A low bathroom redo on a budget done in one weekend.

Silke and I had procrastinated the bathroom project for quite some time. It wasn’t anything too drastic or for that matter, time consuming. It was more a matter of letting other house projects take precedence. Besides, like the kitchen, your bathroom is always in use. The mere thought of having it in a state of not being readily accessible, is kind of daunting in itself.

Some projects are best left to the professionals, like plumbing, but there are a lot of other things you can do to make a bathroom more inviting. We found the perfect weekend to tackle our easy bathroom redo, as well as the right amount of ambition, and set off to do what should have been done a long time ago.

The two most important things that needed to be done in our bathroom: 

1. painting and
2. fixing the mirror

Our bathroom with it’s new custom color paint.

The bathroom isn’t that big so painting it would be a breeze. The mirror has always bothered me, since we bought the place almost three years ago! It’s a rectangular shaped mirror that runs the full length of the cabinet and is about four feet tall. It has always hung too low. I find myself having to bend over to shave. How nice would it be to stand upright and shave? You have no idea. Again, why didn’t we fix this a long time ago?

Painting The Bathroom

Yes, its a small bathroom but all the little nooks and crannies that are in this space made painting anything but a breeze. Using existing paint that we already had, we simply concocted our own color. Benjamin Moore would be proud of the final result. A warm tan mixed with a touch of yellow from a bedroom make over. It took a couple of coats but we enjoyed the final product when it was finished. The room was suddenly warmer, more inviting and looked that much better.

Fixing The Bathroom Mirror

Aside from raising the mirror, as mentioned earlier, we also had read an article in ‘This Old House’ magazine (yes, I have a subscription) about framing mirrors. The edges of this mirror were showing its age so we thought this would be an easy way to cover them up, as well as add some extra décor to it. With the mirror in a higher altitude we measured it out and picked up some trim boards along with a bottle of Titebond ultimate glue.

Once the boards were cut to length we quickly realized that they would have to be notched as well to accommodate the mounts that held the mirror on the wall. I first attempted to notch these out with a file, but found out in a hurry that this would take too long to do by hand. A quick notching with the skill saw and we were ready to glue the trim boards onto the mirror.

After the frame was in place we both stood back and marveled at our accomplishment. With a high five we shut the lights off and headed down stairs. Our reverie ended quickly as we heard one of the boards hit the cabinet. The first was followed by a succession of the rest of the frame falling off where we had just glued them on.

Now with glue all over the mirror as well as the sink and faucet we set out to do again what we had attempted the first time. This time we taped everything into place and would let the tape hold things in place while the glue dried.

The Finished Bathroom

Sunday night we were sure the glue would be able to hold things in place and we removed the tape. With a little cleaning and rearranging, it soon felt like we had a whole new bathroom in our house.

I snapped a picture to send to Mom and Dad and once more we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done.

Blue Monday After Our Bathroom Redo

I got up Monday morning to get ready for work and slowly made my way to the bathroom. With tooth brush in hand I began to brush my teeth when it suddenly became obvious that things had gone from bad to worse. The mirror had been raised to accommodate my height but it didn’t compensate for the width of the frame we put around the mirror. I now have to bend over even further than I did before!

No way are we taking this thing down or even thinking about making the adjustment. I’ll just bend over and mumble to myself every morning for the rest of my life on how such a little detail could make or break the whole thing. Either that or hopefully sell the house to a bunch of Oompa Loompas.

Have you had a similar DIY project mishap? Leave us a comment below.