Bathroom makeover

Goodbye old bathroom and hello new happy bathroom!

The before pics are pretty embarrassing if I may say so myself.  In my defense, the topiaries were painted by the previous owner of our house.  Surprisingly, what sold us originally was the excellent taste throughout the rest of the house. Like us all, the previous owner must of had an off day when deciding to paint topiaries on the walls.  Needless to say, they had to go.  I remember my husband saying that we would deal with them when we moved in, but instead I lived with them for several years before we finally decided on this bathroom makeover.  Let me clarify, by stating that it's a partial bathroom makeover. I state this only because the toilet and shower/tub (not shown in pics, but located to the left) were left untouched and really are up to date.

To make this remodel affordable, we were able to re-purpose our dresser for the vanity.  I had inherited another dresser from my Aunt, which kept our total cost for the remodel around $570.00.  The bulk of the cost came from the faucets and sinks.  Everything was purchased at Home Depot and Lowe's.  Here's a brief explanation of how we remodeled our bathroom.  But first, let me give you a close up of the infamous topiary paintings...

Yowsa!

We got things started with my son's favorite part of the remodel - the demolition phase.  

Next, we painted the bathroom.  At first we painted the walls an ugly greenish yellow color, which looked like urine after you've had your morning vitamins.  I blame my poor color choice on the fact that I'm a sucker for color names.  The name was something like Morning Songbird and I do love them birds!  Anywho, we painted over that color with pure white, which brightened up the dim space.

As the paint dried, we worked on the dresser.  

My husband converted the dresser into a vanity by doing a little re-engineering. First off, he had to take the back off to make room for the piping.

  

Next, by making room for the piping in the back, we had to take away some of the original support structure. Therefore, we added the angle joists to make it structurally sound. 

Access to the piping was another thing we had to figure out. So, we took off the original top row drawer faces and then re-attached them to the dresser frame with hinges. 

To protect the finish of the re-purposed vanity top, we sealed it with a light coat water seal prior to attaching the sinks.

I should mention that before we placed the vanity in the bathroom, we added wainscoting to the walls. I don't have any pics of the wainscoting before we added the vanity, but here's a decent pic showing the wainscoting in the bathroom...

It took us about 3 days to complete the project, because we ran into some plumbing issues.  Also, we had originally purchased white porcelain counter top sinks, but we soon discovered after installing them that the overflow catch function created an small gap in the seal.  My goodness can water find a hole anywhere!...The overflow catch.... something to consider when purchasing a sink.

Cheers!

Jamie