Bathroom Remodel on a Budget

Hello there friend! If you’re following me on Instagram, then you have seen a few teasers of our brand new renovated bathroom. Well, I’m finally here to bring you the full thing! I am so thrilled with how it turned out and it is such an improvement from where we started. Since we were working with a pretty tight budget, we did all of the work ourselves, which makes me love it even more! 

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First, let’s start with a “Before.”

The previous owners of the house had definitely put some work into this bathroom, however, they choose a scheme that didn’t match anything in the rest of the house. There is no blue anywhere else in the house, and the pedestal sink and silver mirror just didn’t seem to match either. 

So now that you’ve seen the bad and ugly, let’s move on to the good and pretty! 

I have wanted to badly to add shiplap to our house, so starting in the bathroom sounded like a great idea! It’s a small room so the idea was to ease my husband into the idea of incorporating it in more rooms! We did faux shiplap in here using boards of plywood. This is such an economical way to add character and it was super easy! Would you like a tutorial of how we did ours? Seriously, so easy! If you think it would be helpful, leave a comment at the end of this post! 

The largest part of our budget went to buying a new vanity. We both felt that the pedestal sink made no sense in here since this is the only full bath on our main floor. We both use this bathroom each morning and night, and the pedestal gave no room to set anything down. This made it super difficult to do my makeup in here. Since it is a pretty small bathroom, we had to be strategic on what vanity we put in here. We decided to go with this vanity from Menard’s. We loved the combination of wood and metal and for a 24” vanity, it actually provided a decent amount of counter space. We bought it during Menard’s 11% rebate week as well, so a few weeks post-purchase we received some money back to go toward our next reno! 

We made the shelf using a piece of pine that we cut to size and stained, and these brackets, also from Menard’s. Originally we were planning on purchasing all of the pipe fittings to make our own brackets, however, we decided to just take a look at the bracket section and founds these. Buying these pre-made ones were actually cheaper than buying the parts to make our own! I feel like those of us in the home décor realm tend to think that DIY is always cheaper, when sometimes that is not the case. I definitely learned that doing our research can pay off in the end! I’m also really excited to actually be able to style something in our bathroom! 

I was even able to bring some of our Christmas tree in here 🙂

Before I talk about our wall hooks, I have to show you one of my bathroom inspiration shots from Vanessa over at @littlelovenest. If you’re not following Vanessa on Instagram, you NEED to be. She is so funny, her makeup is flawless, and her home is gorgeous! I mean…

Now that you’ve seen Vanessa’s bathroom with those cute hooks, does anything look familiar in ours…?

I got these hooks from Hobby Lobby and if I have any advice for you, it’s this: do not buy these for full price! I was so concerned about getting this project completed that I paid full price for these which was a total rookie move! There are seriously Hobby Lobby coupons floating around everywhere and the Dutch heritage in me is super disappointed in myself. However, they are exactly what I wanted for this space, so we move on. They also hold our towels really well. I think my husband was a little skeptical, but they are large enough to even hold our oversized ones.

So as you can see, we have come a long way since that baby blue bathroom with a pedestal sink. If you’re curious, here is a breakdown of how we spent the money. We obviously would have liked to keep that a little lower, but a new vanity was very important to us. I would also love to get a new mirror in here someday (think something like this) but for right now it isn’t in the budget. Plus, I’m kind of hoping that I find one at an antique store; something with a little history.  I would also like to get a new light fixture (I think this is the one!), but for now I just spray painted the one we already had, which I think looks great for the time being. So, what do you think? Do you love it as much as I do? Do you want a shiplap tutorial on how we created this look? Let me know in the comments below!

Budget Breakdown:

  • Paint: $32.98
  • Plywood: 3 @ $18.27 = $54.81
  • Corner pieces: $3.99 + $3.54 = $7.53
  • Vanity: $199.00
  • Shelf Brackets: 2 @ $4.99 = $9.98
  • Pine Board: ~$5.00
  • Top Trim: 3 @ $3.99 = $11.97
  • Mirror: free – already had!
  • Light fixture: free – already had!
  • Black spray paint for the light fixture: $3.89
  • Hooks: 3 @ $5.99 = $17.97 – should have waited until they were on sale!
  • Total: $343.13

3 thoughts on “Bathroom Remodel on a Budget”

  1. Love the shiplap in the bathroom! It makes it look so much better! We have a pedestal sink in our only full bathroom and it’s just garbage- who thought pedestal sinks were a good thing?! I’m in love with that shelf too! Is it just the two black support pieces or anything underneath the shelf? So gorgeous overall! You have great taste! <3

    1. Aww thank you Kayleen! You are so sweet 🙂 When you find the person responsible for pedestal sinks, let you know! For the shelf, the two brackets underneath are the only things holding it up. We screwed them into the studs in the wall and then into the bottom of the board. It is actually very sturdy! Thanks for visiting the blog!

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