Home Is Where the Heart Is - My Bathroom

My house is a lovely house but I wouldn't say it's my dream home. It was partly renovated when we purchased it and the previous owner was a young bloke hence why just about everything in the place is black. I had to very quickly learn to love the colour and work out how to soften it to make it more "me".

This brings me to my bathroom. Whilst it's a lovely bathroom, it is not my favourite room in the house and nor is it the most practical room when you have a baby. But it was a relatively new bathroom when we purchased the house so we couldn't justify spending the money to re model it when there wasn't anything really wrong with it.

This is my bathroom now.

This WAS my bathroom when we first brought the house. Shame about the quality of the photo but the main change is there used to be a glass vanity and a mirror which had lights like a movie star would have in their dressing room (you know the ones where the perimeter of the mirror is surrounded in lights!)

The glass shower screen makes what is a relatively small room, seem bigger as visually you can still see through it. When we purchased the house, the shower screen looked as if it had never been cleaned. It had soap scum and lime completely caked to it. I tried EVERYTHING and have spent a lot of money on products, trying to get it clean only to recently find a magical product that cleaned it in one go. It's called Grumpton and it costs less than $5 from your local supermarket. Smear the stuff all over the glass, leave it for about 5 minutes and then wash it off. Put a bit of elbow grease into it but you'll find that your glass has never looked better!

Another "before" shot. This time looking back at the shower.

Changing the mirror to a timber one (Tasmanian black heart sassafras) and adding a pop of colour with the first aid box made a big difference and softened the black tiles. I paid a fortune for this first aid box ($110) but have since seen them at Bunnings and Spotlight in white, black and chrome for $25 - $40. I consider it "bathroom art" but it is also very practical.

 

The bathroom desperately needed storage when we brought the house so replacing the vanity with one that has lots of drawers and cupboards did the trick. This is a special order vanity from Bunnings Hardware. Much like their kitchens you can buy each cupboard flat packed and put it together in whatever lay out you want. The bench-top was special order caesar-stone also from Bunnings. All up, the new vanity, bench-top, sink, tap-ware, handles and towel racks cost about $700. That's a small price for the impact and functionality that it gave us.

I would never myself choose black tiles after living with this bathroom. They are really hard to keep clean and show up every "dust bunny" but overall, I think Roge and I have made a pretty good looking and functional bathroom with minimal changes.

When it comes to renovating on a budget, a lot of it is thinking about what you can do with what you have and then replacing only the bare essentials. Surprisingly, you can get an amazing result with minimal cost and a bit of hard work.

If you haven't already looked at any of my other rooms, then take a look at my kitchen and lounge for more decorating ideas.

Gus does a final inspect prior to me doing today's photo shoot. I'm pretty sure he left happy (it's hard to tell, like most cats he seemed particularly unfazed!)