Moving on.

I thought, I would show some before and after pictures of this simple (and cheap) farmhouse bathroom makeover. So you can play which of these things is not like the other thing if you’re bored.

Here’s a recap…I decided to break my all time rule of never painting wood and paint some. You know, branch out a little. So I starting by painting the cabinets. I had a pretty beige picked out, then ran into this taupe at half price so I bought it. And decided I could learn to live with it at half price. (Note to self…if first husband doesn’t work out…this probably won’t work for picking out another man.) The taupe is fine.

The counter tops that I painted didn’t cost me anything. I painted them with what I had. I posted about that here. Here’s before.

Here’s after.

I love the depth of color and how finishing with a sponge full of metallic takes it to a whole other level.

We bought the light new, but that mirror came from Salvation Army. It was ten bucks. I tried to dicker, but they didn’t budge. I felt pretty good about the price, though, after pricing them new at Lowes.

The backsplash was just simple wainscoting, twenty bucks total there.

The dad-gum deal killer was the pulls. Grrrr. Pulls are expensive.  Sigh. But they cover up the holes bore out from others who have mismeasured in the past. Mistakes do have a price, I guess.

So that’s it. Here’s what the total looked like.

Light…$40

Back splash…$20

Pulls…$44

Paint…$16

Which brings the grand total to $120.

Getting it done and being able to brush my teeth in the bathroom instead of the kitchen….PRICELESS. This was much funner than spending our entire emergency fund…thanks for asking.

I still want to wash a light coat of robin’s egg blue over that sage green, but that will have to wait until the snow flys or I get in the mood for more painting. That probably won’t be any time soon, so don’t hold your breath.

Simply,

Sis

The kids went back to school and I went into mourning. If you missed that self-realization post, you can read it here.  While in mourning, I like to do home improvement.

Ben giggled and said, “The kids haven’t been gone for two hours and you already have the house tore up.”

That was a true statement.

I’ve talked about  the way a woman’s homes looks inside and out is directly related to how that woman feels about herself, here. (Guys read this and understand.) This time, it was this old farm house bathroom. A fresh look for our throne room would make me feel better.

The counter tops are just plywood covered in laminate. To remove and replace  would mean demolishing the whole upper cabinets. Well, I don’t have that much time or money, so I thought I would just paint them. I poured over the internet, called my friends who own this depot (Debbie has painted about everything known to man) and got the scoop on painting counter tops. I finally found the perfect thing to paint them with and discovered I couldn’t get my hands on it that day. This news threw me deeper into my spiral and I ended getting really mad and using what I already had in my old paint collection. I primed with Kiltz first. Then painted this next.  

It turned out Barney–eggplant purple. I fell on my sword. Cried outloud, ’but it says rust…how do you get dad-gum purple from rust?’

I gave up pondering THAT and sea sponged

on some of these… instead.

I started with Terra Cotta and alternated Burnt Umber and Rich Espresso metallic. I finshed by putting three coats of Polycrylic on 

and let dry for three days.

Here’s before…

Here’s after…

I love it. I want to do the kitchen countertops after the bathroom is done. My transformed countertops brought me out of the blues of missing my kids during the day and motivated me to do the rest of the bathroom. 

About the cost… It cost me a lot less than our last project, that’s for sure.

Painted countertops: Zero Dollars. Having the kids in school all day so you can finish the bathroom: PRICELESS.

Stand-by for more before and after pics of cabinets, mirrors and more. All on a budget, of course.

Simply,

Sis