One of my favorite challenges around the house sometimes is to revamp a space using $0 – no shopping, no nothing. Just good ol’ steal things from other spaces that aren’t working, and dig into the closet of unused goods to bring a little creativity into a space without worrying about budgets. For this particular project, I decided to give our builder basic dated guest bathroom a refresh using only what we had on hand. The end result is a simple room that is now fresh and clean for our guests!
Why no budget? Because we decided to upgrade all of our bathroom countertops, which was something we’d been dreaming of for a while! In previous homes we’ve waited and waited and ended up updating all of our counters just to sell the home, and never got to quite enjoy them. We decided that that was just not something we’d ideally like to do again, so we splurged. I’m always up for a good budget (or no budget!) challenge, so this space was a perfect choice.
The guest bathroom isn’t used as much as our other bathrooms of course, but I wanted our guests to feel like they had a nice clean space to visit. Updated spaces don’t have to be expensive, and if you have a similar space but counters are not in the budget, I have a few ideas at the end of this post for you as well!
Okay so what’s a book without pictures amiright? Here’s a few before photos of the room.
Next up, the to-do list for the guest bathroom!
- Clean/fix the grout
- Paint the walls
- Paint the trim
- Paint the vanity
- Remove old wall mirror, repair wall and hang new mirror
- Spray paint old hardware/light black
- Hang shelves
- DIY towel hooks
- Pour myself a glass of wine and call it done
Everything on that list was the result of taking inventory of everything we already owned 🙂 I used leftover paint for the walls and trim. Custom mixed a color for the vanity using leftover cabinet paint and paint samples (never be afraid to mix! It’s one of my favorite things! Just be sure to make enough the first time!) A grout renew product we had on hand from another project.
Dug out some black spray paint to update old bathroom hardware and the old vanity light from our half bath.
Hung up a mirror from our son’s old nursery, and shelves that I bought on clearance a year prior with no plan on where to put them. Sometimes those random purchases pay off! Other times they just collect dust in the back of a closet, but apparently I’m a gambling kinda person. Last but not least was a little DIY with the towel hooks – all it took was some scrap wood (roughly the size of a 1×2) and some dowels. A little stain, poly, some two way screws and we had custom wall hooks!
And although all that work part took all of 1 minute to read, I chipped away at this guest bathroom project over the course of a few weeks during my kiddo’s nap time and shared progress over on my Instagram page. But now, I’m excited to share the final product of all of that work! Nothing hard, just lots of paint and a little time with some tools, and we have a room that I’m happy to check off the list for now!
And that’s about it! Isn’t it fun that that’s the same space? Paint goes a longggg way sometimes 🙂 And as promised, some counter alternatives:
- Leave it! Update the rest and save that project for later (or maybe the updates make you not mind the old counter at all!)
- Paint it using epoxy or countertop paint
- DIY concrete finish
- Keep a close eye on your local Restore or big box clearance isles for a budget friendly counter. Outlet stores also sometimes have amazing deals. The hunt is on 🙂
- Butcher block or edge glued boards (we used this in our last half bath!)
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