They say that bathrooms and kitchens sell a home. Renovating a bathroom takes a lot more time, energy and money than other rooms in the house, except maybe the kitchen. If you have the energy, some basic skills, and YouTube, I think that most homeowners can tackle the majority of a bathroom reno, which will save you thousands of dollars.
There is nothing more motivating than selling your home to get you to finally tackle all those home improvement projects that you have been putting off for years and years. Yes, I admit we are the stereotypical homeowners that waited until it was time to sell before we finally got around to updating the master bathroom.
I am so envious! The new owners are going to benefit from all our renovations and enjoy the house the way we had always envisioned it could be while we lived here. Sigh…
Do not get me wrong, over the years, we have done plenty of updates to the house, but our master bathroom really needed some love. It was stuck in a time warp, a 1986 builder basic time warp. To be fair, we did do some cosmetic updates to the room over the years. I painted the bathroom a few times and my sweetie did replace the hideous vinyl floor with white ceramic tiles a few years after we bought the house. It was over 25 years since he put in the tile flooring; it was old, dated, the grout had discolored over the years and it really was quite sad looking.
A piece of advice, do not wait until you are moving out to update your home! Now that it is done, it looks so good; I wish we could enjoy it for a while! Something else you should be aware of; everything will take twice as long to complete, it will cost you twice as much as what you budgeted for, and it will be twice as much work…sigh.
Why is it that we always put off renovating and updating the master suite? The rest of the house was looking fabulous, but our master bathroom was looking pretty tired, sad and neglected. I guess because no one ever sees it except us, so it is not a priority. Why are we not a priority? Why is everyone else a priority but we don’t give ourselves the same importance? I am making a promise to myself that the master bedroom and master bathroom in our new house will get as much attention as the rest of the house!
Ok enough ruminating about the meaning of life; let’s talk about the master bath renovations and the lessons learned. I am going to share with you what worked for us and hopefully save you a lot of wasted time, money and arguing with your sweetie when you decide to tackle a bathroom renovation on your own.
So first a few pictures of what we started with.
The three biggest factors driving our decisions were budget, time and mass appeal. We wanted to update this bathroom as quickly as we could and do it for the least amount of money and appeal to as many people as possible. The money we did spend needed to pack a big punch to create a “wow” when you entered the room.
We knew leaving the existing footprint would be the most cost effective way to go and would involve the least amount of work; less demo, less re-plumbing of water lines and re-routing of sewer lines. Overall, it has a very functional lay out, it was the old finishes that gave it a tired, dated look. It needed some serious freshening up!
If we were not moving and selling the house we would have changed the layout; removed the tub entirely and enlarged the shower (we rarely used the tub in the 33 years we lived in the house). I know we would have replaced the vanity with a piece that looked more like a piece of furniture and added vessel sinks. However, we had time and budget to consider and we wanted to appeal to as many people as possible so we went in an entirely different route.
The demo was relatively small, the tile floor came out, and the large mirror above the vanity came out. To start, the walls received a fresh coat of paint in Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore. It is a lovely shade of greige. It has chameleon properties; it reads a soft grey in bright light but has a warm undertone and reads almost beige in softer light. Painting the walls in this shade really lightened and brightened the room and made it feel much larger! We used this color on almost all the rooms upstairs and it really gave the entire upstairs a cohesive, fresh, updated, more sophisticated feel.
The golden oak vanity and linen closet doors received a fresh coat of crisp white paint. These two updates alone changed the entire feel of the room. The paint made a huge impact and cost less than a $100 and a few hours of time to complete. Never underestimate the power of paint!
Our biggest decision to make was what to do with the jetted spa tub and shower? We had to address the yellowed and dated faux marble finish. No amount of paint on the walls and cabinets could distract from the ugly faux marble. It had to go!
My husband did some research on a refinishing process for the existing tub, shower enclosure, sinks and countertop. The process promised to repair chips and cracks and restore the surface to look and feel like brand new. It is a solid bond between the old surface and the new finish and promises to extend the life of your fixtures for 10-15 years. It saved us thousands of dollars and a ton of time and labor not having to remove and replace the existing fixtures.
This is definitely something you want to leave to the professionals to do. They use extremely toxic chemicals to apply the new finish and took about a week to complete. I had my doubts about how it would look, but I was amazed at how nice it turned out! The tub, shower, sinks and countertop look brand spanking new!
With the money we saved by refinishing the faux marble finishes we decided to splurge and go with the more expensive frameless glass shower enclosure. Going frameless makes the shower look so much bigger, and the entire room looks bigger without the frame around the shower.
The floor went in next. My husband chose a vinyl tile, flooring product that looks like weathered boards of lumbar. It is guaranteed to be waterproof, which makes it perfect for a bathroom. It was easy to install, my husband put it in, in one afternoon and I came home from work to a beautiful new floor.
perfect floor for a wet area like a bathroom.
It looks like a weathered wood floor without the worry of wood.
Next, we added 4-inch baseboards, painted a crisp white to match the vanity and linen doors. I did not think new baseboards were needed but my husband insisted that they would make a big difference. I grumbled all the while I was painting, but he was right!
We spray painted the light fixture above the vanity in a matte black finish, added stainless steel handles to the drawers and cabinet doors, hung two white framed mirrors above the vanity, and updated all the antique bronze fixtures with brushed nickel finishes.
Our goal was to create a bathroom that was clean and fresh and that would appeal to the largest number of individuals. I think we accomplished our goal. The bathroom turned out light, bright and clean. I think the new owners will enjoy it for years to come!
I wish we had done all this years ago so we could have enjoyed it ourselves! Take my advice, you’re worth it. Do the reno for yourself to enjoy don’t wait until you are ready to sell before you do it!
This bathroom reno turned out amazing! Beautiful job with this update. What kind of flooring did you use?
You know first hand how bad it was 😂 It turned out really nicely and didn’t cost us a fortune to update. I wish we had tackled this project a long time ago!
We used a vinyl plank flooring product from Home Depot. Unless you get right up close , it’s hard to tell that it isn’t actually a real wood floor. It’s the perfect solution for a wet bathroom. Super easy to install too. Roman was able to put it in, in just one afternoon!