You guys might remember the quickie $200 makeover that we whipped up for our niece Olivia last October. Just to refresh your memory, here are the before shots:
And here are the we-only-spent-200-beans afters (and that budget includes the desk, the chair, the headboard, the dresser, the curtains, and a ton of other things in the room- see the details right here):
Yes sir, Olivia’s room was definitely spiffed up. But when it came to her attached bathroom (yeah, she knows she’s a lucky girl to have one of those) well it was looking a little blah:
But it was nothing a bit of avocado green paint and a few playful (and super cheap) accessories couldn’t solve…
Can you believe that’s the same room all decked out for Olivia’s 9th birthday? And isn’t she totally a girl after our own heart to ask for a bathroom makeover as her gift?! John’s cute sister even wrapped the door to properly package the little makeover for her daughter on her big day:
And what’s that you see gleaming on the ceiling? Why it’s a posh little green chandelier for Miss. Olivia to brush her teeth under. The icing on the cake is that it only set us back $30 at Marshall’s (on clearance).
We also took the opportunity to inject color wherever we could in an effort to take the builder white room to va va voom. The wall color is Glidden’s Celery Sticks (we’ve been waiting to see it in action for a while and let’s just say it did not disappoint!). Especially when paired with splashes of hot pink (just like her adjoined bedroom) and a playful little round rug from Ross.
And of course our colorful Target shower curtain really added some playful pattern (that looks surprisingly perfect when paired with the little rainbow rug):
So that’s the story of Olivia’s birthday bathroom makeover. All wrapped up with a bow and everything. Needless to say she squealed with glee when she saw her brandy new bathroom with all the cheerful colors and patterns. It’s perfect for a happy little nine year old like her.
But what’s a birthday bathroom makeover without a fun little budget breakdown? We just love how a little bit of elbow grease and a few bucks can really transform a room:
- Chandelier (on clearance from Marshall’s):$30
- Rug (on clearance from Ross): $4.99
- Shower curtain (from Target): $29.99
- Paint (Glidden’s Celery Sticks): $17.60
- Hot pink towels (from Target): gift
- Door decorating supplies: already owned
- GRAND TOTAL: $82.58
Not bad eh? Especially since we were even able to inject little extras like a bejeweled chandelier. The funny thing is that you could easily spend $82 for the chandy alone, so we’re pleased as punch (along with the beaming birthday girl). And best of all we’ve now officially seen Glidden’s Celery Sticks in person, and it’s fabulous for any room (not just for kids!) so definitely check it out if you’re looking for a modern green reminiscent of a freshly sliced avocado. And speaking of avocados, what’s for lunch? Any bathroom makeovers on the menu for you guys? Any other kids out there who ask for home related updates for their birthdays? We just can’t get over how cute that is.
Too funny, I’ve been carrying around a swatch of Celery Sticks because I like it so much, but I’m not sure where to use it. The bathroom is too cute!
Really cute!
Cute!
We’re going to update our bathrooms. The master is still builder white with the cheapo builder towel rack/TP holder. We also have this HUGE mirror over the double sinks that we’re going to have cute and then framed into 2 smaller mirrors over each sink, then change out the single 8 bare bulb (HOT!) light and put 2 3-lights over each mirror. As for color…very undecided. I have yet to paint our adjoining bedroom, but am thinking a blue with a brown accent wall. Our duvet is brown striped with a brown bedskirt w/ blue stripe and different blue and brown toss pillows.
Any ideas?
Hey Amy,
Love the idea to cut the mirror and frame it as two mirrors over each sink. Awesome update! And as for the color, since the bedroom will be blue with a brown accent wall, we’d suggest a lighter mocha color in the bathroom to tie into the accent wall or even a deeper blue than the walls to create a little jewel box effect in the bathroom. Lovely!
xo,
s
Let me just start with I LOVE all your work! AWSOME! Now….to the more important….my mom is trying to transform her out dated bathroom on a tight budget…..she can not afford to take out the blue…yes blue tub and tiles…sigh….wish she could…..I was wondering what you thought about painting her walls a shade of green. This has been her wish for a very long time. SHE LOVES GRREEN! Also…we were thinking of painting only the tiles a nice shade of white with a kit we found at Lowe’s….have you ever heard of this or tried this….I am just afraid it will peel or something. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!
