Bathroom Makeover: Master Bath Edition

Bathroom Makeover

Master Bathroom Edition

A few years back, I was itching to remodel our outdated bathrooms, but there were two problems:

The bathrooms were clean and in good working condition. I couldn’t gut them and buy new stuff, when ours were perfectly functional. Yes, I wanted to change some of the colors and the vanities were outdated. But the sinks, toilets, and shower/bath were high quality (from the previous owner) and again, just very…..clean (for a lack of a better way to describe them).
Fully remodeling bathrooms is expensive! This kind of goes back to #1. I couldn’t justify spending tens of thousands of dollars remodeling a bathroom when our bathrooms were still functional.

Ultimately, I decided on a makeover instead of a remodel for our three bathrooms.

Here’s our bathroom situation:

Powder Room: Small half bath on main level
Kids’ Bathroom: Full bathroom with bathtub/shower combo
Master Bathroom: Full bathroom with shower

Master Bathroom Makeover

Colors: A little bit of paint makes a big difference!

Walls - Cozy Cottage by Behr

Cozy Cottage is a cream color that is a part of the yellow family. I didn’t think much about this one. It was one of my first paint jobs in my house, and I decided to paint the walls and trim the same color. I love the simplicity of that decision now.

Cabinet Storage - Linen by General Finishes Milk Paint

The cabinet was originally a dark walnut color. I got it on sale and didn’t really love the look, but the price was right and I needed storage. I decided to paint it, and it basically matched the walls – unintentional, but I ended up liking it! General Finishes Milk Paint is very easy to apply and requires little prep work (that’s one of the many reasons I love their paint). It was also very easy to distress. I applied two coats of paint, let it dry fully, then used a piece of sandpaper (I always start with 220 and adjust as needed), and lightly sanded places that would distress naturally over time. I kept the inside of the cabinet the dark walnut color. I was hoping that by keeping it dark, it would help hide the mess of products I had on the inside. 🙂

Vanity Cabinets - Perfect Gray by General Finishes Milk Paint

I painted and distressed the cabinets, as well. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I decided to only distress the decorative trim and let the white come through. Overtime, the trim has actually been the place of natural distressing, so it worked out perfectly! I finished it off with some new knobs.

Changing the colors of the shower and vanity was more challenging. I thought about tackling it myself, but decided to hire a company that would color the shower and vanity. They dd all three of my bathrooms. I was hesitant about getting the shower and countertops painted, but they have held up for almost 6 years now.

Shower - White

The shower was in excellent condition, but I wanted to change the baby blue color. We ultimately just decided to go standard white.

Vanity Countertop - white with specks of grays, creams, and browns

I kept the countertop neutral so that I have the option to change the wall or cabinet colors when the mood strikes me. Would I have loved a new countertop? Yes, but once again, this was a much more cost-effective way to update my bathroom without driving up the cost. It’s a great option if the countertops are still in good condition.

Lights

Out With the Old and In With the New

Taking out the lights opened up a whole can of worms! The rim around the mirror was so damaged from the box that held the lights. Instead of spackling it, I opted to cover it with a frame. 🙂 We replaced it with a 3 light fixture this one: https://amzn.to/3Tu3Kuy.

Mirror and Frame

Creating a Frame

When I started to remove the mirror, we noticed the wall wasn’t finished behind it. I originally wanted to add a brand new decorative mirror, but between the damaged trim around the mirror and the unfinished wall, that option wasn’t going to work. In the land before Amazon Prime, even “cheap” custom size frames were SO expensive, and the one we would need would have to be huge! So, gotta roll with the punches! We kept the original mirror, and I decided to put a frame around it.

So, I went off to Home Depot in search of some wood. I then used the same process I did for distressing my wood beam to create my frame. After the distressing and staining was finished, I used L shaped brackets and straight brackets to put my frame together.

Time to attach it to the wall. Another problem. Even though we removed the lights (and most of the wires), there were still places where the wires went into the wall. An electrician made sure that the wires weren’t “hot”, but we didn’t exactly know what was going on behind the walls. Because of this, I didn’t want to drill in to attach the frame.

I ended up lining the frame with a ton of 3M Heavy Duty Command Strips: https://amzn.to/498PMUFand using a level to make sure it stuck on straight. This was not exactly my preferred method for hanging the frame, but it has been up for several years now and still holding strong!

This was a relatively cheap way to update our bathrooms. After some finishing touches, our master bathroom makeover was complete.

2 thoughts on “Bathroom Makeover: Master Bath Edition”

Mary Beth Emery
April 3, 2024 at 1:33 pm

Just WOW Natalie!!!!!!! Great ideas and definitely less expensive than a complete makeover. Love the paint choices for the vanities. You may categorize as a budget makeover but your end result and personal touches look professional!!!!!!!

Reply
1. Natalie
  April 7, 2024 at 10:36 pm
  
  Thank you so much!!! I truly appreciate your comment! 🙂
  
  Reply

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