Weekend Project: Bathroom Makeover on the Cheap
So. I know in said in a post earlier this week that you don’t need to refurbish your house in order to have guests. And that’s true. I stand by what I said. On the other hand, if you want to do a little sprucing, and you don’t feel overwhelmed by the prospect, then that’s another story. Personally, I’ve been feeling nudged to pay a little bit of attention to our cluttered apartment – the urge to “nest,” some would call it – and so I’ve been doing a little reading, a little purging, a little inventorying, a little thrifting. Since E’s parents are coming this week and will be using our bedroom and bath, I decided to give our mess of a master bath a minimal re-org. It was cluttered and disorganized, and not a pleasant space. I did it all for under $75, and re-purposed several items I wasn’t putting to use elsewhere. I’m going to show you what I did, hoping to encourage you that you can get similar results on a super tight budget.
Here are some before photos. This is a small bookshelf that has been in every room at one time or another. Right now, it’s masquerading as an étagère of sorts. The slim design and shallow shelves make it perfect for a tiny apartment bathroom. However, while it was functional, it was an eyesore.
This is what it looked like under my sink, with tons of boxes and bottles and nothing to organize them:
We received the shower curtain and bathroom rug as a wedding shower gift, but had never gotten towels to coordinate with it, so the linens I was using in here were too much of a contrast. The beige towels belong in the other bathroom, and the stack of bright washcloths and hand towels are from my pre-married life. The shower curtain is a pale gray with screen-printed floral strips in white, from Rachel Ashwell’s Simply Shabby Chic line at Target. It has a soft, vintage feel, and I wanted to carry that throughout the rest of the bath. I let the shower curtain fabric be the inspiration for everything else.
But let’s start with the guts. First, I purged anything that had a past expiration date, and anything I haven’t used in the past year and am unlikely to use in the future. I got two sets of plastic storage drawers, a large one for all the small items that were floating around down there, like soap, travel size toiletries, bottles of hand sanitizer, extra cotton balls, teeth whitening strips, and so on. The smaller set of drawers I used for makeup, which had been living in a Ziploc bag. I also picked up a couple of plastic bins of different sizes, for taller items. I already had one, but it wasn’t enough to hold everything.
Here’s one side of the vanity cupboard afterward:
And here’s the other side:
The white wooden box and front bin I already had. The leftover washcloths I kept for L’s baths. I also picked up a bin for her bath toys, which rests neatly on top of everything else. It’s still a full cupboard, but no longer a shambles, and I made room for the things I want to be able to put out of sight, like hair care products, L’s bath toys, and extra rolls of toilet paper.
Here’s the étagère afterward. I repurposed a wooden planter from JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts that wasn’t in use as a holder for washcloths. The two apothecary jars I picked up to make cotton pads and swabs easily accessible. They’re plastic with metal lids, so I don’t need to worry about L getting her hands on them. The bird tray I already had; it just needed to be unburied so it could be used as a catch-all for earrings and hairpins, and my glasses when I’m not wearing them. The vintage handkerchief acting as a scarf is an Etsy find left over from our wedding, and adds a touch of color but maintains the vintage-y feel. New towels in a slightly darker shade of gray are easy to grab from the bottom shelf. A couple of extra rolls of toilet paper are handy. The bottom cupboard, which used to hold nail polish and remover (and which I had to constantly shoo L away from) now holds feminine products, to keep them within easy reach.
