had a nail gun. Look how straight those boards are. Who needs a man?
One wall down, 3 to go. I think it will look really nice once it gets a coat of paint.
Oh, the fun stuff, accessories. The boys each picked what color of towels they wanted. Zach's are blue, Nick's are red. The jars I found at Wal-mart on clearance. I have been looking at them for the last several months because I wanted them for my pantry. Today when I spotted "Clearance" I bought every single one. I thought they would be neat with bars of soap in them. The old looking pictures I had. I bought them last summer with the bathroom in mind. The old locker baskets came from our local grade school. The brackets I bought from Pottery Barn in 2003, I have never taken them out of the box, I think this will be the perfect time to use them.

Budget
Home Depot, trim $84.84
jars 2 @ $3.00 6.00
Towels 54.00
Pictures ( I already had)
Shelf Brackets ( I already had)


Total $144.84

I have $110.00 left. I still need to buy paint, new knobs, rug for the floor, lamp and trim for the mirror.


Check back tomorrow, I'm painting.

Now I'm going to go clean my kitchen. It started raining before I had all the boards cut so we moved the saw in on my kitchen cabinets. I can't stand looking at a dirty kitchen. This is SCARY!