The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover Day 12-ish

CABINET IS DONE

The cabinets have doors and drawers back.  The coolest thing about doing the cabinet this way, is once we're done, the ugly counter top will be a second thought and barely noticable.  Just wait until the final pictures. 

The letters on the knobs were done with printer paper and copious amounts of wood glue.  I could have bought them at Hobby Lobby, but as we're doing this super cheap, there you are.  The best thing about the wood glue is I can varnish it and it should stay fairly intact for awhile.

We're still at just over $13. 

I'm going to frame the mirrors with some left over molding, but I don't have quite enough, so I will be making a trip to Home Depot.  The molding I used is very inexpensive so we shouldn't be adding too much.

A couple of quick notes on why I chose a few of the things I chose.  This is a kids' bathroom.  They aren't really known for cleaning up after themselves unless you're standing over them with a stick and a carrot.  SO, blue paint on the walls to match the toothpaste we use.  And the off-white, aged cabinet will hide dirt and grime.  Our new vinyl floor is also dark and non-slip, unlike the tile we covered, which was so slick that at night all I did was listen for falls. 

Here's what's left to do - shelves over the sink, shelves over the toilet, bathtub surprise, deepen the shelves in the closet and make room for a hamper.  And finally, trim everything out.  I'm probably going to have a few more expenses, but I'm still thinking this is going to come in under $50.  We'll see how accurately I can estimate.

The (not quite) $0 bathroom makeover - Day 9 - 11

FLOORING AND HARDWARE

Problems and more problems. 

The Floor.
These are "looks like wood" vinyl tiles. The floor has to be SQUEAKY clean to get these suckers to stick, so I've spent a couple of days scraping, cleaning, sweeping, wiping, scrubbing to get it REALLY clean. Then I grabbed the isoprophyl alcohol and wiped each area down before laying the tile. Just to make sure. I have all the tiles down - the bad news? I'm short a few tiles. Somehow my math didn't calculate the area correctly. A quick trip to a flooring store, and (of course) my freebie tiles are so old and discontinued that they're unheard of.
Plan B
Buy some tiles that don't match at all, but will go nicely, and put in a pattern. I've done a little stripe that comes off the commode. I also did a diamond pattern to make it look purposeful - after all - it's a super low cost makeover. It's all done with purpose.
The good news is that these tiles were just over a dollar a piece, so at $13.50, not a bad deal.

Here is the finished floor.

The Hardware.

My spray painting idea is a flop. They painted nicely, but it just doesn't look good with the cabinet. I like the idea of staying with the porcelain since the other fixtures are porcelain, chrome and brushed nickle, so, I took a trip to one of my favorite inspiration stores - Hobby Lobby. 

They have a nice area devoted to knobs. I found some porcelain ones with letters and a circle around the letter. Very simple, and it gave it just that little extra that I think will work nicely on the doors. So now I get to figure out how to get the letters on the knobs. I tried the rub on route, and the sticker route, but they don't have what I'm looking for.
A quick search of the web turns up this font, which I will try to put on the knobs with glue, then dip in epoxy to set and seal them. The down side is I don't think I have epoxy.
My solution was to drown them in wood glue.  I got a little shine on them.  Not sure how well they'll hold up, but we'll find out.

Tune in next time when we finish the base of the cabinet and put our doors back on!!

The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover - Day 8

I'm still technically working on the cabinets.  I think I have a solution to my hardware problem.  I'm currently testing spray painting the porcelain knobs we have.  I'll let you know how it goes.  I may use those on the drawers and the pulls on the doors, or, but the knobs on the decorative drawers, since they won't be used much, and the pulls on everything that will be used.

It's a work in progress.

I'll be sanding the base of the cabinet today and staining so that it matches the doors.  The hinges were painted by the previous homeowner so I'm considering getting the paint off of those, which could be an issue.  We'll see how that goes as well.  :)

The primer and spray paint were leftovers from something else as well, so I'm still on $0 dollars.  So far, so good!!

