mini master bathroom makeover

When we first arrived in Louisville, the small bathroom off of the master bedroom was in pretty bad shape. Since the house was built in the 1960s, & nothing was updated until this year, all of the originals were still in place...including sliding glass doors with two blue herons. I'm not kidding. 

see the love birds?

check out the fluorescent light mirror :)

The first thing to go was the wooden over-the-toilet cabinet. The next step was to paint the door glossy white & add the new oil-rubbed bronze door knob we purchased at Lowe's. Then we just shut the door for a long, long time.

This weekend we had two girls from out of town stay with us, so we could no longer ignore our little bathroom. All I could do was scrub it down from top to bottom & try getting along with those bird doors. 

That lasted one night.

Yesterday I was walking around in our TJ Maxx Homegoods (probably not good to do on a regular basis) & I came across a really great shower curtain for $16! After that my hands were full with bathroom things. I came home with the shower curtain, a curtain rod ($14) & hooks ($5), bath mat ($10) & hand towel ring ($6). I called Gentry on the way home, asking if it was ok to spruce up the bathroom when I got back...afraid he might not be too happy with my impulsive purchases. By the time I got home he had already taken off the bird doors! I just love that man!

Once I got home, I saw the nastiness left behind by the bottom track of the sliding doors.

Yuck. But because I was raised by a momma who taught her daughters how to clean, I knew some Soft & Scrub with bleach would do the trick. I decided to paint the walls first & then deep clean the shower & tile floors. I used the same paint we used on the kitchen cabinets, which saved some money & looked great with the new curtain!

Before painting & cleaning:

After:

Check out how well the rust from the door track came off! I'm such a big fan of Soft & Scrub!

After looking the bathroom over a bit, I remembered how terrible the old shower head was. It had about the same effect as the mist rooms at Six Flags. And its no wonder the water couldn't get through. Check out the mineral build up on this old thing:

I decided to do a little research on cleaning old shower heads with lots of mineral build up. I found a post that said to simmer the shower head in a pot full of distilled white vinegar. We had some vinegar in the pantry, so I gave it a shot.

It didn't get all of the build up off, but it definitely got most of it!

Until we save up some money for a new shower head & knobs, we will be using this guy. 

Cleaning & painting the bathroom did a lot of good. The next step was to go to Lowe's for a new toilet seat ($20) & flushing lever ($14). Since we are using oil-rubbed bronze accents in the room, we got a flushing lever to match. When we got home, I hung up the shower curtain, took off the wooden seat, added the new white one, & then G installed the lever.

 Then I hung this cross we received as a wedding gift on the wall above the toilet:

Here is a look at the window on the opposite wall. I painted the window sill glossy white after painting the walls.

The little curtain was from a window in the kitchen of our old house. The curtain rod was already there, so I just spray painted it with oil-rubbed bronze paint we picked up at Lowe's ($6). 

We still have that medicine cabinet with the two fluorescent lights above the sink for now, but we have a new light fixture my mom bought us at the Pottery Barn outlet in Memphis last month. G has finals coming up so we aren't going to install the light until after those are behind him.

It looks like this:

Down the road, we would love to re-tile the bathroom floors for sure, & possibly the walls. But for now, I am just happy to not be afraid of this bathroom anymore! I actually like it now!

Here is a side-by-side look at the before & after:

click on it to enlarge

{alli}