Hey Kelsey,
Good questions! We love a soft grass green with sky blue- it can actually look really fresh and crisp. I would just bring home a milllion swatches to find the right green (not too bright or too dark since it will look like it’s competing with the tub and tiles). As for the tile painting kit I’m afraid we’ve heard terrible things. Basically that it cracks and peels right after you apply it (as in within weeks) so we would definitely suggest hiring someone to professionally reglaze them (get references to find someone qualified!) for a totally updated look. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
This is so much fun, and the budget can’t be beat! Olivia is lucky to have you guys :)
So cute!
Question for you guys: I am moving into my first house on Saturday. I am planning to paint the bathroom in Benjamin Moore’s Utah Sky. I have a white waffle shower curtain and am planning to get a white bathmat. I am puzzled as to what color towels to get (there is only one bath in the house, so guests will see this). I would think that white towels would be great, but I’m scared to use white towels because of the dirt-showing factor. I also don’t know what other color I could bring in. Thoughts? Thanks!
Hey Emily,
Hmm, could you do a soft cloud gray for the towels? That always looks nice with a sky blue wall. You also could go the mocha or tan route (also cute with blue) and easier to keep clean than white. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Super cute bathroom for a 9 year old!
I have been following your blog for a while. I love the bathroom. It is so much fun. I know that she loves it.
OOO so cute! Love the mini chandy too – great find (as always!) :-)
I love the bathroom. Since you guys are so good at this, I hope you don’t mind answering a couple of paint questions. What color do you think I should paint a bathroom with sea green shower and floor tiles? What about a bathroom that is pepto pink? Lastly, I definitely want to paint the cabinets in my bathroom white – they are currently wood. What finish do you recommend on the white paint? Thanks so much for your time.
Hey Jeanne,
Hmm, how about a soft tan on the walls for a room with sea green shower and floor tiles? Just bring home a bunch of swatches and see which one looks best. As for a pepto pink bathroom, again a soft tan might tone things down and look a bit chic and crisp, which is always a good thing. You could also do something like a cloud gray (very soft and almost a bit warm) or even a khaki color (with a tad bit of green as the undertone) which actually can look quite sophisitciated with pink. Again just bring home a slew of swatches and see which ones look best (you don’t want them to compete you almost want them to soften the existing tile colors so they feel more seamless and coordinated). Hope it helps! Oh and as for the finish for painting the cabinets in your bathroom, you want to use an oil-based primer (not water based!) followed by two thin and even coats of semi-gloss paint for the most durable and wipe-able finish. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
OH TOO CUTE! She will be totally spoiled from now on, and will always demand her own bathroom, designed by you, of course! Great job!
Love this bathroom!!! We did the exact same for my daughters bathroom, same shower curtain & same wall color. She doesn’t have that cool chandelier, but I might have to look for one now. ;) Seeing this on here make me think there is hope for me yet. Maybe I do have a little bit of style. :) XOXO
I would like some brandy in my bathroom for my birthday too! Seriously though, fantastic job! I would love love love a chandelier in my bathroom, but the light fixture is also the exhaust fan – they don’t make venting chandeliers, do they? :)
What a lucky, lucky little girl!! How sweet of you to make her day. Looks gorgeous, as always!
How awesome are y’all?! That turned out super cute! Olivia is one lucky girl! Can you and John be my aunt and uncle, too?
Thanks for the suggestion, Sherry!
I was thinking of doing a lighter mocha in the bathroom, but wasn’t sure if it’d be too “dark.” It does have long, skinny window and cathedral ceilings! I might do our hallway Glidden Water Chestnut (picked up the sampler), and thought of just using that color again in the bathroom! Our huge rug in the bathroom is chocoate, our soap/tumblers are a muddy gray/brown with light blue, brown, and cream dots, and I was going to frame the mirrors in chocolate!
Hey Amy,
We love Water Chestnut and it’s definitely not too dark! Go for it!
xo,
s
Thanks to your heads up I actually have a free quart of Glidden Celery Sticks…
LOVE IT!! As the mom of a 10 year old, that’s the most perfect gift that you can give?! Cool makeover!
Our Marshalls never has fixtures?! Is that chandelier hard wired? We even have a HomeGoods down the street, Marshall’s home store cousin, and I have never seen fixtures in there either!? Huh.
Regardless, adorable!
