Only a few rooms left until we’re officially done sharing our old house! Today, let’s chat part one of two of our master bathroom. When we last left off with the room, we shared the before photos and our design plans.
The carpet obviously had to go, so we decided to create a “phase one” budget friendly version of this room and laid down peel and stick wood vinyl flooring to replace the carpet, painted the vanity white, the walls Agreeable Gray and swapped out some of the fixtures.
It looked SO much better once those floors were down and the vanity was painted, and we left if like this for about a year and it held up great! Then, when we found out we were moving, we decided that with the price range we wanted to sell the house at, the new home owners would value a cohesive tile flooring running throughout the whole bathroom. That meant ripping out the inexpensive vinyl and the old tile near the shower and toilet area.
We didn’t do this to begin with because we were ultimately going to move around where the shower, bath and vanity were located and didn’t want to have to put tile down just to rip it up in a few years, so the vinyl was a great and inexpensive short term alternative!
But, back to the moving part 🙂 Switching around where the main items were would cost a considerable amount of money and time, so that was not worth it just to sell the house. Instead, we decided on tile floors, swapping out all of the fixtures, knobs/hinges, new shower doors to replace the old gold corroded ones, and replacing the mirror and beauty bar light fixtures.
All of those things were very cost effective in making the bathroom look updated, while not over spending! I wanted to tile the shower (it was an older beige insert) but due to time and budget that got vetoed. So, instead I had planned on adding a few stacks of subway around the tub to add a little more custom touch for around $20, but ran out of time! But, had I had a few extra days, I think this would have been a nice touch for the record 🙂
First things first was picking out floor tile. Our bathroom was quite large and had two large walk-in closets coming off of it that also needed flooring, so we were on a tight budget and needed something larger and in stock (larger – faster install).
So, off to the mothership aka Home Depot we went! We narrowed down our selection to this concrete look 12×24 tile that I had been eyeing for a few different projects, and this neutral weathered wood tile, also holding up a few subway tiles to show what contrast there would be with the white vanity and such.
We were torn at first – I wish we could have gotten the concrete look but in the wood plank size, but again, time and budget here! Then, some magical fairy must have dropped some home reno dust on us, because we found tile almost identical to the concrete look one near the check out counters that had been a return/over order item that they were basically giving away. One look at that tile and the words SOLD appeared in our minds!
We hauled SO MANY BOXES onto the cart, then into the truck, then up the stairs (aka no workout was necessary for days post this trip) and laid them out a few different ways until we decided what direction/pattern to run the tile.
We ended up selecting a basic brick pattern running the same direction as the cabinets. Then, the tiler took over! We did end up contracting this job out because of our timeline, but it would be a relatively easy DIY if you’re familiar with tiling. The large tiles go down quickly, and he was able to lay in right onto the subfloor after a little repair work and leveling.
And that’s where I’ll stop for now! Next up are the final touches on the project and a few more easy and inexpensive upgrades (plus one splurge I think definitely helped!) so be sure to check back at the end of the week for that!
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