Master Bathroom Refresh Plans and Mood Board
A full breakdown plan for a master bathroom refresh and visual mood board for working around existing 80s beige and worn out ceramic tile floors.
I feel like I should throw my hands up and exclaim, “Welcome to my least favorite room in the house!”
It’s the room that gets picked last in football. The room that no one sees, so who cares what it looks like? Well, Robert and I do. Because when it’s the first room you see every day after you wake up, it matters.
But the thing is even though we are very eager to rip out the ceramic tile that has seen better days, paint over the muddy green walls, and replace the beige 80s shower and countertop for something much more fresh, we also know a full gut job isn’t going to happen just yet.
And that’s okay!
Because I really love a good Phase 1 budget room makeover challenge (we did the same thing in our hallway bathroom two years ago), and this is definitely one of those opportunities where we can roll up our sleeves and make some magic happen with just paint and a couple of do-it-yourself projects.
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So here’s the plan I keep envisioning in my head…
(Pssst… If you ever want to know how to make one of these nifty mood board for your own house, see how in this post.)
1. Linen cabinet
This bathroom desperately needs storage and a better hamper, so I’m hauling out this old thrifted and flipped one we’ve been using and replacing it with this linen cabinet I got on sale in hopes of building in a hamper in the cabinet and using the shelves as a makeshift linen closet for holding fresh towels.
Plus, how pretty is that color?! It’s sparked the color scheme we’re running with in here.
2. Blue cabinets
Since our splurge in this space will be the blue linen cabinet, I’ll be painting and antique waxing our existing cabinets to match. The countertop will stay beige, but we can live with that for now. (In our hallway bathroom, we painted our countertop and shower a couple of years ago, but since we have a baby in the house now, I really want to stay away from anything too fumey.)
After seeing this bathroom photo from Studio McGee, my wheels started turning to make blue, beige, and white with a touch of wood work together. Our blue will just be darker and have more of an antique wash.
3. Deep charcoal door
This is one of the only doors in the house that hasn’t been painted Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron yet. That one change alone always makes a space look much more high end.
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4. Window Shade
This old blind is yellowed and scraped up and has definitely seen better days. We’re replacing it with a natural woven window shade, and we’ll probably have to spend a bit extra to make sure it has a privacy liner since this bathroom is on the front of the house where everyone and their mama can see in. We might revisit these shades that we used in the nursery in Bonaire Flaxen.
5. Stenciled Walls
I’m thinking we’ll be able to add some interest to this blank corner of the room if I stencil the walls to look like wallpaper.
Something like this look maybe?
I’m loving the look of these three stencils so far but in the colors white, beige, and deep teal blue:
Stencil 1 | Stencil 2 | Stencil 3
6. Black and White Framed Art
I can’t decide on the stenciling idea for certain. But some simple framed black and white prints would work well. Possibly my Carolina coastal photography printables that I have yet to frame somewhere?
7. Mirrors and Light Fixture
This mirror has several badly worn places, and the light fixture has a busted socket so it only works well on one side. If we replace the mirror with two of these wooden framed mirrors and replace the light with this not-too-pricey light that works, it’ll make a big impact.
8. Wall Color
I tested out a bunch of whites (which you should always do instead of just looking at a paper swatch) and decided on Benjamin Moore White Dove (that very bottom one on the wall). It’s going to make this room look so bright and clean but still has a slight warmth to work well with the existing beige on the shower and countertop.
9. Flooring
I think this tile floor is beyond help in terms of my usual grout pen trick, but I found this gorgeous vinyl flooring that I swear looks like marble hexagon tile that we’ll lay over it to tie us over until we can rip it all out demo-style one day. It’s going to tie in all of the beige and white and gray beautifully together so that the 80s leftovers will make more sense.
All in all, we should be able to crank this one out in a couple of weeks with no demo and well under $1,000. If this were the show Trading Spaces, we’d totally rock it. 😉
Are you diggin’ the plan? And what do you think? Wall stencil or no wall stencil? Inquiring minds want to know!
