Hall Bathroom Surprise

I had considered doing a post showing “before” pictures of all the rooms….but I’ve decided to just showcase each room one at a time as we do some work in them. 🙂 That said, here is the Hall Bathroom BEFORE!

Hall Bath Before (Listing Photo)

Let me preface this by saying…we have a binder where we have pictures, to-do lists, and price lists of projects for the house and at the front of the binder is a simple one year calendar outlining what projects we plan to do this year and when. We only filled in that calendar through June, knowing that things will need to be shuffled, pushed back, moved forward, or may take more (or less) time than we anticipate. The Hall Bath wasn’t on the calendar yet because it was something we thought we might start to tackle towards the second half of this year. However, a piece of the sink piping broke and water covered the (heavily cracked) tile floor and flooded the (older) pressed wood vanity. It was obvious that this wasn’t the first time that the vanity had been flooded, so we had been planning on replacing it since we moved in. We decided some things in the bathroom needed replaced immediately, others needed a temporary fix, and still others would have to wait until later. We’re calling this Phase One of the Hall Bathroom Renovation. 🙂

In an attempt to make a $2 update to the bathroom in the meantime (before the surprise flood), I started to cover the counter with wood grain contact paper. I did this in our old house in the kitchen and the result was perfect. However, our three year old showed us how easy it was for him to stand in the bathroom and remove the vinyl….so I stopped knowing it was going to wind up all over the floor.

When we removed the countertop and sink, we found wallpaper that I keep referring to as “the yellow rose of Texas.” Once the vanity was gone and the wallpaper removed, it was obvious that we’d need to paint if the vanity we installed wasn’t exactly the same size (spoiler: it’s not haha!).

We found this small vanity (unfinished) with a sink included at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for under $100. Using stain leftover from refinishing our hardwood floors, we have this guy a pretty Provincal color and coated it in clear polyurethane.

We didn’t have the original paint from the bathroom, and really wanted to try a lighter color. When we moved into the house and shopped for paint, We discovered the mis-tint rack of paint at Lowe’s and picked up a gallon of a shade of light grey for $9! (Lowe’s was also running a rebate promotion on that particular line of paint and later sent me a $10 Lowe’s gift card…free paint!)

You can see lines where the texture the previous owners had applied to the walls ended and the wallpaper behind he vanity began….but Phase Two will likely involve subway tiles to fix that 😁. Isn’t the light grey so pretty, clean, open, and just overall nice looking?

A friend of ours from church had some vinyl flooring he didn’t need and it was the perfect size for our bathroom! Eventually we will tile the floor, but since we aren’t exactly sure what we want in there, vinyl was the perfect solution to hold us over.

After ordering an adorable outdoor water pump inspired faucet that was too big, we made a trip to Lowe’s for a smaller faucet (which wound up being the same style as the previous faucet….minus the fact that the previous one was basically glued to the sink and not moving and that the precious one didn’t work quite right) and installed a pop up drain in the sink. We also went to Target to return some things….and you know what happens when you walk into Target. You walk out with 10 things you hadn’t planned on buying….including a nice new mirror on clearance, and a wall ladder on clearance…and baskets to organize towels on clearance…. Needless to say, after removing the big mirror that was likely installed when the house was built, more paint was needed. 🙂

There are still some other projects left for this room, including a shelf next to the sink to hold those cute mint Dollar Tree baskets, and the eventual replacement of the tub with a pedestal or claw foot tub….and replace the toilet with one to match the sink (and eventual tub). In the meantime, I love the new look! By replacing the vanity with a smaller one and painting the room several shades lighter, the room feels twice as big! (Which is important when two toddler/preschool boys hear bath water running and barge in ready to take a bath!)

The mirror isn't available anymore, but here is a similar one with a wide wooden-look edge on Amazon.