Basement Bathroom Makeover

Take a bathroom from blah to beautiful on a budget!

In case you are new here or just forgot, we moved from Phoenix to Iowa about a year and a half ago.  We love our home, but it was definitely all "real estate beige" when we moved in.  I've been slowly working on adding some character to each area of our new home.

Today I'm going to show you our most recent makeover-- our basement bathroom!  This bathroom is primarily used by my daughter, but it is also available for guests when they are in town or just for friends on playdates and such.  So I wanted to take things up a notch from this basic bathroom:

All we needed was a little paint, new flooring, and a new vanity top to make this bathroom look brand new!

Because I'm on a budget, making major changes to the bathroom was out of the picture.  Tip- paint is fairly inexpensive and completely changes a room!  Plus, it's easy to change down the road if you need to.

I painted the walls my new favorite color: Sherwin Williams Sea Salt.

I used General Finishes Milk Paint in Driftwood to update the vanity.  Then we also installed a new, more modern vanity top.

We picked out some 12x24 adhesive laminate flooring.  It's literally just trim to size, peel, and stick.  Having an updated floor makes a huge difference in how this room looks!

We also replaced the builder's grade mirror with something a little more stylish.  I found this one at HomeGoods for about $20.  Not a bad deal!

I use white towels for my guests since they are easy to bleach and keep clean.   And see that cute sign in the mirror?  I've got a tutorial coming up for it later this week.

Still waiting to find the perfect artwork to hang here over the toilet.  Any suggestions?  I'm looking for something modern farmhouse style....

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Bathroom "Refresh" with Cutting Edge Stencils and GIVEAWAY!

You guys.
Our master bathroom is strange.  I don't know who agreed to this design, but it really is a little bit awkward. The bathroom is adjacent to the master bedroom, but there is no door between them- just a nice wide arched opening.  (Privacy is so overrated!)
Inside the main part of the bathroom,  you'll find an extra wide shower, and across from that, the sink and vanity.
The toilet has its own little closet.  I'm living in 21st century America and I have a water closet.  A W. C.  Who would've thought?  

I have done basically nothing for my little toilet room except put a little cabinet to hold any necessary items you might need while in there.  But, I have been longing to pretty it up for a while now.  So, I took advantage of one of Cutting Edge Stencil's brand new stencils to make this little toilet closet a little nicer.  (Did you see my sneak peek on Instagram?) 
(Because it is this little room with a crappy light, it was really difficult to get decent pictures.  I can't even fit in it far enough back to get a decent shot, so I had to stand outside and lean in.  Everything looks a bit crooked but I promise, it's not. Bear with me please- this is NOT my best photo work.)

When I checked out the new line of stencils, I was instantly drawn to the Little Diamond Allover Stencil.  I don't know why.  I am not usually a geometric person, but I just kept coming back to that one.  So I trusted my gut and ordered it.
This is a perfect stencil for a stencil newbie (which I am)!  I didn't use a roller, though you certainly could.  I just used a few nice stencil brushes, and I used some acrylic paint and chalk paint I already had on hand- simply because it matched the colors I needed.  
I made sure to use a spray adhesive to keep the stencil in place, along with some painter's tape.  Then, I dabbed just the smallest amount of paint on the brush and filled in each diamond.  I did three coats of the blue and two coats of the dark gray. I wasn't sure how it would turn out because the diamonds are a little funky- not exactly even.  But when I pulled off the stencil to move it I was thrilled with how it looked.

The blue is from Plaid's FolkArt line- Baby Blue.  The dark gray is is DecoArt's Americana Chalky Finish paint in Relic.
Now, I needed a little something for the wall.  I wanted a shelf, no! A canvas print. How about a wreath?  Or a framed quote ?  What quote is appropriate for a toilet room? (Let it Go?)
Then inspiration struck. 

 Michael's had this 11x14 frame on clearance for $1.79.  I painted it to match the wall, then stuck it and my painted, distressed mason jar on the wall with some Command Strips.  The flowers are a hydrangea bunch from IKEA I've had for a few years.  Both the frame and the jar are painted with the Americana Chalky Paint from DecoArt.

I have to admit I am in love with this.  It might be my favorite thing in the whole house.  Right now, anyway.