The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover - Day 7

I've been working on refacing the cabinets.  I went back and forth on color and ideas, but finally decided to stick with what we have, only age them a bit and give them a bit of a stain/glaze.

I have some stain for our exterior that will work nicely so I pulled off all the hardware and sanded off the paint on the edges and bits that stick up.

Next, I slathered on a layer of stain.

Once the stain covers the door, wipe it off using a dry towel or rag.  Stain will stick to the sanded off bits and in the corners, giving the doors a nice aged look.



I still don't have a final decision on the hardware.  I have some that turned up in the garage, but they don't really go with my aged cabinets now.  I may have to actually purchase something.. aaaahhhh... Tune in next time... for Hardware Wars.... (that's not mine btw, but it's a funny spoof... )
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9059800655908790019

Good times, good times.
OH.. and hopefully I'll have new batteries for the camera soon so the picture quality will be better.  Had to use the camera on the phone.

The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover - Days 3 - 6

CLEAN , PREP, PAINT
I cleaned the bathroom and got most of the kids things out of the way. This is the part where things get exciting, but don't skip any steps! TAPE TAPE TAPE to paint, or if you're really good, cut in all your corners and edges. I took all the doors off of the cabinets and the drawers and fake drawer faces are all out and off.

Imixed up a nice color using two of my no VOC paint colors from previous room paintings and cut in all my edges and corners.  I taped around the mirrors... just so I could get in behind them.  They're very difficult to remove.  I also taped around my light fixtures since removing them was tough as well.

We're looking good!  And so far, our spend is ZERO!

 

 

 

Next up is refacing our cabinets.

The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover - Day 2

INSPIRATION

I've been thinking about how I'd like the "kid's bathroom" to be fun but still beautiful, and something they can grow up in.  It will also have to be very undefined, not too femine or masculine - gender neutral.  So many gorgeous things were available to look at online, but here are a few of the more fun ideas with some of the colors I have available in my free leftover paint and I do have some boards and old MDF so I'm excited at the prospect of interpreting and implementing these ideas in my own way.

Tomorrow - we prep!!!

The (almost) $0 bathroom makeover.

Day 1.

BEFORE - Scavenge and Inspire

Here are the before pictures of the bathroom.  I'm going to keep with the sea theme of the shower curtain, but I'm going to age it a bit.  Most of the kids are older and this way, I only have to change the shower curtain, and not today.  :)

So aside from the messy kids, you can see most of the bathroom is pretty boring with a very dated yellow counter top.  I'm going to try to work with that.  Right now, there's a very old tile floor in the area with the bath and we're down to the plywood subfloor in the bathroom - painted a nice dirt brown to hide the mess and coated in a few coats of polyurethane to protect it from moisture.

Scavenging around I found the following materials to get me started.

Three different shades of blue/turquoise (one isn't shown) and a nice bright yellow.  I also have a brown that I'm thinking of using.

These tiles were left by the previous homeowner and match the tiles in our bathroom and the kitchen.  They would be good in the sink area of the bathroom.  They also left behind some vinyl "wood" sticky tiles.  Since this is a temporary flooring fix, I'm going to lay these in the bath area, and then reseal the bathtub and toilet.

This is left over MDF from some project or another.  I'm thinking these will be useful for shelves.. although.. I believe I also have some old solid wood shelves tucked away upstaires.  I may use those instead, or, I may use old fence boards and stain them for a more rustic sea side feel.

Coming up, some drawings or at least some images for inspiration!!

Parisian on the cheap

Here is the dresser that started it all.

 

It costs about $800 bucks.  As much as I like it, I didn't want to spend $800 dollars. 

Time to get creative.  I had a couple of these IKEA Stranda Dressers.  So I took one and decided to give it a makeover.  These cost about $150 at Ikea.

 

 I cut 4 half figure eight panels out of 3/4 inch plywood and attached them to the sides of the dressers using 2x2's and screws.  These go on both sides, front and back. 

After I attached the panels to the dresser I enclosed the sides with bendable MDF.  The MDF followed the curves and cost me about $60.

(Yay Rockler).

