$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



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



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!



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



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. ;)



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:



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.



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



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.



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



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:



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.



Huge difference.



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



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



Bye, bye color coded hot and cold handles!

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

How to: Disassemble your shower trim

Okay. Someone asked for a tutorial. Here is the best I can do.



Begin disassembling your shower by pulling out all of the rubber braces from both the inside and outside of the shower. If your shower does not have these, I guess you just omit this … and maybe find another tutorial because I can’t tutor you on a subject I don’t understand myself. ;)



Once you have removed all the rubber braces things, you’ll want to carefully begin unscrewing the different pieces from one another. WARNING: This is a two person job, minimum. No exceptions. You cannot do this yourself. Even if you are Superman.



We started at the back corner of the shower, opposite the door, pulled the top section off, and then kind of followed an obvious order on what to take apart next. PLEASE make a note of where each piece goes and how it fits back together.
There are so many pieces … and it’s difficult to put the puzzle back together once you are done. Difficult. Not impossible, just difficult.

Once you have all of the pieces taken apart and your shower is totally disassembled, you’ll need to start soaking. Soaking? Yes. Soaking. Our solvent of choice was Xylene (you can find it at Home Depot). That stuff eats through plastic cups in 3 minutes flat. This is good news … cause you’ll have an awful lot of silicone caulking that will need to be soaked and eaten up by the Xylene. Soak all the parts with silicone in the Xylene for about an hour. Then, it will be loose enough to scrap right off with a razor blade.

After you have successfully removed every shred of silicone (and I mean every shred – paint will not stick to silicone … NOTHING sticks to silicone), you can begin sanding. Use a very fine grit sand paper and lightly sand all of the surfaces of the trim.

Clean and dry all trim pieces … and then … rig up a ridiculous apparatus in the garage so that you can begin spraying all the pieces. Your ghetto rig job should look something like this:



(Don’t judge me based on my garage right now. We are in the middle of re-doing our entire house … by ourselves. This is our workshop for now.)

Superman took fishing line (you can use very thin string as well) and tied several pieces back and forth across 4 boards in the garage. Then, he laid the pieces of trim on top of those and sprayed the top and bottom and sides all at the same time. (You’ll want to string your lines high enough that you can get under them to spray them at the same time.)

When he was finished, there was just tiny little spots that needed to be touched up with a small brush, which I did after the shower was put back together. (I just sprayed some of the spray paint into the lid of the can and used a small water color brush to touch up the imperfections) You’ll need to do a few touch ups after you get the shower put back together, so don’t panic if you chip any paint in the process. Once you touch it up, it holds up REALLY well. We’re a month in (and about 50 showers in) and there is no visible wear. :D

When you put the shower back together, you need to make sure that you put silicone caulking under each piece that touches the surface of the shower, whether it is on the floor or wall. Then, use silicone caulk to caulk all of the edges of the trim around the entire shower.

Like I said, it’s intense. But, totally worth it! :D

And, you can enjoy your very own before and after pictures!!