I know that I’ve mentioned a few times that Shane and I (and especially his mom) have been working to get our house ready to go on the market. I thought it might be fun to recap one of the projects that has been under constructions for quite some time while I am traveling to London.
When Shane and I first started dating, this is what the bathroom looked like. It was yellow, had green plaid linoleum flooring, old fixtures, and just felt a little dingy and dated.
The white cabinetry clearly hadn’t received any TLC from the previous owners and instead of looking clean and fresh, just looked tired.
In this picture you can see the old fixtures, dirty cabinets, yellow walls, horrible flooring, and rubber baseboards that reminded us of elementary school classrooms.
The sinks had also seen better days and the faucet fixtures needed more than just a thorough cleaning (believe me, we tried!).
Other than just painting, this was one of our first big projects that we tackled together. We have been dreaming of Tahiti ever since we started dating so we decided to make this the motivation for the bathroom. I’m usually more of a fan of the neutrals for paint color but since at the time we were planning to stay in the house for a while, we decided to go a little crazy and make our own ocean oasis.
Looking back on it, the wall color may have been a bold choice but it was a huge improvement from before so we were pretty happy. We found a shower curtain that matched our theme and we changed out the flooring as well.
We got a few accessories that matched the richness of the shower curtain to keep the flow throughout the room.
Overall, we were pretty happy with the more cohesive look and freshness. (We also changed out the faucet fixtures with some more modern choices.) Embarrassingly enough, we always planned to replace the baseboards but never got around to it so it definitely looked a little construction site-ish at the floor level.
When we decided that we were going to move, we knew that the bathroom would have to be “neutralized” for prospective buyers. Shane’s mom is mainly responsible for this stage of the project. She and Shane picked out this blueish, gray paint color that really combined with all the white touches to make the bathroom feel so bright and airy.
She also finished the job that Shane and I never got around to and put up the baseboards which obviously finishes the room and keeps that bright, clean feeling going from top to bottom.
We left the cabinets in the brown color because 1) we had lots of other projects to tackle and 2) they really looked richer in the brown than they ever did in that dingy white.
Once I saw the paint color on the walls, I knew that my old shower curtain from my Denver apartment would be the perfect touch (I knew that I was saving it for something!). Now I actually like being in our bathroom instead of just looking around at all of the little problems that were bothering me. Hopefully prospective buyers will appreciate the updates and scoop the house up!
I’m not sure exactly how much this bathroom remodel cost us since it was done in stages but here are my best estimates:
- 2 containers of wall paint (first the green and then the blue/gray) – $60 (based on Home Depot website)
- 1 small container of cabinet paint – $15
- New faucets – $30-40 (I don’t really remember to be honest but I know that it was less than $100 for both, I think it might have been closer to $60-80 total)
- New flooring – $40-50 (Again, that’s one that I don’t remember. We bought two boxes and I think they were about $20 each, but we ended up only using about 1/2 of the 2nd box)
- Baseboards – $20 (we originally bought $40 worth but were able to return the extra)
- Shower curtain – $5 (for the first one I had a gift card and for the second one, I already owned it)
- Labor – Free!
Total = ~$210
Obviously we could have spent quite a bit more by replacing the countertops and sink bowls, but we are very happy with the results and the pretty small budget. A huge thanks to Liz (Shane’s mom) because I’m not sure if this would have ever gotten completed! While I usually enjoy doing projects around the house or with furniture, I have a feeling in our new house that I’ll be sticking to just painting for a little while 
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Question:
Have you ever done any major home renovations?
Have you ever bought and/or sold a house?
