First Floor Bathroom Renovation (One Room Challenge)

We are finally on the home stretch in this bathroom!

Little refresher on what the space looked like when we moved in…

We painted the walls, trim and resurfaced the tub to give it a temporary update. We also put in D - and ultimately decided to keep these until we can refinish the closet (which has a large water heater in it).

AFTER! So many fun changes….

We installed the most beautiful light fixture by Schoolhouse. (Swoon!) I love all of Schoolhouses’ products and felt like it would such a fun add.

I did decide to keep the original light fixture. I was really torn on this - but I felt like we could update it later if I found something else.

I decided to mix in some metals because I had a lot of gold happening and didn’t want the space to feel stale.

The Pfiser Tisbury faucet is stunning and I love the Polished Nickel. The faucet adds a different element classic element and the Pfiser products are so well made. (Linked this one here!)

I knew I wanted to use something like the this Hygge & West wallpaper to the room. Adding a complementary wallpaper to an older colorful tile is my favorite way to refresh a bathroom. We colored match the green in the wallpaper, but didn’t love the hue it pulled with the tile. I ended up going with Benjamin Moore Millstone Gray after seeing this inspiration online.

We added hand towels & a shower curtain by Olive & Linen. I had never used Olive & Linen’s shower curtains before and love the feel. It is soft and well made, like their towels.

I loved the original cabinet and painted it Behr Jet Black in semigloss to make it pop. I kept the original hardware and did a coat of rub and buff. I actually did rub and buff on the mirror and parts of the original light fixture to dull the bright brass color on the light fixture.

The countertops are quartz installed by Artisans of Stone in Salem, VA - we really liked them and their competitive pricing.

Thank you for following along with our One Room Challenge progress!

Find other ORC projects here. I love the ORC because it pushes me to think more creatively about the space and finish details I might skipped over otherwise.

Linking almost everything here. If I have missed anything - please let me know!

the truth about an airstream renovation

How can you not love all the fun renovations you see on pinterest & instagram?

why renovate an airstream?

As our family has been navigating our life this year, pursuing a more simple life, we came across the idea of fixing up an airstream (or camper of any kind) so that we could airbnb our house on weekends.

This seemed like a great solution to me. I easily convinced my handy husband. More on that on our podcast.

where did we shop?

So we began our search. Facebook Marketplace seems to be the new craigslist. Craiglist, of course. Then rvtrader.com.

We started searching beyond our community because it seemed like most airstreams in our area were starting at 10k for a complete gut job.

So we found the airstream pictured in Virginia - my husband must have been searching around where he went to college. There we found the best price we had seen for a working one. It was a 1976, but the family was using it actively so we thought so great…we can just clean it up, paint the cabinets. Fix up the interior.

Until…

I started to get skiddish about the whole things & wanted to get it checked out by an rv professional person. My husband drove it up to get it checked out.

We NEEDED a quick flip project. We did not have the TIME or SPACE for a long project.

As you can see here, we have a small driveway with an incline. We can do a lot of DIY work, but we did not have the space for it here.

When my husband told the RV repair men what we were trying to do…he said…

You don’t want any part of this.

Lol. Okay. Eye roll.

He went on to say…an airstream renovation like this is a labor of love. It would take about 6 month of hard work.

Maybe that is the timeline that is okay with you.

That was not going to work for us with our life right now.

I just thought I would share our experience if anyone is considering taking on a project like this. I still hope this is something we can do in the future, but under our current constraints it was not going to work for us.

takeaways…

If you buy an old airstream you are PROBABLY going to have to replace the floor & the walls.

We learned the floors are connected to the entire integrity of the structure staying together. If they are soft, it needs to be gutted.

An airstream restoration is a labor of LOVE, not just a romantic quick DIY project.

If that’s what you are looking for, maybe this is a great project for you, but we may just go with a typical camper in the future to save the money.

Best of luck!