Bare naked walls– ick!

After eight years of white apartment walls, I refused to live with them once I bought a place.  I’ve decided that the reason we use realtors is that they negotiate for us; mine managed to convince the sellers of my condo to pay to paint the living area and two of the bedrooms!

That left one bedroom and two baths that were boring beige.  After two years, I finally turned my attention to decorating one of the bathrooms. It was typical developer-inspired beige walls and cheap chrome fixtures. (Here’s the  “before” video of the room.)

I bought a shower curtain rod right away and received the shower curtain as a gift. Those couldn’t wait. Then I needed to replace the light fixture because the lighting was bad. But it took awhile to redecorate the rest of the room.

I searched for bathroom accessories/fixtures that I like. I settled on Moen’s Lounge series in brushed nickel (chrome would have been cheaper but I really dislike chrome). This series has a few different towel rack styles, a towel ring, a toilet paper holder, and a shelf. For the towel rack, I chose the longer double rack as it would maximize space; I was afraid it would stick out too far, but it doesn’t.

Then I had to install the fixtures and patch the holes from the old fixtures.

The final step was painting the walls. I love the blue (Glidden Stormy Midnight), but it would have been too dark if applied on all the walls. I chose grey for the main walls (Glidden Pebble Grey). I’ve never painted walls before, so my tip is: USE A DROP CLOTH! Luckily, paint drips come off marble easily, but if it had been a different material, I could have had some serious cleanup issues. Paint tape might have made trimming easier, but I ended up using an artist’s paintbrush for touch ups, so I think I did a decent job.

(Here is the “after” video of the bathroom.)

Now, why is this a Thriftista blog?   Because I tried to decorate on the cheap.  Here is a table showing what things cost compared to what I spent:

If I’d managed to do this under $100, I would have been really proud, but I am content with $100 savings.

What I have learned from this is that I won’t be asking for books for my birthday! I’ll continue to use the library and instead ask for grown-up gifts that will be practical, yet enjoyable. I mean “seriously”  isn’t as if I can avoid the bathroom, so I’ll be enjoying this decorated room on a daily basis.

If you are interested in Do It Yourself (DIY) projects, checkout LisaG’s blog on home improvement workshops.