New Bathroom Vanity Knobs

We completed a makeover of our hall bath over six months ago. Part of the makeover including painting the boring and orangey oak vanity to a sleek, glossy brown finish. I loved how the deep brown looked with the oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and how it contrasted against the white vanity top.

However, while at Hobby Lobby the other day, I was admiring their amazing selection of drawer pulls and knobs. They were having a sale so all the knobs were 50% off. I spied these beautiful white knobs and had to grab a couple since they were only $1.50 each. I thought the white would really pop against the dark brown and I was right. A couple minutes of drilling and on they went.

They make the perfect finishing touch. I'm hoping Hobby Lobby has another sale soon, because there were so many gorgeous knobs that I might have to see where else I can add or replace some knobs.

Sprucing Up a Plain Bathroom Shelf

I've had this bathroom shelf cabinet for a long time. I use it do display different accessories, usually beachy themed ones. A bonus is the fact that they don't get dusty since they are enclosed. However, when I was finishing up our bathroom makeover, I decided this simple wall cabinet needed a little oomph.

So I decided to visit my massive scrapbook paper collection to look for some matching paper to use as a background. I measured the inside of the cabinet and cut two pieces to fit. I cut them so that the seam of the two papers was located in the middle. That way, the edges of the doors covers up the seam when you look at it from the front.

It fits in nicely with the wall color of the rest of the room and since I already had the paper it was a free and easy project!

Laying Laminate in a Bathroom

About a week ago I revealed the results of the makeover one of our bathrooms received here. A big part that makeover was covering up the old, yucky white vinyl floor. I was tired of the floor never looking clean. It had stains and scratches and every piece of dirt or animal fur was magnified against the white background. However, we really wanted to do something fairly inexpensive and easy to cover up the floor. I looked at using peel and stick vinyl tile, but wanted something a little nicer and more durable. So I looked into using laminate that looks like tile. There are a few rules you have to follow when using laminate in a bathroom, especially a full bathroom.


1.Not all laminate is rated or warrantied for use in a bathroom. Certain types of laminate are more moisture resistant than others. We went with the Swiftlock brand from Lowe's. The package labeled it as highly water resistant and the website stated it could be used in residential full bathrooms. Make sure the kind you choose does say it can be used in a bathroom, some brands are not recommended to be exposed to the potential of so much moisture.

2. Double check all your cuts before you start cutting down pieces to fit. Also make sure you are cutting the right end. Each side and each end has either a tongue or a groove. If you cut from the wrong side, you might have two grooves or two tongues that won't fit together. Not a groovy match. Trust me. I cut the wrong end of a plank. Twice.

3. Use an undercut saw to trim down the door jambs by sawing up the bottom portion. Lay a piece against the door jamb to determine where to cut. This allows you to slip the pieces of laminate underneath and not have to remove the door trim. This also works when installing ceramic tile.

4. Most laminates will require you to use glue when connecting the pieces together in order to make the seam watertight. Our laminate said to put the glue on top of the tongue only, but the glue kinds of ends up everywhere. You mostly just want to prevent any water from getting underneath the floor. The top of the laminate is water resistant, the underneath is not. In theory, you should avoid walking on the floor and flexing the seams while the glue is drying. However, the easiest way to lay the floor in our bathroom was by starting at the doorway so we ended up walking on it alot. Oops.

5. Once the floor is installed and you have left the required 1/4"-3/8" gap between the edges of the floor and the walls, tub, and/or vanity, you must go back and fill in that gap with caulk. Make sure you use 100% silicone caulk. Silicone caulk is waterproof and is flexible so that the floor can still move and expand as needed. Also caulk all around the edge where the toilet drain is. See this post for tips on getting a nice pretty caulk line.

6. We also caulked all around the top and base of the trim in order to further prevent any possible water seepage.

7. You will probably need a new wax ring for your toilet because the new floor height will be taller if you are going over another floor. Removing and reinstalling the toilet and wax ring is gross, there is not way around that. Our toilet spent over a week sitting in the bathtub while we worked on the floor, caulking, and trim. It helps to have a strong guy around to help lift the toliet around, they are heavy!

8. They sell trim kits that contain pieces to transition from the laminate to carpet or whatever flooring you have outside the doorway. We only needed one small piece, but you had to buy a whole kit. The kit was $27. So we bought a $6 pewter colored metal floor transition that works just as well.

Hopefully this tips will help you out if you decide to try laminate flooring in your bathroom.

Before you know it, your floor could go from this:

to this:

Caulk it Up

Our bathroom makeover involved a lot of caulking. A lot. I used 2 tubes worth of caulk and my fingers were very sore from squeezing the caulk gun. We had to caulk all around the floor because it was laminate as well as all around the trim on both the top (to hide the gap between the wall and the trim since the walls aren't perfectly straight) and bottom (to keep any water from getting underneath since it's a bathroom). Not to mention all the caulking around that new vanity top we had to install.

After all that caulking, I'm still hardly an expert. But I wanted to share a few tips I learned about getting the best results from your caulk job.

