My mini bathroom reno

When you own a house, there is always something to be done. Unfortunately, our budgets don’t always allow for the projects we want to complete.

That is what happened with our bathroom. Ever since we moved in three years ago, I wanted to redo our upstairs bathroom. At that point I just wanted to paint it, but other rooms came first. Which was totally fine, until the first time I tried to have a nice relaxing bath in the tub. It was relaxing all right, until I went downstairs and found water streaming out of the ceiling fan in the kitchen… I went from feeling super relaxed to super stressed. We thought maybe it was because it was a walk-out tub. You know what I mean, right? The ones where you can take the side right off. So I thought I would try one more time after we added some new sealant to the door. Same thing happened.

Well great, one of my most favourite relaxing things to do and I could not even do it in the comfort of my home. I went to my partner and told him we needed to fix this ASAP. I needed my bathtub. Luckily it didn’t leak when just the shower was being used, especially since this is our main bathroom. So I tried to go the cheaper route and called Bath Fitters. Easy peasy. Except they do not work with walk-out tubs. Gee, thanks. So we called in a plumber, and they immediately started talking about how we would have to gut the bathroom to get the tub out. All we heard was $$$$$$$$$. Gutting the bathroom was not in the budget, so I just dealt with not having a tub.

Fast forward 3 years later and the original light fixture finally burnt out. It was a fluorescent tube light, so it was HORRIBLE. Who wants to walk into a fluorescent lit room at three in the morning when they have to pee? Plus, we never look nice in that lighting. Paired with an old mirrored medicine cabinet, it was looking really dated. So, it was time. I decided I was going to do a small budget reno to tide us (ok me) over until we could afford a full reno. I made the decision that I was going to change all of the fixtures and paint the walls.

I thought I wanted to keep the walls white and add gold accents, but that did not really go with the aesthetic of the rest of our house, and I was trying to get away from the stark feeling the current design had. So I decided to use colour. I had immediately fell in love with Sherwin William’s colour of the year, Redend Point, and had been trying to find a project to use it on. It was perfect! I paired it with one of their whites, Alabaster, on the existing beaded wainscotting. It is a much warmer toned white than what was in there before. I had this paint left over from painting my studio, so no waste!

I then decided I wanted to do black fixtures. I love the look of a matte black. I wanted a bit more of a modern look, and black never goes out of style. Now, fixtures can get expensive, but you can still find them on a lower budget. I got mine from Winners and Homesense. This is where I bought the towel rods (hand and bath), the toilet paper holder, shower curtain rod, and a robe hook. I think I paid around $75 plus tax. Not bad, right? And they look great!

After looking around for a bit locally, I ended up getting the mirror and vanity light from Amazon. I am actually super impressed with their light fixtures. I bought the one in my studio from there too. I tried buying the Circa mirror from Structube, but it was too big for the wall. I ended up getting a 24 inch black round mirror and I am super pleased with the quality. It fits the space perfectly. I also found a 2 light black vanity light on Amazon too, and got that installed by a cousin who is an electrician apprentice.

The last few things I needed were a shower curtain, soap dispenser and a new shelf to replace the old glass one. The shower curtain came from Homesense, and the soap dispenser set, the Gansjon and a new small black shelf, the Lillasjon shelf, from IKEA. I also needed a bit of extra storage so I found a skinny shelving unit that fit perfectly between the sink and toilet. The Vesken from IKEA did just the trick! We also have an old pedestal sink, so I added a faux plant in front of it to hide the visible pipes. I added a live hanging plant and cute bathmat and voila! The perfect mini reno.