When I get the itch to update a space, it’s hard to stop me! But while I am a go-get-it-done kind of girl, I’m also a budget-conscious person.
I never want to jump into a project that I’m afraid will break the bank, and I take it as a personal challenge to try to spend as little money as possible updating rooms around our home.
So while I was standing in the main bathroom in our home a couple weeks ago, helping my daughters brush their teeth and get ready for bed, I had a thought.
Paint.
What if I could just use paint to transform the entire room? Would it make a big enough difference to scratch the itch I have to redo the bathroom?
Only one way to find out!
So I started plotting… I mean planning…
I would use a stencil and chalk paint to give the sad, faux stone laminate tile flooring a facelift.
I could simply paint the walls white. (Or so I thought… we ended up doing a DIY board and batten in here instead! More on that later).
And I could spray paint all the fixtures an oil-rubbed bronze color so they’d look nicer and match the rest of the house.
What if I just did those simple things?
Annnnnd switch up the decor just a touch.
Well, that’s exactly what I set out to do!
HOW I UPDATED OUR MAIN BATHROOM USING ONLY PAINT, WOOD & A LITTLE ELBOW GREASE
THE FLOORS
Starting with the floors, I knew what I had to do. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I just needed to choose two colors and a stencil and get to painting!
I decided to go a different color route this time around, and I chose an aged gray chalk paint to use as my base color.
I then would use a snow white chalk paint for the stencil design!
And of course, the stencil I chose was the Felicity Floor Tile by Cutting Edge Stencils!
I got my small roller brush with dense foam rollers, and got to work (after taping up the room of course)! To check out exactly how I stencil my floors and all the products I like use, check out this blog post all about stenciling!
After two coats of my gray chalk paint (which I usually just pour on the floors straight from the can and roll over with my roller brush to evenly coat the floors), I was ready to stencil!
I did let each coat of gray dry for 12-24 hours before jumping into the next step. This process is cheap, but it’s not fast!
Once my gray paint was dry, it was time to start stenciling. I grabbed my stencil and another small roller brush along with my white paint.
Using a small amount of paint and light pressure, I began painting the stencil design on each tile in the bathroom. To keep your stencil still, you can use painters tape to tape it down or do what I do and put your knees on it!
Start in the middle tiles of your floor, and jump around, allowing the paint to dry before overlapping the stencil with it in order to prevent smudges! I find it only take a few minutes for the paint to dry enough for this to work. It helps when you just use a light coat of paint as stated above (this prevents bleeding too).
Once all your center tiles are done, start working on the edges, corners, and tiles around your tub and toilet. Some of these tiles may require that you bend, manipulate, or cut your stencil.
If you feel you might need to do this quite a bit, I recommend purchasing two stencils!
Once you’re finished with all the tiles, go back and use a small paintbrush to touch up any areas that need a little TLC.
Allow the paint to dry for 12-24 hours, then begin sealing your floors with a poly coat! I used this sealant for my bathroom floor. I loved the finish!
Depending on how much water you think will come into contact with your floor, you’ll want to apply quite a few coats of poly. I ended up coating my floor with 5 thick coats of poly to be safe.
After all, you don’t want your floors to chip or wear right away after all that work!
Allow each coat of poly to dry 12-24 hours before applying the next. I simply painted it on with a paintbrush to get a thick layer, then went over it with a roller brush to get rid of any unwanted brush strokes! Easy breezy!
Each coat only takes me about 10 minutes!
Allow your floor to set for 24-48 hours after you apply your final coat of poly before setting any heavy furniture on it!
THE WALLS
Okay, this was supposed to be the easy part! Our plan A was to paint all the walls with a white coat. But as soon as we did that, the room felt a little too sterile.
It needed some warmth… some texture.
That’s when the thought popped into my mind to add some board and batten! But on a budget of course!
So we set out to do just that… we went to Home Depot, got the wood we needed, matched some paint to our baseboards, and rented a nail gun (because wood DIYs were new to us), and got to work.
Little did we know it would become slightly more involved than that! Head here for the whole board and batten process along with all our tips and tricks if you’re trying it for the first time!
Annnnd after that, the walls were still too white! They needed to be warmed up a bit more. So we painted above the board and batten with Loft Space by Behr.
It was the perfect color to keep the room light and bright while adding that warmth it desperately needed.
THE FIXTURES
Our house is full of oil-rubbed bronze except when it comes to the fixtures in our bathrooms. I don’t understand why everything didn’t match the rest of the house, but to each their own!
I was going to change that!
I found this oil-rubbed bronze spray paint and knew it could do the trick.
We removed all the fixtures, and I set them up in a cardboard box.
To get them done in one coat, secure the fixtures to cardboard so they stand up and you can get all angles with ease!
Simply coat them with the spray paint, and let them dry! I went back for a second coat to get into all the nooks and crannies and allowed it to dry for 8-12 hours.
I then sealed it with a clear coat spray to protect the finish!
Once that was dry, we put the fixtures back on and called it a day!
NOW, THE DECORATING
Now for the fun part! Finding the perfect items to finish out the space! We wanted to keep this room feeling kind of feminine because it is our girls’ bathroom, but we also wanted to add in some more neutral and masculine touches because it is the main bathroom in the house.
The first things I looked for were towels, and who other would I turn to than my very favorite Turkish towel company, Olive & Linen?
I found these pretty Serenity towels in white and these Mini Stripes towels in gray. They were perfect!
You can use my code FARMHOUSEISH30 at Olive & Linen to save 30% on your own order!
Then we shopped our home a bit. We already had a white bathmat and shower curtain that would work, so we just switched some things around in other rooms.
Then we needed some stools for the girls. And I just couldn’t help myself when I found these adorable farmhouse-inspired stools from Wayfair! So we got two.
And, because details, I also found a super cute farmhouse trash pail which I couldn’t resist. I know, it’s silly, but so fun!
TO WRAP IT UP
I told you it’s amazing what a little paint, some DIY projects, and some elbow grease can do! It looks and feels like a whole new bathroom.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Leave a Reply