There is a piece of me that would have loved to just restore this bathroom, but we also had to make some quicker decisions to make our home livable when we bought it. Old toilets are gross and the countertops are lower than I would like. Ultimately, we needed a working clean bathroom and we decided to update it…

BEFORE:

How I Designed this bathroom from scratch (with no professional training)

First, I scoured Pinterest, the internet, magazines and to collect ideas.

Next, I looked for themes to see what do I keep saving over and over again? “this is something we should definitely do”? The tile floor we chose was a non-neogiable for me.

My husband’s advice would be just copy a room you love. Maybe not exactly, but figure out what you like about the room and appropriate it to your space. It’s much easier to visualize how things would go to together when you can find an example of something simliliar.

I also like to bring ideas together by creating a moodboard on Canva.

How we saved money:

Here I realized shiplap would be more affordable and easier to install so we went with that.
We saved the cast iron tub that would have been difficult to remove and had it resurfaced white. (Search tub resurfacing to find someone to do this locally)
I used the standard vanity knobs, but spray painted them black instead of replacing them. (1.5 year - no issues!)
We used Amazon faucets in the sink. They are fine, but I think I would go with a more durable fixture in the future. Lights are also Amazon and we like them!
We did the demo and tile and only had a professional install the vanity.

Other Considerations

I knew I wanted some gold in the room, but they couldn’t run right up against one another. None of the golds are an exact match and I didn’t want to draw attention to that. We looked at gold mirrors and they wouldn’t have worked with gold faucets and gold sconces. Visually I needed something to break it up which is why we went with these Umbra Mirrors. ( I also love this one if I were to redo the space - linked here!)
I saved a swatch of the wallpaper to frame - just a fun idea if you are renovating & taking down wallpaper.
Consider the style of your home. In general, I tried to not to do something that would not fit in our traditional home. I am not sure the shiplap fits that, but the floor tile fits with our 1960s home.

Sources for what we used in this remodel:

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