Budget Bathroom Refresh in a Week!

Over the past year while the kiddos were living with us, my sweet in-laws cared for our dog Rory to help us out while our plates were overflowing with all the things happening in our world. We thought to ourselves throughout that time, how can we repay them for basically fostering our dog, while we were foster parents to two toddlers?!

My MIL had mentioned a handful of times that she was wanting to refresh their main floor half-bath and laundry room, so we knew a few of the ideas that she had for it, and she had slowly started picking away at it. They told us that they had to plans to go out of town (for 5 days) to visit my SIL, we thought—perfect timing! We’ll surprise them with a complete bathroom refresh!

We pulled some late nights with some unexpected issues—from plumbing problems to the sink not fitting, and some electrical difficulties, it was not easy and breezy, but we made it work and are just so happy that they love it!! There is a total budget breakdown listed at the bottom, not including the cost of the plumber because this was for a very specific issue.

BEFORE

AFTER

We started on a Sunday evening, completely cleaning the entire space out, ripped the old flooring out, and began priming the beadboard, trim, and cabinets with a stain blocking primer (to prevent the wood tones from seeping through the white paint!). This is when we realized we would have to call in reinforcements aka a professional plumber, because the water lines were giving Jason some trouble, so he wasn’t able to move the old vanity or washing machine out. So we worked around them until the plumber could get there!

The next evening, Jason painted and started laying the flooring! The walls are Sherwin Williams Repose Gray and the cabinets, trim, and beadboard are Sherwin Williams Pure White.

Thankfully the plumber was able to come the following morning, so we were able to finally get rid of the vanity and move the washer out of the way, so we could paint and prime the walls behind them!

From here on out, it was a mad dash to try to get the space wrapped up! Jason finished up the flooring and trim, then tried to install the vanity, and quickly found out the sink did NOT fit. It was just barely too big. Sooo we called it a night and tried to brainstorm how we were going to pull off a completed bathroom surprise without a sink! Haha.

The next morning, Jason called all of our local hardware stores, I checked on our local Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, but there was no vanity top to be found. So, we headed back out to my in-law’s to finish up everything we could because they were coming home the NEXT day! Jason updated the light switch, outlets, and outlet covers, hung the new light, did some touch up paint, and we put the new cabinet hardware on.

By this point, we decided to let my FIL in on the surprise, so that he could pick up a new vanity top on their way home. This worked out great and they ending up finding the perfect top, and were still so surprised!!