DIY Bathroom Remodel Before and After

Here you can see the bathroom in all its original glory.

Bathroom Before

You can't see it in the pic but the shower surround was actually falling apart and hanging off the wall. 

The first thing we did was tear out the bathtub because no one wants to soak in a nasty old tub that no amount of cleaning could save. We replaced it with a deep soaker tub because I find bathing in a regular size tub incredibly awkward. I can never manage to get all my body parts underwater at the same time.

Here's the finished product.

Bathroom After

My husband did all the tile work in the shower himself to save money. My favourite part is the shampoo shelf that's set into the wall. I love the contrast of the smaller mosaic tiles against the large brick tiles.

The shower fixture was a great find. A rainfall shower head with back massage jets on special at Canadian Tire for $99. Similar models at Home Depot were $500 and up.

For the vanity I looked everywhere for something affordable that wasn't cheap looking but anything other than the standard MDF vanity with laminate counter and inset sink was well over a thousand dollars which was not going to happen. We decided to put together our own custom vanity. We saved money by starting with one of the least expensive white base cabinets and jazzing it up with a custom wood countertop. The countertop is actually an IKEA Gerton solid wood table top that we cut to size and sealed to prevent water damage. With the money we saved on the cabinet and countertop we were able to get a vessel sink and splurge a little for the waterfall faucet.

The floor is a vinyl plank that is made to look like wood. It clicks together similarly to laminate flooring but is just a little trickier as the lips tend to break easier than on laminate flooring, but once it is installed it is very durable.

All in all we're very happy with how the bathroom turned out and the amount of money we saved doing it ourselves.

Introduction

Welcome to my site. Please join me on my journey to achieve big dreams on a less big budget.

This journey really started in 2011 with the purchase of my first fixer-upper house. It was a bank owned property and it was disgusting. The walls were black, the carpets were so stained you couldn't tell what colour they were supposed to be and when I went to turn the water on at the main I found out some of the plumbing was blown as water sprayed from every direction.

Step number one was a call to the plumber, as that is not something you want to be trying to diy with no experience, and step number two was a trip to the store for cleaning supplies. Lots of cleaning supplies.

The first few days were discouraging, but with the plumbing fixed and after lots of scrubbing I became more optimistic.

Over the next five years I met and married my husband, we renovated an entire house ourselves, welcomed our daughter and finally listed the house for sale.

In my upcoming posts I will feature before and after pictures of different parts of the house and detail the process to achieve the end result.