Bathroom renovation reveal

Today is THE day! I am sharing my Bathroom renovation reveal and I am so excited!

This bathroom renovation has been a lonnnggg time coming. I started working on it at the end of summer, last summer. Yes, it took me that long to finally finish up everything and get it shared here. In case you forgot, this renovation was brought on because of a mysterious puddle of water that always collected around the toilet. You can read the details here. Since this is the main bathroom in our home, the one my kids use I assumed (like any Mom would) that my boys had an aim issue. But, after a good cleaning up in the morning while the kids were at school and then me noticing that afternoon the same puddle was there I realized it was a bigger problem. Long story wayyy short… we had water leaking, a broken flange. Needed a new sub floor, new flooring and then we broke the counter top attempting to move the vanity so we could check under it for water damage. Whew… a lot of unexpected issues and cost hit us hard. But we rallied and I of course added some unnecessary pretty additions like paint and shiplap to settle into this calming and gorgeous bathroom!

Here is the before, this bathroom has been on one heck of a journey over the years!

When we first purchased the home we left things as-is for a while. I was having babies and did not even notice wall colors for a few years. Eventually, I am thinking somewhere around the potty training phase of life when I spent a lot of time in the bathroom with my little ones I decided to paint the bathroom wall and vanity. With no window in the room I wanted to brighten it up, which meant yellow. Right? I did not think this through and get paint samples, always try out the paint before you commit to a color! I ended up with a lovely pee bright yellow. Which I dealt with for a few more years, because again… kids. I of course had plans for a big overhaul eventually but figured I would deal with it for a while.

Then we left our dogs in the bathroom while we were going to be gone all day. Finn, our lab/hound mix was still puppy-ish and needed to stay in a crate when we left. With plans for us to be gone for almost an entire day I felt it would be nicer for them to be in the bathroom with their dog beds, water bowl and toys to easily move around. But away from pillows and sofas that he could chew on. Then we came home to this, he had graduated to chewing walls.

Don’t let their cuteness fool you, they are professional wall destroyers. So with some extensive wall repair needed I decided to paint the walls a color more inviting and less pee-like.

This bathroom was a simple and quick refresh, some paint on the wall, a new mirror and that was it. I still kept it really low maintenance, because the massive bathroom renovation was in plan for the future, I did not want to do too much at this point.

Are you following along? Does it make sense how I have had three different bathrooms? One was a badly executed paint refresh, one was dog damage refresh and this last one was done due to water damage from the toilet. Have I gotten my big bathroom renovation? No, unfortunately this is real life and when the water damage was discovered, completely overhauling the bathroom was out of our scope of time and money. I do want to remove the drop-in shower and replace with a soaker tub and tile shower eventually. So technically this space has one more renovation to go before I call it done. The flooring, wall and shiplap will stay as-is for the final stretch of this bathroom. I love it way too much to change.

One aspect of this bathroom renovation that made me get really excited was this cement tile! I stumbled upon it when we were just in the planning stages of this bathroom saga. We knew there was water damage and needed new flooring. I fell in love with this tile! Dale was worried it was a little too busy and gray, which it is. I assured him I could pull it all together to make the patterned style still feel calming in the bathroom.

With the gray tile this started a small domino effect, the gray vanity had to go. I would love to have been able to replace this but this was all unexpected cost so I did this bathroom renovation on as small of a budget as possible. You all know my love all of things blue and when I knew the vanity would not work as gray anymore I instantly wanted to go with a light blue vanity color with clean and simple hardware. I went with Dutch Boy, Aqua whisper paint with a gloss finish. This was a cabinet, door and trim paint and primer combo. The paint color is fresh, bright but not too much of a good thing. With the room bring closed off and dark I did not want the blue color to overtake the space.

A few other updates to this bathroom had to happen. When we were removing the vanity to check the sub floor for water damage we cracked the counter top. Which meant a new counter top was needed. This porcelain vanity counter top and sink combo I found on clearance for only $80!! It was exactly the size needed to sit over the bathroom vanity. Yes, this was a decorators dream come true, it was meant to be in my bathroom.

I love the clean lines and simplicity of the sink and counter top with the blue contrast of the bathroom vanity. To me it all felt like everything was falling into place. I was making decisions on the fly, literally picking out things in the hardware store. Once we knew only a portion of the sub floor needed to be replaced and nothing else had water damage I knew that the surprise costs were done.

