The Great Bathroom "Makeover" of 2013

This is our house. 

Home Sweet Home

A sweet little 1970s tri-level. It's not perfect. Therefore, the minute we got the keys in our hand (May 28th, 2013) we decided on all the ways we would change it. As my dad says, "we bought a house we loved so we could change everything about it."

And so here we go. 

I'm crafty by nature, so of course I'm pretty handy with a paint brush. I also tend to annoy my husband with the ridiculous amount of ideas I have clunking around in my brain. In the end, he always loves it (or so he says). Too bad. 

My first great idea was to "re-do" our upstairs bathroom. We don't have a ton of money so I can't afford to renovate (but it's in the cards someday). So I decided it needed a "makeover." 

The Post Before Pic
(because I failed to take an actual before picture)

Imagine that the wood paneling on the bottom of the wall is the same color as the vanity. It was 1970s country. I don't even know if that's a genre. The walls were also a pale sky blue. Ick. Like I said, money is tight, so right now I'm making things work. So I whitewashed the wood paneling, painted the walls a peacock teal and hoped for a spa feel.

This is the gold hardware. Pretty right???
 I decided to just try to spray paint them. And so far so good!

All the knobs and towel racks.
Also the rings to the light plate. 

Bases to the towel racks and
vanity handles. 

My husband, the loving kind man that he is, helped me get down all the doors, drawers, and cabinets. Again, the wood color just brought the whole room down. It's also just basic cabinetry, so sanding and refinishing wasn't really an option. I'd read on multiple websites that I could possibly get a reliable finish by using a good quality primer. Soo…..off to the hardware store I went, finding the best primer I could as well as white paint. I cleaned all the surfaces and went to work, using a foam roller to get rid of brush marks. 

Mirrored Cabinet (sans mirrors and lights)

The Vanity "Before"

Wall Cabinet

 My living room was in shambles! Old sheets laid out on top of plastic to save my beautiful new rug (one of the only things purchased new for the house).

My "Workspace"

My Tower of Drawers (it was actually easy to paint them this way!)

I also spread out into the basement. There were bathroom pieces all over the house. Every level. You could barely walk.


But then, when the painting was complete, it started to look like I'd made good choices. One coat primer, two coats of white paint and to protect it all, I sealed it with a matte coat of water based polyurethane.

Ignore my under the sink mess. 

You have one too.

Be kind.  

Here you can see the hardware. It looks pretty good, and is holding up so far. They don't get used a lot (mostly for "pretty" towels). However, the knobs and handles on the vanity get used all the time and are doing great. 

Here you can see the final product of the vanity. We didn't replace the sink, but the multiple shades of white and ivory seems to work together (or so I tell myself).

And here is an overall picture of the final product. I'm so happy with how it turned out. This is prior to hanging the wall cabinets and basic styling as well. In my next post, I'll show you the real final product. It's so spa-like and it works for now. Clean, fresh paint works miracles!


See you next time!

Deborah