Budget Friendly Tips for Updating your Bathroom

Today, I’m sharing budget-friendly tips for updating your bathroom.

I can’t believe it. Today marks the day we officially have a teenager in the house. Our Jules is 13. She’s already almost 2 inches taller than me and I swear she grew that much just during this quarantine. To celebrate, Jules is partnering with me on sharing budget-friendly tips for updating your bathroom.

Becoming a teenager has its own challenges right? Throw in this crazy quarantine situation, online school, being home 24-7 and not seeing your friends and it becomes a bit of an adjustment. There were a few tears in the beginning as Jules has just made her track team and started Spring training. She was so excited and felt disappointed by the sudden change in plans. One thing I’ve learned during this circumstance is that everyone is grieving some kind of loss. It’s easy to compare our loss to someone else’s and minimize our own because there are so many hardships going on around the world. But it’s still important to listen especially to our children and let them know that what they are feeling is completely valid and give them room to process those emotions. By the way, adults need this too!

Last week, I posted a simple transformation in the kids’ bathroom by painting the cabinets. That alone with replacing the hardware was a total gamechanger for the space wasn’t it? My purpose for these posts is to show you simple budget friendly tips for updating your bathroom. Paint alone is one of the most effective ways to transforming your bathroom.

Over the weekend, I planned on painting the bathroom walls to get of the yellow along with wallpapering the main wall that you see when coming into the bathroom. While I started working, Jules came in and wanted to give me a hand and it was the perfect mother-daughter project. The kids are always seeing me work on projects and this was one where a second hand was really helpful.

While Jules worked on painting the walls, I got busy installing the wallpaper from Graham and Brown called Chelsea Sand. I had the perfect amount left over from my mom’s bedroom transformation that I gifted to her on her birthday a couple years back. I used one full roll. When ordering wallpaper, I recommend buying 20% extra than the area you’re measuring. You’ll be cutting off any excess while trying to line up the pattern to match.

We painted the walls Alabaster from Sherwin Williams in a semi-gloss sheen. You can color match this with your favorite brand at Home Depot. I recommend either a satin or semi-gloss finish for bathrooms so you can easily wipe down the walls.

Getting around the window for the wallpaper was a bit tricky but it turned out so beautiful. We were able to knock this project out in a few hours and it totally elevated the overall aesthetic of the bathroom by tenfold.

This particular wallpaper uses paste. I have used every kind of wallpaper there is and I just love how they add so much drama and beauty to all the walls in our home. I love how soft and neutral this wallpaper plays against this wall and it looks so good with the newly painted cabinets. It looks absolutely lovely from the new hallway looking in.

If you don’t want to spend money on wallpaper, you could always just paint the walls the same color or a different accent color to add some visual interest. I hung up an extra bathroom curtain that I used for my downstairs bathroom project a few years back. The soft pink complements the bathroom. Thank goodness JJ doesn’t care how feminine his shared bathroom with Jules looks.

A few other items on the to-do list for the bathroom are adding a frame to the mirror, finding affordable lighting, and adding another DIY decor piece. I may even do something with the tiles but I just haven’t decided yet.

I can’t even deal with this girl’s height!! Thanks for helping me, Jules!

Dear Jules, thanks for 13 years of bringing joy, laughter, and beauty into our lives. Your intelligence, thoughtfulness, and empathy always astound me and I’m so grateful to be your mama. One of the things I love most about you is how affectionate you are. You are always kissing and hugging me and dad multiple times a day and we get to enjoy that even more these days as we share so much more time at home.

Thanks for being the best big sister around and a wonderful example to our community of friends. You will always be their big sister and they look up to you so much.

After weeks of quarantine, we have all adjusted and I love that you are making the best of the situation. We love you so much and pray that this new year of life will be the most amazing one yet. God has so much planned for you and we are excited to see it all unfold.