Big Bang Master Bath Redo for Notalotta Bucks

Here's the BEFORE pic of our master bath with the redo already under way. I did this last year before cancer sidetracked my plans, but it is still one of the best projects we've done, housewise. And, it was CHEAP. I LIKE cheap.


You can see the new medicine cabinet the Welding Man was building for me and yes, you see ivy stenciling on the cabinet and walls. I loved me some ivy stencils back in the day and I had them in my kitchen, too. But finally I knew the master bath needed a new look even tho, again, I had no room in the budget for such frippery. I had used alot of mirrors in there (badly) to make the room seem bigger but it felt outdated and tired.

But with lots of work, some yummy chocolate brown gloss paint and a whole lot of mirror reworking, we now have this........

I LOVE the new look of my master bath!!

Since the dwarf size budget had no room for new towels I had to come up with a scheme that would go with the 80s/90s oh-so-cool-at-the-time raspberry sherbet colored towels which were still perfectly serviceable, darn it. I knew I wanted to go with a rich, dark color on the vanity and after seeing a few chocolate brown bathrooms in magazines and online I just went for it.

So I picked up a gallon of creamy vanilla for the walls and a quart of deep rich brown, both in a semi gloss finish and soon the ivy stenciling was toast.

The Welding Man built the medicine cabinet to fit a door we already had which featured a pebbled plastic window but hey, it had all its hardware and was perfectly usable and it was the right size for the wall. I had some very cool textured wallpaper left from the kitchen redo and I mod podged it over the plastic then painted it with the wall paint. It actually looks pretty cool! Nice textural interest, too.




I picked up some big float glass mirrors from a local contractor. At $8 apiece these 2' x 4' mirrors were a steal! I found some bullseye corner blocks in the bargain bin at the lumber yard for 2/$1. They had small flaws in the center but I soon fixed those with filler and once painted, you can't tell they were repaired. We framed the mirror out with molding and put those corner blocks in place and voila! Big freakin' framed mirror in my master bath! I painted the molding chocolate brown, of course. We added the painted pine shelf beneath the mirror with some curly metal hangers and I LOVE HOW IT ALL CAME OUT.

The light fixture was a steal at $3 from St. Vincent De Paul's, and when $$$ allows we'll replace it, but for now it's a bargain and it works well with the space. I can live with that.

I also shopped the house and pulled in all the accessories on the high shelf above the medicine cabinet and the new mirror shelf. Almost all the original bathroom mirrors got their frames spray painted brown and Insanely Creative Christy gave me the decorative wood "carving" from an old couch she was junking. Love the intricate, curvy, vintage look! The cutout "etc" is actually from the 70s.

So, here's our old medicine cabinet in it's grungy, outdated wonderfulness.....



...And here's what that corner of the room looks like now......



See the corner block on the mirror? Love the way it turned out! And the vase on the shelf? A clear glass gift which got cracked across one corner. I glued it together and reinforced it with packing tape then took the same textured wallpaper I used for the medicine cabinet and mod podged it to this vase. For the tall flower arrangements I stole eucalyptus and some colorful flowers from other parts of the house, then filled in with twigs, branches and lots of manzanita from our Oregon mountaintop. The red bark and green leaves are PERFECT for this room.

So the costs for this redo break down like so....

Paint total $26
Lumber total $9
Molding $4 (including corner blocks)
Mirror $8
Light fixture $3
Round light bulbs $10

TOTAL ..........$60

You know, I love it when a project looks this good and doesn't cost a lot of money! Don't you? Now if I can find a totally modern light fixture at a really bargain basement price......

Thanks for reading my post. Hopefully I can get going on some more house projects this spring, when I graduate from chemo to radiation. "They tell me" I'll be feeling pretty good by then. Looking forward to that, I am.

I'm going to link up to some blog parties in my sidebar this week, hope to see you there.