A few weeks ago, I shared our bathroom remodel saga. It was quite a challenge to do a small bathroom design on a budget. It took what seemed like forever for all the final details to come together, but I think we are finished (besides one more coat on the ceiling trim). I’m so excited to share the final bathroom reveal!
Just for a refresher, here is what the bathroom looked like before:
And here it is now!!
It’s quite the difference! This bathroom is TINY so, it’s very hard to take photos. I tried my hardest to get every angle. We saved a ton of money by gutting the entire bathroom and doing everything ourselves.
We chose to do white subway tile with a gray grout for the shower and I love it. It’s so classic, clean and modern. So far it hasn’t been too hard to clean which was my only hesitation with floor to ceiling subway tile.
To save some money, I found a corner shelving unit on a tension rod for $20 at Tuesday Morning. It serves it’s purpose and was way cheaper than installing tile shelves. It can also be moved around which is great.
For decor, I used a floating shelf that I have had for years that I wasn’t currently using. I painted the little succulent watercolor painting (you may have seen me share it on Instagram) and I put it in a frame I already had that I just painted white. The little vase was a thrift store find with a few faux succulents that I already had and the chalkboard jar was from Michaels on clearance for only about $2!
We installed white bead board and trim behind the toilet instead of doing tile. It would have been more work and money and since it’s such a small space, it didn’t seem worth it. There was tile there previously, so we had to do something to cover up the damaged wall after removing the tile. I got the basket from a thrift store and put extra towels in it.
I decided to hang these “R” and “M” letters. I found these at an estate sale, they are vintage metal sign letters and I never had a spot for them.
I’m so happy with my bathroom and I feel like I’m in a spa every time I take a shower. We also got new towels since our old ones were 10 years old and literally had holes in them. I waited and checked sales for a few weeks before scoring these Nate Berkus ones at Target. I decided to get white since they will always go with anything and I LOVE them.
So, here are my budget bathroom tips:
Small Bathroom Design
1. Do as much as you can yourself. This is a no brainer, but it’s SO expensive to hire people to do anything. We found out that so many things are really not that hard and YouTube has so many video tutorial for anything.
2. Cut corners when you can. Some things are worth the investment, but others really just aren’t We decided to cut corners by using bead board instead of tile and opting for cheaper white tile instead of something fancier that might go out of style. However, we did opt for a little nicer shower head and took the extra time to convert the plumbing to go to one handle. And we splurged on nicer quality towels.
3. Shop your own home. For most of the decor, I used things that I already had on hand. I do this for most spaces I’m redoing or rearranging in my house. Shop your stuff first before buying something. Sometimes just putting an item in a different room gives it new life!
4. Have Patience. This is key to saving money in general. Have patience and look at all the sales and deals before making a decision. This goes for buying new shoes or a car, but also remodeling projects.
Now to start thinking about our other bathroom (at least we won’t have to worry about such a small bathroom design for the next one!)
