Half Bathroom Makeover

Just moving into a new home and doing nothing would make me so twitchy.  I need to put my stamp on things as soon as possible, even if the change is minimal, unfinished, and at the expense of a plan.  I like a fresh canvas.  The powder room is slated for a full gut job when the laundry room and kitchen see their Phase II renovations but until then, like the kitchen and laundry room, I had to give it a little facelift.

Behold...the oak-less, duck-less space:

Here's a reminder of the "before":

I'm the first to admit it's a pretty unremarkable makeover - it just sort of happened, despite my having a million neat ideas.  (Do you have any rooms like that?)  Still, it just feels so much better!  Newer, fresher, cleaner, and brighter.

I painted the walls, ceiling, trim, and door white when the rest of the house was painted.  When the main bathroom got it's makeover, I used leftover supplies to paint the oak cabinetry grey, the dated 90s tile cream, and the gold light fixtures and hardware matte black - thanks to my friends at Rust-Oleum.  A matching towel ring courtesy of Plumber's Surplus replaced the old towel bar and glass shelf (not pictured).  Hubby's Grandpa's bold green painting, hung in a fit of "all of our favorite art will get damaged if we don't hang it right this second!!" makes a great statement.  In the adjacent laundry room there are two more of his paintings so it feels planned.  The other two prints in the washroom are from Hungary.



Because I don't have a floor plan for the house, this photo might help a bit.  The powder room is just beyond the laundry room.

Since initially updating the powder room, I've thought about going bolder - maybe hanging my silhouettes en masse? They would have so much more impact in a small space.  Turquoise stripes on the wall?  A bright green ceiling?  Because it's immediately beyond the turquoise adorned laundry room and the bold turquoise kitchen, I think guests might like some respite from the bold choices to collect their thoughts in the more neutral powder room.

While I ponder, I'm turning my attention back to other projects.  We need bedroom curtains and closet doors.  The office is demanding to be more than a glorified storage room.  The Etsy shop is currently a maze of boxes.  Plus I have gallons upon gallons of exterior paint and deck stain taking up real estate in the garage.  I also have a hankering for a really do-able, afternoon-type project.

So I'm especially happy I gave this space a little love when I had the chance, even if it's kind of humble.

Budget-Friendly Half Bath Makeover with Aqua Walls

The main floor half bath has gone through a few subtle transformations already, but it needed a few more touches to make it ready for sale.  When we bought the house, this is the powder room that greeted us:

Yikes.

If you remember, first I removed the blue wallpaper with gusto, then the room was painted a soft greige to help the existing elements (70s beige counter, bisque toilet and sink) blend in.  A new light fixture helped modernize the space.  Then we ran out of money.  To save a buck, I snagged the 1970s hardware from the en-suite powder room (that was fully renovated), and applied a little leftover black spray paint.  Apologies for the horrendous photo - it was taken pre-blog (with a 2.0 megapixel potato apparently)!

We obviously kept the toilet (it's made in Canada, I couldn't toss it!), tile (because it runs through the adjacent halls as well) and vanity (good condition, plus the tile runs up to but not under it, so we left it in place and painted it to match the walls).  With all this un-jazzed stuff, we needed something to jazz up the space.  A simple mirror was a practical change.  Next we upgraded the counter with the same grey laminate we have in the kitchen, and added a chic black faucet (see here for similar).  The glass vessel sink (see here for similar), the jewel of the room, has been a hit with everyone.

A new towel bar from Target added some storage (this one is kind of similar), and art is always a good solution for making a space seem fresh.  After these changes, we had the half bath you recognize from other posts:

Although it looked better than before, despite a good wall-washing some of the wallpaper paste lingered and showed through the paint in streaks.  I thought potential home buyers might think this is water damage, so I added "painting the bathroom" to our list of urgent projects.  I taped everything off, taking special care to wrap the glass sink with a blanket in case anything was dropped on it.  Then I primed the trouble areas with a stain-blocking primer. 

Enter Dad, painter-extraordinaire (despite being colour-blind) and now the room is a soft turquoise (CIL Tropical Paradise, from Canadian Tire).  Although a bit brighter and much more intensely aqua than I originally intended (I was hoping for something like this), the turquoise paint makes the space seem airier, fresher and newer.  It also complements the green glass sink nicely.  I wanted to add more white (like a big white picture frame with a colourful photo from Hungary blown up) but anything white in here turns green from the reflection.  A black-framed print (the original, which I feel privileged to have seen, is by Tamara de Lempicka) works in a pinch and ties in the emerald green from the vintage kitchen posters and dining room painting. 

It's super hard to photograph this little windowless room, but it looks so gorgeous in the photographs taken by the photographer for our MLS listing:

Let's take a look at the before once again.  If not for pictures, I would barely remember what the house looked like when we bought it.

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