1. Use the right caulk for the application. Make sure you are using the correct type based on where you are caulking, interior or exterior. Caulk can be latex(acrylic), 100% silicone, or a mix of the two. Latex caulk is easier to apply and clean up and is also paintable. However, 100% silicone caulk will not shrink or crack, is flexible, and is more durable. There are also many other special types of caulk for different uses. We used 100% silicone caulk because we needed something durable and flexible so that our laminate floor could move freely.

2. Pick the right color. Most caulk is white or clear, but there are other colors available. Remember some caulk can be painted, some cannot.

3. Use painter's tape to mark off the area you are going to caulk. Put a line of tape both above and below the area to be caulked. This is easiest way to get a smooth, even caulk line!

4. Don't cut too much off the tip so that your opening of the caulk bottle isn't too big or you will have too much caulk coming out at once which equals a sticky mess.

5. After applying your caulk smooth a finger along the caulk line and then remove the painter's tape before the caulk begins to set.

6. Have some paper towels or a sponge and bucket of water handy for cleaning up all that caulk that ends up in random places you don't want it to be.

7. After the caulk has set, a utility knife comes in handy for scraping off stray bits of caulk you missed cleaning up before. Like the spots on the side of the bathtub. Or the sink. Or in the middle of the floor. Or the stray bits of caulk your cats find and try to eat.

Hopefully these tips will help you get a nice clean caulk line like this:

The Bathroom Makeover Reveal

I'm linking this post up to DIY day on A Soft Place to Land and Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage. Head on over to both blogs for more DIY goodies.







We're done! I'm so excited to have this project complete in just a week and a half. There were problems and setbacks like any home improvement project (See this post.) But it all worked out in the end and now I seriously luurrrrve this bathroom!

Here are some before shots of what I we started with. It wasn't bad, just all the builder grade boring floor, vanity, and faucet were really starting to bug me. I do adore my shower curtain and I wanted to use the colors from in it as inspiration for the room.

Being the lazy blogger I am, I forgot to take before shots of the mirror and faucet. I'm learning to remember to take this important step, really.

So here are some photos from our master bath (which is also on the list for a major overhaul.) Picture a similar plain jane massive mirror with an ivory vanity top and cheapo chrome faucet.

And of course the dressing room style spotlights that should be outlawed in residential bathrooms. (And those stupid bulbs that burn out all the time and probably equal the energy usage of some third world nation.)

But that is all behind us in this bathroom. Here's what the room looks like now:

Ta da! After a lovely coat of Behr Rain Washed on the walls, my own custom blend of colors on the cabinet part of the vanity (See post), new oil-rubbed bronze faucet, mirror, light, and bath hardware along with some fun accessories and of course a new floor, this room is now just what I imagined.

See the floor? It looks like tile, but it's not. It's actually a laminate designed to look like tile. I'll dedicate a post about this flooring later on.

Here's my favoritest thing in the room, the glorious faucet. Even though replacing the faucet ending up costing much more because we had to replace the vanity top after the old one broke, it was still worth it.

I rehung my white cabinet on the wall and added scrapbook paper to the backs of the shelves for some added drama. It houses some seashells, starfish, and two $1.99 IKEA vases. I found a mirror at Old Time Pottery for $20 and gave it a coat of Rustoleum's Oil-Rubbed Bronze metallic paint. I do not recommend the Krylon bronze paint, stick with Rustoleum.

Here's my new light. A great find on Amazon for only $22.49.

I'll have several more posts explaining all the details and how-tos in more detail, but that's the overview of the room. Now for the cost breakdown(hubby tossed most of the receipts so these are estimates):

Flooring-Swiftlock laminate tile 2 boxes(Lowe’s)- $95
Underlayment for flooring- $25
Faucet (Overstock.com) -$50
Light (Amazon)- $22.49
Vanity top (Lowe’s)- $84
Mirror (Old Time Pottery) -$20
Spray paint for mirror- $6
Towel bar, ring, T.P. holder (Wal-Mart) -$30
Shower hooks (Garden Ridge)-$6
Trim, quarter round, glue, caulk, wax ring, paint, etc- $60

Total $398.49. So I’ll just call it my $400 bathroom makeover!

Home Improvement Horrors

I'm linking this post up to DIY day on A Soft Place to Land. It's not a finished project yet, but all about the many things that can and will go wrong during home improvement projects.

Ok, they are not quite horrors, but it sounds more dramatic that way. It's more like small bumps in the road from the before to the after. Isn't that the rule for home improvement that everything will cost twice as much and take three times as long? So here are our current misadventures in trying to makeover our hallway bath. It was all the original builder grade 1994 style and I wanted to punch it up a bit.

The first hiccup came with regards to the paint color. I had another free Glidden quart from their promotion that I was planning to use. Unfortunately when the color was actually applied to the wall I quickly realized it was much to blue and bright. My shower curtain, towels, and bath rug have more of a bluish green color that I wanted to match. So my second Glidden paint sample was also a failure. (Go here to read about my first free Glidden paint disaster.) The color is pretty though so I may use it on something else someday.

So I had to run out to Home Depot at 7:30 at night and buy a new gallon of paint. I like the new color much better and you will see it in the final reveal. (If we ever finish!)