I finished it off with a new basket to hold the TP- Ross for $4.99.  Because, when you have a toilet room, you need a place for extra toilet paper.
I still have plans to replace the awful glass globe light on the ceiling.  But we're well on our way to having a much nicer little toilet closet. After all, we do spend a significant amount of time in there :)

Want to try out a stencil for yourself?  Cutting Edge Stencils can be used for room redos, furniture makeovers, curtains, pillows, craft projects, and more.   Check out their blog for design ideas! They are graciously offering one of you $50 to purchase your own stencil!  Enter to win via the Rafflecopter below.  Make sure to read the terms so you know you qualify.  It's open until Monday August 4th, so get those entries in! Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Three Things Thursday

Three Things I love about Colorado Springs

1. The Scenery- Let's face it, the mountains are gorgeous and close. Whenever we are outdoors we have a spectacular view. Pikes Peak is the most prominent mountain in our area and it often appears to be purple, which is where we get the 'purple mountain's majesty' phrase from America the Beautiful. The clouds roll over the mountains and create fascinating storms and cloud patterns. There's never a dull moment. We love hiking, camping and just being out and about in these great outdoors!
2. Being closer to family- We were stationed in Korea before living here, so even just being in America is closer to family, but being in the West puts us within a day's drive from most people, and a good stopping point when people are on their way to somewhere else. Family is important and we love seeing more of them.
3. Having a home- I know we could accomplish this in any location, but it is our first home! Home ownership has been a lot of work, but very satisfying. I've loved slowly altering the rooms to fit our taste and style. Tuesday was our one year mark in our home, and we are looking forward to our future here. We don't know how long we'll be stationed here, but we plan to rent out the home and come back.

Three Things that drive me crazy about Colorado Springs

1. The layout- We all have things that drive us crazy about our town. The first thing I noticed was how weird some of the road designs and parking lots are. I've been in plenty of cities to know that it is possible to make a usable parking lot, or to have roads that go over train tracks so you don't have to back track a few miles to get to a main road. Lots of things don't connect, names of streets change to a new name, and then back to the old one. It's kind of annoying.
2. The food- After the plentiful amount of amazing ethnic food that was at our disposal in Korea, we've become food snobs. We don't want chili's or applebee's, we want the good local mexican restaurant, the good thai place, even indian food. We have yet to find something that we love. We've visited family and friends in the past year and enjoyed their local cuisine, but still not much here. Kind of a bummer.
3. Our ward boundaries- The LDS church sets boundaries in a city so you know which congregation you are a part of and to help keep some wards from being tiny and others being huge. Well, our boundaries include the whole of Ft. Carson, and a skinny West-East line of homes. Well, we don't live on post and live closer to two other church buildings than the one we are assigned to. There are folks in our ward who can see the church building and have to drive clear east to the Broadmoor area to attend church. Our ward uses that building, but the building is not even in our stake. It takes 15-20 minutes to get to. We've driven that far for church, but not when passing two other churches.... kind of a pain. Love the people in our ward, but hate driving that far, especially in winter.

Well now you know a little more about where I live! I should also mention that the Hobby Lobby is like 20 minutes north of my home too, lol! :)

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Bathroom Redo

Painting the kitchen got us in a painting mood. I was inspired by a blog post at Show and Tell to convert our boring sheet mirror in the bathroom into something a little more classy by adding molding as a frame. We had some mis-steps along the way, but eventually it turned out great. Well, then we decided we really liked the black in the bathroom, and since we didn't want to replace the cabinets, we simply painted them black. We also painted our clock and added a new light fixture over the mirror.
Here's the before: (ignore the pajama-clad photographer)

Here's the after:

I love my bathroom!  And, since this is UCreate's project of the month, I am sending the link there.  Perfect timing!

Time for an update

This picture was taken in 2004.  Since then, we have gotten new tile, a new stove, and a different table.  Otherwise, it looked exactly the same.
Well, we randomly decided to do a little painting.  We're not too brave, so we're taking it one step at a time.  For now our kitchen looks like this:

I know it's not a huge change.  A little paint, a little more decor- but I think it just looks more "homey" and it really ties in the colors from the living room part of the great room.

It's fun to beautify.  We're not really able to do major renovation, nor do we want to since this isn't the house we plan on staying in forever, but a little attention to a room can make a big difference.  Thanks for looking, and don't tell me if you hate it. :)