We had a lot of work to do on the floors of the new house. We have plans of eventually redoing all of the bathrooms….. or, we HAD plans! The powder room was supposed to be a part of the kitchen remodel (when that eventually happens, that is). But, apparently, it had other plans.
Broken Toilet?
Since the powder room is on the part of the house that is on a slab, we didn’t realize the toilet in there was leaking. Honestly, I’m not sure how long it was leaking since the water was going to the sides and not in front of the toilet. But, once we realized it, we had to take care of the problem sooner rather than later.
Floors were some of the first things we tackled in the new house, we had quite a few different floors and I wanted a cohesive yet functional house for everyone. Because the powder room is only about 4 feet by 4 feet, I felt that a natural flow would be for it to have the same floor as the kitchen and mudroom (those two run together). Just changing the toilet now seemed a total waste of time, so I got to work coming up with a budget friendly plan for these 16 little square feet, less than $500.
The toilet was one place I didn’t worry about the cost. I was originally going to go for a Toto toilet (worth the money IMO), but ultimately decided on a Gerber because it was an inch shallower. This may not seem like much, but since we went with a round style over elongated, we saved enough space that I can actually walk in and close the door behind me (instead of shimming around the door and toilet!). – About $250 with a soft close, easy release seat.
Rock what ya got!
While the faucet and light fixture wouldn’t be my first choice, they were both fairly new and in much better shape than any other faucet or bathroom light fixture in the house. I decided they could stay. Same for the tiny medicine cabinet, these three things may end up getting changed eventually, but for now, we’ll rock what we’ve got! – Zero Dollars!
The vanity wasn’t easy
In order for the door not to hit it, I had to find a sink that was less than 18″ deep. I’m not fond of pedestal sinks; they have their place, just not in my house! I need at least a tiny space to keep things hidden. After much searching in my local bath shops, home improvement stores and extensively online, I settled on one from Lowes because it was white, had a tiny storage space (no more looking at the pipes) and overall fit the style we are heading towards in the house. Price really helped too – $99!
Paint
That happened to be free also! In our old house, I redid that powder room (a few times) and still had over a half gallon of paint left. I swear by Benjamin Moore Paint, I really should be their spokes person. The last powder room was Hearthstone gray, and since I still loved the color, why not use it in the new powder room?!? – Zero Dollars!
But first, we had to deal with the textured walls. Thankfully, IronFish was willing to take on this task for me, or at least the top half of the room since I had plans for the bottom half. I scrapped it, but it still needed to be sanded, skim coated and sanded again and again.
Stash busting
From my job I frequently get to keep the left overs. Despite his objections, IronFish has put up with storing a growing collection, but it was time to put that stockpile to use. Whenever we put bead board in a bathroom we use a paintable PVC version so that it’s water resistant. Most people want the traditional bead board look. But it’s actually reversible and has a wider plank look on the back side. I’ve saved all sorts of lengths of this and only had to purchase one additional pack to complete the room. Opting to apply it horizontally, I pieced scraps hiding the joints behind the toilet and small parts were usable on either side of the vanity. Loving the ship lap look! Plus, I added a band of tile and a piece of PVC lattice at the top to finish it off. $37
I applied the planks with liquid nails and my trusty nail gun. The joints at the top and at the trim were cleaned up using paintable caulk. About $20 since I also used some I had on hand.
Tile time
Within my left over stash, I also have amassed a collection of tiles, mainly left over strips of decorative tiles and cut pieces with the original intention of making a mosaic table top for my eventual patio. We did a bathroom with a black marble tile and I kept all the strips we cut off. Another bathroom used this beautiful basket weave marble that came in 12×12 sheets attached to mesh. I think I kept every dropped cut or strip we couldn’t use, I loved this tile so much! This is what it should have looked like as a whole piece, I had two half sheets as my largest scraps that made a whole sheet:
Once the old flooring was out, I sat down on the bare cement with all these tile scraps, a measuring tape, blank paper and a pencil. I came up with a plan and only needed to come up with coordinating tile to fill in the gaps. My bucket was mostly strips and individual pieces like this:
I drew out a plan and bought $100 worth of loose tiles from Home Depot that coordinated. Actually, I could have spent about a quarter of that but the less expensive tiles were so much thinner that I would have had a much harder time leveling the floor, so the extra money for less hassle was worth it to me. Here’s my plan, not easy to read, but you get the idea:
More leftovers!
Thinset and grout ended up being left over from the job we were working on that week, score! For such a small room, it really took me a long time because I needed to constantly adjust and be sure I was going to correctly end up the way I wanted in the front of the room (since I had to work my way out of the room). The plan I sketched out really helped with that.
I really thought I had a better picture of the work in progress, but I guess not.
I imagined an area rug for the pattern. The result is better than I’d even imagined! Finished floor:
Tile edge on the wall:
Reused faucet, medicine cabinet and light:
New vanity and tiny sink:
Still cozy but so much nicer:
Not to mention, so much brighter!
Less than $10 over my budget, I’ll take it!
Affiliate links are included in this post to items similar to what I used.
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