Closet Turned Vanity

After our bathroom renovation we were left with an empty closet as part of our bathroom. We did not need anymore closet space plus that would make the bathroom look smaller if we had a closet inside of it. For a time we thought about making it into a standalone shower and then just having the tub next to it. However we decided that it would be too small for a shower.

I think it was actually my husband who suggested using it for a vanity space. I know, such a nice husband.

The light is from Ikea for $20. The mirror is from Ikea in the As-Is section for $10. The "vanity" is also from Ikea. I didn't need a whole traditional vanity as I was able to organize everything in the open with out it. So looking for an inexpensive solution I picked up these two cabinet doors in the As-Is section at Ikea for under $5 for both. There are bookshelf brackets at the back holding them up. They are not supporting anything too heavy and its not like I sit on the vanity. I use the bottom shelf of the vanity for my hair dryer, straightener, and other hair accessories.

I had some pinspiration for my jewelry and makeup organization (See here, here, and here).

I had the hooks already and I bought the dowel for less than a $1 at the craft store. I could have painted the dowel and hooks but I thought the wood/metal tones matched the sink vanity. For the make up board I bought that cookie sheet at the dollar store. I decided I liked it as is but I can always dress it up later when I get bored. I bought a roll of magnets that were already pre-glued. Now almost a year later some of the magnets have fallen off the makeup. Sooo, use a hot glue gun would be my recommendation.

I walked around my house looking for something to fit my bracelets and found this candlestick that was free at a yard sale. The small bowl was made by one of my lovely friends and the glass jar is from an old candle. The ceramic egg rack is from Amazon and was only $10 when I bought it (I got the inspiration from YoungHouseLove). It looks great and works great and I highly recommend it.

I made this art with some canvases and the paint from our bedroom. I just picked two quotes I liked and put stickers down. I painted over the stickers and then pulled them off. So easy. I mod podged over the whole canvas after.

My vanity chair was given to me by my great aunt. I spray painted it with metallic silver paint and then re-upholstered it.

And now a year later it looks like this...I found this fabric with bobby pins by accident on Spoonflower and had to get it. Spoonflower's fabric is a bit more than I like to spend but you can't beat it for unique fabric or even DIY fabric! It was about $10 to do the seat. 

And that is the end of the bathroom renovation (for now) and the completion of my very own vanity. A year later I can say it still works for me and I actually keep it pretty organized. Which says a lot. It is helpful for me to have everything in view with its own spot instead of a big cabinet where I will just lose things. 

Bathroom Put Back Together

So after starting with a bathroom like this....

Almost exactly a year later we had this...

We need some art in here!

We bought the vanity about 6 months before actually putting it in. We got the sink and cabinet for $250 at Ikea when we were there for something else and saw that it was being discontinued and was on sale. It has the perfect amount of room and since it is a floating cabinet makes the bathroom feel larger. 

I loveeee this mirror. I found it at HomeGoods for $40! I was planning on buying a regular mirror at Ikea and adding trim to it but this was even better and close to the same price. 

This is the old pantry from the kitchen. We took the door off of it and it has enough storage for all of our sheets, towels, cleaning supplies, etc.

The glass shower door was our most expensive bathroom purchase but my husband really wanted one. It was $400. It sat in our house in the box for a few months before getting installed and I was veryyy nervous about it breaking. It is easy to clean and I think it helps the bathroom look bigger and feel more open. It was pretty easy for my husband to install following the instructions in the box.

Our massive rain shower head. Something we knew we wanted from the beginning! You can see we kept the original tile surround (and the tub of course). It would not be our first choice but it is in good condition.

Confession, I have a lot of shampoo...But anyways. This shelf works great to store everything in the shower. I have seen them at Bed Bath and Beyond, Lowe's, Home Depot, and Amazon. I believe ours was $30 at Lowe's.

This is our amazing light that was $90. Now it make not look like much but we actually bought it because it is a light AND a fan! I had never heard of such a thing until I saw this. 

These blinds are from Ikea. We have the same ones in the walk-in closet. We bought them right after we moved in and realized after they are the wrong size...They should either cover all the trim or be small enough to go inside the window frame. Fail. I don't care enough to change them right now though. 

Here is our lovely toilet. Exciting I know. What is exciting is that it is a dual flush toilet which is more energy efficient and saves us money. So it is exciting! By the way you can see in the below picture that we never caulked around the bottom of the molding or painted the pre-primed molding...Full disclosure here. It has been a year. Working on that.

And here is a shot from the bedroom. You can see that we do not have a door. Still. Working on that.

That is the whole bathroom! Except for what we did with the nook where the old closet used to be...It has to do with make-up and jewelry...

Our total cost for everything for the bathroom was almost $2000. It felt like a lot to us but I know it is less than most bathroom renovations and we now have a bigger more usable space that will work for us the whole time we live in this house. 

Master Bathroom Demo

When we made two bedrooms into our master bedroom we gained some extra space that we could use towards the master bathroom: the kitchen pantry and hall linen closet.

I was hesitant to take on a bathroom renovation and the current bathroom really was in okay shape. But my husband pointed out that if we were going to do it now would be the time.

So when we did the bedroom we left the space open for extending the bathroom. Our main was goal was to be able to have a double sink. We finished our bedroom renovation in October 2011 but waited to start the bathroom renovation until May 2012. (Warning- lots of cell phone pictures)

Three different floors in the bathroom

Lucky for us my cousin is a plumber and he was super awesome to help us. We wanted to move the toilet closer to the window so we then would have room to put in a double sink. He helped my husband take up the tile and then he jack hammered the concrete to run the pipe for the toilet to the new spot. This is definitely not something that we could have DIY-ed.

After the spot for the new toilet was ready and we had covered the old hole with concrete, my cousin told us to drywall, paint, and tile and then he would help us put in the toilet and vanity. This took us a few months...So from May to August we were running upstairs to use the bathroom.There was a lot of drywall to patch and dry-walling is the WORST. At least for us. 

One place Pascal had to drywall was the ceiling. We had to patch it after he opened it up to work on the bathroom vent. The bathroom had a vent already but it was just venting into the ceiling...So he ran a flex exhaust vent pipe through the ceiling to vent through the soffit outside the bathroom window.

After Pascal dry-walled we painted the bathroom. We picked Water Mark by Behr in a satin finish. We wanted an aqua color and we picked that one after holding it up next to the bedroom color. We wanted them to compliment each other since the bathroom opens up to the bedroom (of course I now want to repaint the bedroom but that's another story...)

The next step was tiling. This was the first time Pascal laid tile but he had done the backsplash as practice. We bought our tiling supplies at Home Depot again and bought gray porcelain tile for $1 a square foot for a total cost of $50. The tile was actually originally $1.20 but was discontinued so we bought everything they had left and got the discount.

Rookie DIY-er mistake...Cut your tile outside! It will be some extra work walking back and forth after measuring but worth it. We had tile dust EVERYWHERE. 

But it looked oh so nice when it was done. Since this was the first time floor tiling there are some crooked grout lines but I think the husband did a great job!

Once the tiling was done my cousin put in the toilet and helped Pascal install the new vanity. We also changed out the bathtub/shower hardware and added a shower door. My cousin got the toilet and hardware for us from Ferguson. It was a bit more than Home Depot/Lowe's but he had a discount and it is good quality. 

The main part of this job that we did ourselves was the drywall, paint, and tile. We could have managed changing out the toilet and hardware on our own but not running new plumbing so we are so thankful to have had family help for that!