another bathroom redo, now w/ less excitement
There are three bathrooms in this house. One I already redid, one that’s almost good to go (needs wall paint), and this one that needed major freshening up, if it was going to be attractive to potential buyers.
It’s a big bathroom, grander than the other bathrooms even though it’s not the master bath (two medicine cabinets, oh lala). The only one with a bathtub, it just remained these past three years relatively unused and kind of puzzling.
I did install a ceiling-mounted shower curtain rod and curtains a couple years ago, so house guests could actually shower without having to use the master bath prison shower. Before that, there was just a naked tub. I suppose tub-lovers would find a tub-dedicated bathroom to be a wonderful thing, but to me it was just … puzzling.
Especially in light of the lovely, lovely carpeting.
Since we’re motivated to sell, the directive is “neutralize your space”. Understated paint colors (read: bland), plain but friendly colors upon which potential buyers can project their lives, or something like that.
This is how the vanity got painted a color very dangerously close to beige.
Sorry, Jeana, I know it’s the color you shun. But Jeana and I both agreed that the color stops just short of pukishness. Helping that maybe was the addition of dark brown metal knobs.
Up comes the carpet, and voila: the ancient linoleum tiles that apparently covered the entire house. So old the adhesive was gone, I could just pile them up. Getting out those tack strips was a non-fun job, as usual.
Paint. Walls, ceiling, trim and vanity all needed it. The vanity paint color is called, hilariously, Brown TeePee — the perfect color for a bathroom. Not so hilarious was the ceiling painting process. By the time I got to the walls I was DONE with painting*. The wall paint color is Parchment Paper, nice and bland and neutral and boring.
Tiles. Cheapie peel-and-stick that actually looked pretty good (except for the booooring color). So much easier than putting down real tiles, good gracious.
New toilet to replace the massive, water-guzzling antique. Up until this I did everything else myself, but then I called in my pal Ethan. He very nicely helped me acquire and install two toilets in one day. Ethan could not resist using the newly-installed toilet as a sink. “When else can you do this?” he asked. Handsome and handy Ethan blushed furiously at Home Depot when the female employees flirted with him outrageously. Cool your jets, “ladies.”
A new rod and curtains and already-owned towels and we’re done. Kept with blue and brown. I’ve saving the caulking for my brother, lucky man.
Cheapie but cute curtain from Anna’s Linens
That’s my awesome vintage print, and it’s going with me.
Breakdown, estimated.
Toilet: $89
Paint: $40
Knobs: $15
Tiles: $46
Caulk and other stuff: $20
Curtains: $10
Shower curtains: $20
Total: $240-ish
*Done with painting! That’s funny. Hahahahha! There’s just the matter of painting the entire rest of the house, hooray!
It looks a million percent better! I can’t even hate on the beige because it completely meets the goal of providing a clean, updated, neutral bathroom and provides a blank slate for the new owner to give it a real, unshunned color of their choice. Well done, Becky!