Friday, January 6, 2012

$20 Bathroom Refurb

We just completed the refurb on our upstairs bathroom. We used baseboard and Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. And that's pretty much it.

The ‘before’ pictures on this are a little crazy with clutter because for nearly 3 years, we shared this small bathroom with both of our children. (My Grandma moved in with us, we gave her our master bedroom/bathroom downstairs, and we moved upstairs with the kids. Sacrifice of serious proportions and love.)

So.

I'll give you the nice 'after' picture to get you through the ugly 'befores' that are coming. :D

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Anyway. Here is what the bathroom once was. Holy clutter. We were just trying to survive.

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My eyes are burning with all the clutter. There was NO WHERE to store our bathroom supplies, so I turned to hanging buckets on the wall … yes, those are the same buckets that now hang in my master bathroom. Good eye!

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Yikes. Clearly, not going for aesthetics at this point.

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100% functionality. The picture frames were empty at the time that these pictures were taken (nearly 3 years ago). I did, however, put pictures in them later. I swear. ;)

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I’m in bath toy hell right about now. Please. Someone come save me!

That was our life. For 3 years. 2 adults, 2 children. Makes me itch just thinking about the confinement. ;)

And, here we are now:

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We used the same Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint for this project. I’m a little obsessed. But, don’t knock me until you try out the color. It’s gorgeous and magnificent. Too bad it photographs black … because it is not black.

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You’ll notice that all of the fixtures and door knobs were sprayed with bronze.

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We also took down all the craziness from the past 3 years and de-cluttered the small bathroom. No more make shift shelves or stainless steal buckets full of cords. Ahhhh.

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No more bath toy hell either. Can I get a hallelujah?! ;)

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I have always hated the faucet in the bathroom upstairs. Very dated. And the red and blue hot and cold handles … seriously … like we need them labeled? If you haven’t figured out which one is hot and which one is cold by the time you are old enough to recognize color coding, you don’t deserve to wash your hands! ;) So … I did what I do with every other builder grade aspect I don’t like: I had Superman spray paint it. It looks better in real life than it does in the photograph. :D

And … here are the before and after pictures:

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This was the flooring when we bought the house … we had it tiled a few years ago. The cost of tiling the floor is not included in this $20 makeover.

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Huge difference.

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$6 of spray paint and $14 of baseboard for the mirror.

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Yes, we spray painted the toilet handle up here too. ;)

bathroom renovation using rustoleum oild rubbed bronze spray paint upstairs faucet before after

Bye, bye color coded hot and cold handles!

All four of us love the new look. My kids feel so special now!! :D

11 comments:

  1. looks really nice..i have seen many people do that to the mirrors..huge difference..how did u frame the baseboard to the mirror..

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  2. This is great! What color did you use to paint the vanity? Did you remove it and spray it with ORB, or was it another color that you had mixed?

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  3. I'm curious about the vanity paint as well. Spray paint there too?

    Love your blog!

    Thanks

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  4. Everything was spray painted with Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Vanity, mirror, door knobs, sink handles, towel holders, light fixture. EVERYTHING. I'm sort of a freak. ;)

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  5. I'd like to know how you secured the baseboard to the mirror. Love your blog. We just bought a house a year ago, and all of our door handles, etc. are ugly brass, too, so I'm anxious to get my hands on a can of spray paint :)

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  6. Hi! Found you from Pinterest and I've got lots of questions about your vanity! How did you prep the cabinets for spray paint? Did you prime first? How did you deal with overspray? How are they holding up to wear and tear?

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  7. Everything is holding up great! for this small little vanity, my husband took the cabinet doors off and sprayed them in the garage (along with the mirror frame) and then I just sprayed some of the same spray paint into a cup and brushed it on the base of the cabinet (what is behind the doors). For the master bath, there was way more to paint, so he sprayed the doors in the garage and taped off the entire bathroom with plastic sheets to prevent overspray on anything. We did not prime these cabinets at all, but they are cheapo mdf cabinets that were already painted white. If you are painting over stain, you probably want to sand the glossy off of the cabinets before painting.

    As for securing the baseboard to the mirror, in this bathroom, since there is a wall on either side, my husband just built the frame to fit exactly and set it up there on the backsplash lip. However, in our master bath ... here's what we did:

    First, cut all the baseboard to the right lengths. Second, paint the baseboards, including the backs because those show up in the mirror. Third, use liquid nails to glue the baseboard to the mirror, securing each piece with painter's tape. Once the liquid nails has dried, you can remove the painter's tape and you are done. :D This chick has a good tutorial (I am not good at tutorials, I will try to be better about that): http://southernhospitalityblog.com/framing-those-boring-mirrors/

    Just be careful to put the liquid nails away from the center of the frame so it doesn't show up in the mirror (like she shows you in her pictures).

    Good luck!! This is one of the easiest and cheapest improvements out there! :D

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  8. I did this in my master bath today and it came out beautifully! At first I was scared because it looked black but when it dried it came out great. Nickel hardware popped on it...thanks a million for this post!!!

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  9. can you paint the faucets in showers and sinks and do you have to take them down or can you paint them inside the house

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  10. Your bathroom makeover looks amazing!! I had done my bathroom years ago when I lived in Texas and it looks similar to yours. It's amazing what spray paint can do don't you think? I love it! http://thestylesisters.blogspot.com/2010/07/can-you-spray-paint-bathroom-faucetsoh.html

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  11. AWESOME! I'm in the middle of a couple Pinterest projects right now. Just finished faux granite film in the kitchen and it turned out GREAT! Had bought some black spray paint a while back to paint the bathroom cabinet doors but LOVE your idea of using ORB on them instead of just the black paint. THANKS!

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