We’re planning to re-do our bathroom soon. I’m using that term “re-do” rather loosely. We “re-did” our bathroom 13 years ago prior to our daughter’s baptism. We had family coming into town for the celebration and while our newborn and 2-year-old napped, we painted every surface in the bathroom – including the original Marmoleum floor. Our house was built in 1914 and it was probably the original flooring. Our thought was to freshen up the bathroom temporarily.
And, so here we are, shortly after our temporary (hah!) fix looking at paint chips and floor tiles. I’ve been carrying around our library book return basket all about town today filled with what is my inspiration.
Finding Inspiration for a Bathroom Re-Do
So what’s in my basket? A very fashionable cloth napkin I found at “The Bins” that I love. It’s filled with pretty, vibrant colors. I always start a re-do or decorating project with fabric. It gives me a place to start and pull colors from. A rug that I found at “The Bins” on a different trip. No rubber backing on it and easily to clean in the washing machine. It also doesn’t take long to dry while hanging. Total cost for both items: $3.00.
This is the direction we were going. Blue and beige Marmoleum floor tiles, green walls. Same towels…
Until we both agreed the floor tiles (which will be a check pattern – otherwise known as GINGHAM) weren’t all that interesting. So that’s when we took the basket filled with inspiration and went back to the flooring store and the paint store. And came up with these very fun colors!
The colors also go with our towels that we’ll still be using. The towels have lasted for 15 years and are made by my former employer. They’ve worn really well over the years.
We’re still debating the paint colors but leaning this way which is creamy, dreamy to tone down the floor colors a bit. Our bathroom is not that big.
You’ll have to wait for pictures of these but I also have…
A new sink.
Found in the reject pile of a yard sale. Thankfully, my husband and I were on a “date” and he had driven so we were able to put the sink in his car together, since it takes two people to move the sink and pedestal. It’s very big and I think our faucet will fit on it. New sink total cost: free.
A new door for our laundry chute.
The previous owners cut a hole in the floor of our main floor bathroom and the laundry drops into a laundry cart in the basement. Handy and clever. The new door is from The ReBuilding Center and must have come from a medical office building. It looks just like the stainless steel door you might place a sample in if you were at the doctor’s office. Laundry chute door total cost: $5.00.
Doing the work ourselves will save lots of money on this project. We’re also adding insulation to the walls and a ceiling fan, neither of which we currently have in our bathroom. The claw foot tub and toilet will both be re-used. I’m pretty handy with the power tools and I love a DIY project. Sadly, I don’t think the sledge-hammer will be used. There’s nothing like taking walls down with a sledge-hammer and wrecking bar. Here’s my first major plumbing project (circa 1991). Just look at that plumber’s smile!
How did 13 years go by so quickly? I honestly don’t know.
Where do you find inspiration for a re-do or decorating project? Are you a DIY person?
Go Gingham 
Looks like a job for the Fein Multimaster . . .can’t help you with the colors though.
(I’ve got a similar project queued up for start of the year)
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Jason, we may need to borrow that tool from you. Mr. Honey-Do-List just said he’d take it! Thanks for leaving a comment!
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We “re-did” our bathroom a year ago and it was a similar project to yours: new floor and paint but same tub, toilet, sink ….. and tile on the wall! As the tile was in good shape we saw no reason to rip it out and really make a mess (had I known you loved the sledgehammer so I probably would have hired you!). There is a rather sky-blue accent piece in the tile so our so called color inspiration came from there. I found a shower curtain on sale at Target (oh yeah, added a shower as the claw foot tub was sans shower) that had the same blue as well as a green and yellow ~ thus the top portion of our walls are yellow (only took 2 tries at the paint to get the color we wanted). We probably had more hired help than you will employ: someone to put in the Marmoleum, install new base boards and add a new lid (contractor lingo for putting up another layer of drywall on the ceiling!) but it was money well spent. I did the painting and Karl installed the new shower and we have loved our “new” bathroom for the last year. Can’t wait to see your after pictures!
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The sledge-hammer is a great way to get out any pent-up parenting issues that may occur during the teenage years! It does make quite a mess. We’re doing the tile Marmoleum so that we don’t have to hire anyone. I think the one-piece business is beyond our capabilities. Your bathroom turned out lovely, too, by the way!
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