Monthly Mini Makeover – Master Bath (Part 1)

Since I purchased my little townhome two years ago, I’ve been very fortunate in that I haven’t had to any major renovations. The home was only a year and a half old when we bought it so everything is in great shape. Since it’s all in such good condition, I can’t bring myself to spend the money on renovating rooms that don’t fit my particular style. For example, I love the idea of having white cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms, BUT it’s such a huge undertaking to replace and even paint cabinets that it just doesn’t make much sense. That being said, in the last couple months, I’ve been able to brainstorm ways to transform my master bath into the southern-glam feel that I’m going for, without breaking the bank or doing any major renovations.

We were very fortunate when we found this townhome because the previous owners did a great job at making everything a good neutral color; the walls are a light off white, the carpet is white, and all the flooring is a light brown. I swear, sometimes I’ll go into open houses in our neighborhood and people have red backsplash in their kitchen or dark grey carpet. In these cases, I’d have to do major renovations. Because I had a neutral starting place, I wasn’t  limited at all in what I could do with the design.

One thing that I hated about my old mirrors was the ‘rustic’ look. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with rustic or country-chic but it’s not the ‘glam’ look that I want for my bathroom. So the first thing that I did in order to transform this room was changing out the mirrors. It was a quick $200 fix that made a world of difference!

Finding the perfect mirrors was a little challenging. I knew that I didn’t want to change out the sink hardware, because they were perfectly good and nice looking silver faucets that didn’t need to be replaced (did your parents drill that into your brain too? Susan, you don’t need that you just want it). But I also didn’t want to add in more silver accents, gold is so trendy right now that I’m such I’ll want to change them in the future (that’ll be in mini bathroom makeover part 2 – coming next year).

One thing that I did learn in the hunt to find the perfect mirrors is that all mirrors are not created equal. Did you know that all bathroom mirrors aren’t the same size? I have no idea why, but I thought that you had two sizes, the vertical rectangular ones and the long horizontal rectangular ones… Well that’s not the case so make sure you measure before you buy, I accidentally bought ones that were about 4 inches too long and had to order the smaller size online (and wait an extra FOUR days!!!).

I bought mine at HomeDepot and Lowes, which I would recommend because they seem to be the cheapest for all the other online retailers. One thing that does kind of suck between HomeDepot and Lowes is that they don’t always carry ALL the sizes that the mirror comes in, for example I found that Lowes carries this mirror in 30 in x 40 in, and 24 x 30 in. But Home Depot carries the exact same mirror in sizes 36 x 24 in and and 32 x 20 in. So don’t get sold on one store. Also, they have this same mirror on Target and Wayfair but they were for $25 more than what Lowes and Home Depot were selling for. So one of my best tips to leave you with is always Google the name of something before you buy you, because you’ll most likely find it cheaper somewhere else. Or just use my links because I always find the cheapest price!

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I debated long and hard about whether I wanted to go full glam and get the diamond geometric knob or the gold nugget knob… the sales people in Lowes were watching me talk to myself for a good 20 minutes. I’m always drawn to adding gold accents but I wanted a ‘glam’ bathroom so badly that I ended up going for the diamond and I didn’t regret it. I love how it adds a pop to my dark cabinets and in the end I decided that the knobs should match the link faucets and I wasn’t about to spend an extra $200 to replace those.

Also, back in the olden days you had to actually measure out the exact right spot on the cabinets so every knob was consistently in the same spot. But, since it’s the future and everything has been invented, they now make mounting templates for around $9 and it’s a lifesaver! Better yet, it’s reusable so I highly recommend it. It’s a little easier putting on the single hole knobs than the two whole pulls, so if you’re installing pulls then this is required!

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Once you have all the big stuff purchased, it’s time for the fun stuff… the accessories and accent pieces.

The first thing that I did was updated my old gross bath mats (from college) and upgraded to these nice clean white ones. Since I’m not redoing the bathroom tile for a couple of months, these are great for adding a nice pop of white and adding some brightness to the room.

Next, I wanted to add my pops of gold.

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