Then I added to it with this beautiful shiplap! This is a engineered wood plank with a slight gray color to the wood. They come beveled and you simply lock them into place. I will be sharing the tutorials for this shiplap wall soon.

I felt that with all of the cooler toned colors in here the wood texture would warm up the bathroom nicely.

Guys, seriously this flooring is so beautiful, the pictures do not do it justice at all. The one huge benefit to this particular tile pattern is that there is small imperfections in it. Some tile has marks on it, some of them or more gray than others. This is the bathroom in our hallway, the ones guests and my kids use. Which means this gets a lot of foot traffic, dirt, shower messes and so much more on it. I do not have time to scrub the floors daily so this pattern hides some of those messes until I get to them.

One other big change you will notice is the wall color. I loved the bright turquoise on the walls before, but felt that with the floor tile having such a bold pattern the walls needed to be more subtle. A fresh white seemed like the best option. This is honestly the first time I have ever painted a wall white. When we purchased our home all of the walls were white, so it was weird to go back to a white wall color. It was also quite time consuming, I needed to paint about 4 coats of white (with primer) to get the former blue color covered up.

All of the bathroom decor in here I already had in my home. The vanity mirror is from before in this bathroom. Nothing fancy is needed to spruce up a bathroom.

I did add some octopus hooks for towels to be hung, one by the shower and two behind the bathroom door for my kids bathrobes to be. The large octopus wall art has been in our home for years now, it gets moved around from room to room. This feels like the forever home for good ‘ole Ollie the Octopus. With the bathroom being closed off and small-ish having one large piece of art instead of a few smaller pieces actually gives the scope of the space a little more room. It makes the room feel bigger.

This is the second little bit of shiplap in my home. I have navy blue shiplap above my fireplace. My home does not have the style to pull off full on rustic or farmhouse. But the colors of the wood planks give this a rustic and modern feel, all while giving the space some much needed warmth. I have heard some say that the farmhouse or shiplap craze is overdone, but I adore a good wood feature wall and I say shiplap it up!

Oh, opinion time. We are in the middle of our kitchen remodel and I am debating cabinet color. One of the big time contenders is this same cabinet color that is in the bathroom. What do you think? Could this cabinet color work in my new kitchen?

I would love to say that this Bathroom renovation reveal will be my last update for this space, but I would be lying. The drop in shower and bathtub will be replaced. I have dreams for a big soaker tub. I also want to do a few more smaller changes in here, one of them being the light fixture. I scoured the internet and stores trying to find a new light fixture but came up short, unless I wanted to spend thousands of dollars. So I am still on the hunt for the perfect light in here.

Home improvement projects are hard and take time. They are especially difficult when it is unplanned. I felt at times like I was throwing things together and hoping it all worked out. I think I ended up with a beautiful bathroom that does work together cohesively with all of the finishes. The combined cost for this bathroom renovation was around $380, that includes replacing the sub floor for part of the bathroom. I got extremely lucky with finding the counter top on clearance and the tiles were also marked down significantly.

When doing a remodel taking the time to plan things out is always ideal. You can shop around for the best deals, plan for costs, save money and really fine tune the design. Jumping in headfirst like this is challenging, but always check stores for clearance items, things marked down or even slightly damaged. That can really cut costs a lot, and with unplanned renovations like this keeping that cost as low as possible is a must! Doing the work myself also cuts cost down a ton. Had we had mold the option of DIYing it would have been put on hold while that got taken care of my professionals. The water damage we had was only surface, just moist plywood flooring. So this entire bathroom was done on our own. I will be rolling out all of the projects and tutorials featured in this bathroom.

I am in love with this Bathroom renovation reveal! Once the rush of this bathroom being out of commission was done, once it became functional, finishing the bathroom went at a slower pace. Which seems to be any project we tackle. We have three kids, wonderful friends and family we want to all enjoy. Along with jobs, laundry, cooking and so much more. Sometimes things like painting the bathroom vanity take a backseat. Which is fine, the end result does happen, and this bathroom has exactly the calming, fun, and coastal feel to it that the rest of my home has. Yes, I have fully committed to the gray and blue color scheme and I am running with it. Now, onto the kitchen!