I have officially been to Lowe's 4 times and Home Depot 2 times in the past 6 days. Last night I had to visit Lowe's yet again to pick up a couple things. I was looking for a nail set to use when reattaching the trim so that we don't damage the trim and the nails set below the surface. Well, not really reattaching since we damaged the trim while removing it so now we have to buy new trim. (Grrrr.) Anyways, I had to ask 4 people working at Lowe's until someone had a clue what I was talking about and what a nail set was and where it was located in the store. It took me 40 minutes at Lowe's to find 2 items.

Now I have a set of three nail sets in different sizes. I need a new toolbox, I'm started to collect more and more gadgets and gizmos as this project progresses.

While I was out wandering around Lowe's, hubby was supposed to be installing my new oil-rubbed bronze faucet I purchased from Overstock at a great price. Instead this is what I returned home to:

Ooops. The plan was to keep the old vanity. Now we have to go shopping tonight for a new vanity top because the old faucet did not want to let go of the old vanity top. Hubby's reply was "You wanted a new vanity anyway right?"

I was still determined to complete at least one project last night. So I dragged out the new mirror I bought at Old Time Pottery for $20 and a can of Krylon Oil-Rubbed Bronze. The mirror was originally a dark brownish gold color. I taped off the front and started spraying.

After about 30 seconds the goofy "360 nozzle" of the paint can kept clogging up. I continued to try and wipe of the nozzle and shake the can, but it continued to clog. After a couple minutes, it refused to spray at all. My rating for Krylon's stupid paint nozzle-FAIL.

So now I have to buy another can of spray paint along with a new vanity. And wood putty. And plumber's putty. And who knows what else. Time for another trip to Home Depot or Lowe's.

This is what my parking space in the garage looks like now. Maybe someday my car will make it back in there.

I think it's time for some ice cream. Blue Bunny sugar free ice cream=Extreme awesomeness.

DIY Thursday-Why is the Paint Purple???

It's that day again, DIY Thursday at A Soft Place to Land and Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage. Head on over for your weekly fill of fun projects and great ideas.

So I decided this past weekend that it would be a good time to paint the vanity in our hall bath. The bathroom we hardly use, but keep pretty for any company we have over. I've been planning to give it an overhaul by changing the floor, light fixture, and mirror and slightly changing the paint color. But for now, I figured I'd paint the vanity using my free Glidden paint from their recent promotion. Or that was the plan anyway.

So the first step in most painting projects is to sand. I hate sanding. It's messy and boring, but my vanity cabinet was not glossy so I just gave it a little light roughing up followed by a nice rinse.

I also layed down a plastic dropcloth, although since I'm going to cover the floor with vinyl or laminate, I wasn't too concerned with keeping it clean. It's always imporant to cover your cats when you paint too. It helps prevent all those kitty tiptoes through the painting tray followed by a trail of pawprints.

Once plastic bubble cat was banned from the bathroom, I added a coat of oil-based Kilz. I learned the oil-based primer does not hold up well in a hot garage. While I expected it to separate, I did not expect it to form a thick crust on top and adhere to the sides of the can.

I stirred it away and hoped for the best, although I had to watch for random clots of primer crust goo ruining my smooth finish. Yuck.

Then it was finally time to break open that glorious free can of paint. The color I picked was "Dark French Chocolate." Doesn't it just sound yummy?

Ummmm, wait a second. Does it look purple to anyone else? More like "Dark French Eggplant?"

Now I'm not a big chocolate eater. I like a little dab now and then, but give me a bowl of fruit over a candy bar or vanilla ice cream over chocolate anyday. (Yes, now you know that I am officially weird, and if you can't stand people who don't drool over chocolate you are welcome to leave, but I would like it if you would keep reading.) But I don't remember my chocolate ever being purple and I don't think the French like it that way either.

Well, maybe it will dry darker and more brownish.

Or maybe it will still look purple. I wish these photos showed better just how purple the paint was.

It was time for battle now. I did not want purple cabinets interfering with the spa-beachy-calming-pretty vision I had for this room. So I drug out two cans of paint I had left over from other projects. One was a medium brown interior semi-gloss(which also came out the wrong color of brown than I was going for, but at least it wasn't purple.) The other was a black semi-gloss exterior. I figured interior, exterior, what's really the difference. We can have a mixed blending of the two. So I poured different amounts into my tray until I got the color I was after.

Of course all this pouring and mixing left paint splattered basically all over the bathroom.

Then I proceeded to paint everything one more time with my new special "Sara's Dark French Chocolate Special Blend." Ooh La La. Can you see just how different the brown is against the purple?

While I never expected this project to take on the drama it did, I like the finished color.

And one more shot with a furry model showing off the brown paint yumminess. That's what I call good chocolate.

Now I just have to buy some knobs or handles and finish with the rest of the bathroom transformation. And while I'm bummed about my free paint not being what I want, I did sort of cheat and order two free samples. So I have another free quart of Blue Sky to use for the walls. (I checked too, it's not purple.) So maybe God is telling me to follow the rules or I may end up with something different than I planned for. Like purple paint.