Hey Carrie,
Yup, it’s wired and was ready-to-hang. Our Marshall’s certainly doesn’t have a ton of chandeliers either (it’s one of the only ones we’ve seen actually) but we dug it up in a weird little section with some lamps and some mirrors. Of course it had a ton of discounted stickers on it so we jumped at the chance to snag it on the cheap. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Emily,
I am NOT a clean person or a neat freak (it really takes effort for me to keep my house from looking like a pigsty!) but I have used white towels in our bathroom for quite some time. They really don’t get dirty looking and clean fantastically with just a little bleach. Plus, it looks so crisp and spa-like. Just wanted to let you know not to be afraid to try it!
Man, I wish we had a Marshalls nearby. Or an Ikea. OR a Bed Bath and Beyond for that matter. My decor selection options are pretty much limited to Target and Wal-Mart!
Anyway, love the transformation–and I love the brights in this space :)
What a sweet makeover- I love “real” life makeovers- thanks for sharing.
Have a great day-
That’s awesome! I wish I had a room/bathroom like this when I was a kid! I love pink and green – and the fact that you did it for so cheap was even better!
Love love love the chandelier in the bathroom. I totally need to get one of those now.
With the shower being in that bathroom, don’t they need a bathroom fan? I would love to put a chandelier in our bathroom – but I thought the fan was necessary.
Could you please weigh in?
Hey April- Emily’s house is a new construction so the builder put the fan in another, more hidden, part of the ceiling- while the overhead fixture was built to accommodate something more decorative. Hope it helps!
Hey Heather- When we came over to help with the paint the old plain white shower curtain had already been removed, so that’s why it’s not in the before pics. Just picture something plain and white- it was still definitely a while box in there before. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Looks great! I would have loved to have my own bathroom not to mention a stylish one at her age! Question – why didn’t you take pictures of how it looked before you decorated rather than how it looked when they moved in? Surely they had a shower curtain and towels in there before…
That is an adorable bathroom for a little girl! She is so lucky! I love the color of the walls and the fancy chandelier. Gotta love Marshalls and Tar-jay :)
Sooo not fair I have been looking for a little chandelier for about 5 months now… I refuse to pay $100 for it!! and look what you found… UGHHHH
Very impressive, shows that a fortune does not have to be spent to make significant improvements to a room! Absolutely adorable, bet she loves it!
Janell
OH MY GOSH can you come be my aunt & uncle please?!? This is most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to put color everywhere in my home. I love it way too much.
Great work – Olivia’s bathroom looks super cute! Love that you were able to do it with less than $83!
We are planning to remodel our one bathroom which is rather small in the next few months – want to rip out the gross linoleum floor and put in tile, install a new sink and cabinetry, get a new tub and try and cut out existing wall tiles, only some, and replace with some cool, colorful ones. My husband thinks this is possible but I am a bit skeptical. we will also repaint it and perhaps add a new mirror. Any ideas on how to maximize space in a small bathroom? Or design tips for making the room appear larger?
Thanks!
Love your blog lots!
What’s this the bedroom makeover didn’t include paint!? How not typically YHL of you. I love the bathroom though. Big fan of the bright green walls and the chand. is it the only lighing in the room or is there vanity lighting as well?
So cute! And what a great thing to ask for as a gift! She must be a pretty decor-driven young thing! Maybe she’ll carry on the decorating tradition one day!
Love it. Colourful, fun, with hints of sophistication …. as all 9 year old girls are!!! Cute that that was her birthday request.
So I keep running into the situation that our bathroom lighting needs to be bathroom-approved (to handle moisture) and regular ceiling/wall lights are not ok to use in there. Did you do something to rig your chandelier for it to be ok in the bathroom? or was this for some reason not an issue in your bathroom? so curious.
I was very interested in Jeanne’s question as we’re getting ready to paint our downstairs bathroom. We are going to paint the cabinets white as well, and I am curious, Sherry, why you recommended a semi-gloss finish rather than a gloss finish, which is what I thought would be the most wipe-able, especially for the bathroom. We haven’t bought the paint yet, so we may just have to go with the semi-gloss per your recommendation, but I was just wondering if you could explain your preference for the semi over the regular gloss. I thought in a bathroom, it would be ok if the cabinets were smooth and shiny (they’re not big); they’re certainly going to get wet. Thanks!
A $30 adorable chandelier??? I am so jealous! But enough about me… What a gorgeous and perfectly girly little bathroom for her. I’m sure it’ll make her smile for months to come :O)
Love it! I really like the playful colors for a little girl. I’m just wondering why you left the ceiling unpainted. I have painted two of my bathroom ceilings and I love the look. It doesn’t feel closed in or dark at all. Do you think you might reconsider?
