Dan's Bathroom.

Unless you're one of those apartment dwellers that has been lucky enough to find a place with an updated bathroom, chances are that you're like me and hate your bathroom.

I'd hated mine since moving in nearly three years ago. It's tiny. The fixtures are dated. The lighting sucks. The flooring is horrendous. The bathtub drips. The towel bar kept falling down if I put more than one towel on it at a time. Hell, I'd seen truck stop bathrooms in better shape than mine.

You get the idea?

How about a visual?

Super scary flooring

Being a rental, there's not a lot that I could do with the space. If I'd owned my apartment, I'd have ripped out the vanity, tile, flooring, lighting and anything else that I could get my hands on. But since that isn't the case, once I'd unpacked and settled in I figured that I'd try to give my bathroom a bit of a face lift with a coat of paint. I ended up choosing a colour called 'Aztec Ruins' which I thought would compliment the yellow floor and counter top. I figured that a nice, somewhat boring beige would help neutralize the space. Beige, the great neutralizer. Right? Wrong-o!

For the past couple of years, my bathroom has felt like a big yellow box. The paint colour did absolutely nothing for the space and the last thing that I wanted to do was crawl into a relaxing bath when I had to look at the walls.

This spring I made it my goal to find a new paint colour and have the space repainted by the end of summer. Long story short, as of this past Sunday evening I'd yet to paint the space, let alone settle on a colour. I'd played around with some ideas, stuck chips on the wall, but still wasn't sure which direction I was heading in.

The ugly vanity

Finding myself annoyed with my indecisiveness, I hit up a big box store during my lunch break on Monday, selected a colour off of a chip and by 5:30 that afternoon was rolling on the first coat.

Two evenings and three coats of paint later it's looking a lot less 'truck stop-ish' and a lot more 'spa' like (or as spa like as you can get when you're on a budget and are still stuck with the ugliest vanity in the world).

A bit better right?

Mucho better!

I don't plan on staying in my apartment forever, so I didn't want to spend a fortune completing this project, but at the same time I wanted to make it livable. Using accessories that I already had, and in purchasing only a few other pieces I've created a space that I can live with for the next year.

If you go digging around you can easily pickup apothecary jars at any thrift or secondhand store - for a couple of bucks and a bag of seashells you can easily create that coveted 'Pottery Barn' look.

A new towel bar and cushy towels add to the look! Checkout unexpected places like Winners (T.J. Maxx) for amazing buys on boutique styled bath hardware!

I scored these sailboat prints a couple of months ago at Liquidation World for $5.00. After hunting around online I found the set for $89.99! Score!

I couldn't forget my Lush robot bath bombs!

 I love the new robe hook! A steal at only $6.00!

Remember this vase? I found it a couple of weeks ago at Goodwill and it fits in perfectly!

I love how my bathroom turned out! While I couldn't change some of the physical components, I've at least made them livable! What do you think?! Now onto the living room, random furniture pieces and stacks of unfinished projects hiding in my storage room!

Time to put those robots to use!
D-

Sources:

Paint - 'Silver Shores' / 50YR 53/011 by CIL

Towel Bar & Robe Hook - Winners

Shower Curtain - By Moda at Home (found at Liquidation World)

Sailboat Prints - By Graham & Brown (found at Liquidation World)

Apothecary Jars - Value Village

Gray Bath Towels - JC Penney

White Hand Towels - The Bay

Vase - Salvation Army

Soap Dispenser - Dollarama

Robot Bath Bombs - Lush