Finally, I filled in the holes and edges with woodfiller, sanded and painted. The finished product looks like this. 

I used Ralph Lauren Metallic paints.  They were more expensive than regular paint, but I wanted that pewter type finish.  I spent about $60.  So about $60 for paint and another 30 for the hardware. 

My grand total for the dresser was right at $320.00 dollars.

Simple, cute lamp shades.

Another great thrift store find - 3 silver lamp bases for a total of 24 dollars!  Perfect for my girls' room.  I've been trying to find lamps for awhile now and just didn't want to shell out 20 - 80 bucks for 3 small to large lamps.  The best thing about these lamps - they had two types of "fitters", the spider and the uno.  I took the finials off and chose to go with uno shades since they were least expensive and readily available.

A quick aside about fitters, this is important, especially if you're buying thrift store lamps.

Spider - The term "spider" refers to the arms attached to the top inside rim of the lampshade that hold the lampshade fitter in place.

Clip fitters - Clip fitters have a loop of wire extending downward from the lampshade's spider that slides over the top of the light bulb. Torpedo clip fitters are shaped to fit onto elongated bulbs and bulb clip fitters are shaped to fit onto the round-topped light bulbs.

Uno fitters -Uno fitters have a hollow round piece situated at the center of the lampshade's spider that slides over the fixture's socket. Sometimes the uno fitter and socket are threaded which gives the lampshade greater stability. 

Washer fitters -Washer fitters consist of a washer attached to the arms of the spider. The harp sits underneath the spider and the finial screws onto the harp with the washer fitter sitting between. This entire piece is then attached to the lamp socket.

I bought the lamp shades new, from Target.  The biggest one was about $13.00 and the smallest $7.00.  The one with the green bow is the medium sized shade and it was about $9.00 or $10.00.  So another 30 bucks and we have full lamps, but they were kind of boring. 

I made a quick trip to Michael's for some ribbon, plugged in the trusty hot glue gun, and now have custom lamps that match my girls' room. 

DIY Drum Shade Chandelier

Welcome to the first of Savvy Spaces "How to Do It Yourself" blogs!  

I have a client who has "champagne taste on a beer budget!"   I found this chandelier for her dining room, but the price was almost all of her budget for the entire living/dining area, so it was out of the question. 

Solution?  Make it!!

 

Step 1.  Hit the thrift and consignment stores for something super cheap!  I found this at a consignment store for $10.00.  The important part is it has narrow screw type contraption at the top, so when I remove the ugly glass part, I can simply replace it with my drum shade.  We'll get to that a little later.

 

 Step 2.  Take it all apart.  If you need to video or take pictures to remember where everything goes, make sure you do. 

Step 3.  PREP!!!  This is the MOST important step for painting ANYTHING!  Sand off the nasty bits, tape off the bits you don't want painted, and make sure you have a well ventilated work space.  If you're spray painting, PLEASE go outside and use a mask.

 Step 4.  Prime.  Especially if it's metal.  Spray paint is great, but primer makes it better.  Priming this metal base makes sure I'll get a nice finish that will last longer.

Step 5.  PAINT!  YAY!  I chose "Oil Rubbed Bronze" for this fixture.  The other fixtures in the room are the same color, and even though most of it will be hidden by a lamp shade, it's the details that make this special.

Step 6.  Finish the shade.  I bought a nice vinyl decal of a tree, then cut it in half (the long way) so it would go all the way around the lamp shade.  Since the shade is slightly smaller at the top, I had to make some creative cuts to make sure it's as smooth as possible.  The decals are all on the inside.

Step 7.  Put that baby back together.  Here is a close up of where the drum shade fits over the original threaded rod and screw on cap.

Finis!!  Now we have a lovely nature inspired chandelier!

Here is our cost breakdown:

Thrift store light fixture:  $10.00
Spray Paint and Primer:  $12.00
Lamp Shade:  $15.00
Decal:  $13.00

Total Cost:  $50.00 - compared to the original, which was $250.00.  Savings?  $200 bucks!!

This is a slightly more traditional look than the original, which worked out great for my more traditional client.