Jennifer- We agree that a painted ceiling totally works as well but since it was Emily’s house and the rest of her ceilings ate unpainted we left it sans paint. Hope it helps!
LauraC- You can definitely go full gloss if you’d like but we have found semi-gloss to be just as wipeable and actually doesn’t accentuate imperfections as much as full gloss paint. Hope it helps!
Juliette- We have actually never run unto an issue with fixtures in a bathroom being unsafe for the environment as long as they don’t get wet and because the chandy is not over Olivias tub (and the ceilings are extra high and they have a fan) there is no safety issue. Hope it helps!
Amanda- Emily’s house has mostly white walls so she wanted to add color to Olivia’s room with fabrics and painted furnishings, which was a fun change of pace for us!
Kelly- Mirrors definitely maximize a bathroom along with good lighting, good storage and light wall colors. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Awww….What a sweet gift! I would of been tickled pink if I came home to this surprise!
Ooooo! Every little {and big} girl needs a chandelier in her bathroom! Great make-over!
A chandelier on clearance from MARSHALL’S!?!?! Seriously how do you guys do it? All I ever see at Marshall’s are athletic socks and ugly purses. What is your secret?
That chandy is to die for! GREAT FIND! The room looks great and so appropriate and fun for a 9 year old.
Love the paint color. Our little bathroom would look great in that color. Would probably opt for orange accents instead of hot pink. Thanks for the idea!
What a fun makeover for the birthday girl. It really looks sharp. You guys are so talented.
Oh my goodness – it’s adorable! I love the green and the chandelier!
We just finished remodeling our bathroom (we ripped out everything and started from scratch…) http://homeinthecountry.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/bathroom-reveal/
We’re hoping to get started on our 1/2 bath soon… for some crazy reason both of our bathrooms had CARPET on the WALLS. So yucky!
What a great present! And it will probably feel fresh and playful for years to come. Lucky girl! We are definitely going to have to redecorate all three bathrooms here at the Nimitz. The small master bath will be a cool, pale silvery-green with espresso furnishings and crisp white trim (there! I said it!). I have no clue about the main public bath yet – it’s an odd white space with ancient blue and white linoleum, with a skylight that makes it hard to figure out what color to go with. The downstairs bath is also the laundry room and it is, quite frankly, too ghastly to contemplate right now.
I really, really like the green chandelier, Sherry.
By the way, thanks for the email offering your support. I’ve actually decided to throw a birthday party on that day instead for a child at a local shelter that I volunteer at. I appreciate your interest, though!
Kelly
http://tearinguphouses.blogspot.com
Wow! I love using bright colors and stripes like that. What a fun couple of rooms! I especially love the stripy shower curtain. It just goes to show you that a totally dull space can be transformed with a bit of color. I’m taking notes for things to use in my house! Thanks for the inspiration!
How do you find things like that chandelier that are perfect for a room? Do you spend hours shopping? Do you go to Marshalls, Target, Homegoods, etc on a weekly basis so that you always know what they have? With a full time job and a baby, I am short on free time for shopping. If you have any secrets on how to find great stuff without spending a whole weekend (or more) shopping, I’d love to know!
Hey Julia,
We definitely don’t have the time to stop in at every store on a weekly or even a monthly basis, but we’ll devote one afternoon to shopping for a makeover like Olivia’s and in that day we will hit up Target, Marshall’s, HomeGoods, and any other place we can find to gather things we can use. We wish we could say we have a secret but we just dig through sale stuff and try to see past bad packaging and unattractive displays and look for the hidden potential. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
That bathroom is darling! I’ve been craving a chandelier in our bathroom for ages. I actually just put the finishing touches on our bathroom remodel this past week. And I made it on apartment therapy’s color contest with it! (and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to publish the pictures elsewhere, so I just included the link for the contest just in case!)
http://tinyurl.com/y85tkmr
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! I LOVE HER NAME TOO! OLIVIA IS MY KID’S FAVE BOOK EVER!!! AND NOW WITH THE SHOW….WE ARE SET! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! I REMEMBER ASKING FOR A NEW BED AND PAINT COLOR FOR MY 12TH BIRTHDAY. RANDOM…..BUT NOW MY DAUGHTER SLEEPS IN THE BED THAT WAS MINE. SOO MUCH BETTER THAN A DOLL OR SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE LONG GONE BY NOW!