Guest Bathroom Makeover
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If you have a bathroom that you don’t love, but also don’t have tons of money for a complete renovation, you’re in luck! I’m sharing our guest bath makeover with you, to hopefully inspire you to roll up your sleeves, do a little work, and get creative with your own space.
Guest Bathroom Sources:
BEFORE
Okay, first, our guest bathroom wasn’t terrible when we moved in. It wasn’t really much of anything at all. Other than very saturated pumpkin-colored paint, the room was a blank slate. This definitely worked in our favor until I was ready to do something more. The first thing we did was to have the room painted white to get rid of all the orange. (The paint color is Sherwin Williams Greek Villa.) Of course, I changed out the shower curtain too and added a few of my decorations.
The room still felt so flat, though, I didn’t really even put much effort into it with decorating. Honestly, bathrooms can be hard to decorate in general, but that’s something for another day…
PEEL + STICK TILES
Back in 2020 (a lot of our home projects happened then, because, well, you know…) I finally got up the nerve to take a little more action with the guest bathroom. I found a deal on some peel and stick floor tiles and decided to try my luck with them.
I will say, even though I love the way they look, if I were to do them again, I’d for sure put more effort into it. Ideally, we would have removed the toilet from the bathroom and the floor trim. I think this is the only way to get the tiles fitted really well. There is just only so concise of a cut you can make, especially for the rounded bottom of a toilet. All things considered, though, I still love the look in the room and it’s better than the terracotta-colored tile underneath.
PAINTED VANITY
The other “major” update, if you can call it that, I did was to paint the vanity with Velvet Finishes paint. In case you’ve never painted a bathroom vanity, you may not know, but lots of them are made from a product called thermo-foil. It’s used in bathrooms because it repels water and wipes off easily. This is a great thing…except it’s a bit harder to paint. You can read more about my bathroom vanity painting adventures HERE.
RUB ‘N BUFF
After the floors and the paint, the rest of the updates I’ve made to the guest bathroom, have all been easy sailing!! One of my favorites is using Rub ‘n Buff to update some of the existing fixtures. If you don’t know what Rub ‘n Buff is, you’re missing out! It’s a wax-based product that comes in a few different colors and creates an antiqued finish, especially gold, to whatever you put it on.
I used it in the bathroom to update the light fixture and the toilet paper holder with a golden finish. One thing about Rub ‘n Buff is that it doesn’t really like to go on shiny surfaces, so if you have something shiny you want to use it on, you will want to paint it first to get good coverage.
GOLD CABINETRY HARDWARE
The other golden element in the bathroom is the brushed gold hardware on the vanity. Before I painted it, the vanity didn’t have any hardware. I really wanted it on there, though, because it helps to protect the paint from hands constantly opening the doors and drawers, but it also adds a more finished look. I love the modern gold hardware that I got and it was such a good deal for the quality!
BLACK MATTE BATHROOM FAUCET
I would love to have a different countertop, but we won’t do that unless we gut the bathroom, so I had a couple of options. I could try and paint or resurface the counters or live with them as is. I briefly thought about painting them, but one of the agreements that Jason and I have about my DIY’s is that he doesn’t have to be careful around them or operate any differently than he would with normal finishes.
Since I’m very OCD, I wouldn’t be able to handle it if a treatment that I did, started to be scratched or damaged from wear and tear (which a counter definitely would), so I opted to live with it as is. The other consideration was that the sink and counter are all one piece. There wasn’t a natural stopping point for any kind of a paint or paper, so ultimately, that made my decision very easy.
We (Jason) did change out the bathroom faucet, though, and the design and black matte finish really helped the counter look a lot more updated…especially with the vanity being painted. Now, I almost don’t mind it…almost.
BATHROOM STYLING
The only thing left in the bathroom to do was the styling—my favorite part! The standouts in the room are a huge piece of thrifted art, a watercolor image of our last home, and a punny sign above the toilet. I also switch décor in and out occasionally—just added a small lamp today, have a colorful tissue box cover (I wish I could put the tissues in a drawer, but I lost that battle), and love to use shower curtains to easily change up the look of the space.
I know the cool thing is to have beautiful glass doors on showers, but that’s not happening any time soon in this bathroom…not sure it ever will. Instead, I’ll use the shower curtains to my advantage, by adding something special to the space or changing the color scheme. Also, I recently switched to an extra-long shower curtain, so it can hang high enough to cover the chrome shower head. You can normally see it from the living room, when the door is open, but the new curtain covers it!!
In addition to switching to longer shower curtains, I’ve put this shower curtain rod and shower curtain rings in all our bathrooms and I love them! They look modern and have great functionality.
Ideally, I would eventually love to demo both the upstairs bathrooms in our home. I don’t know if that will ever happen, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, they work just fine. We have had some water issues in the shower in the master bathroom. I think that’s fixed now, but we will have to have the damaged patched up—not an emergency, though.
Secondly, unless we are staying in this house for the long term, I do not think we will recoup the money from redoing the bathrooms. I’d rather put that into something that we can really enjoy (like a pool or vacations) and not necessarily worry about getting our money back.
I hope if you’re feeling the same way, that this post has been helpful. It’s hard to be satisfied with or feel thankful for our homes sometimes, especially when we’re bombarded with images and videos of brand-new beautiful homes, constantly on social media. There are plenty of ways to show your home love, though, on a budget…and still have beautiful spaces…even bathrooms.
If you decide to update your own bathroom on a budget, I would love to see it! Share a picture of yours in your Instagram stories and tag me when you do! You can find me on Instagram at @hilaryprall.
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