5 Cheap & Easy Ways to Create a Beach Themed Bathroom

When you get a reputation for being crafty, you'll get some desperate requests from friends. Recently I was asked to help decorate an apartment bathroom in a beach theme. The beach theme was an attempt to work with the bright orange walls and boring brown floors. The catch? The bride to be was on a budget. Could we decorate this bathroom in a fun beach theme for under $50.00? We did.

Make a splash with a bright beach towel and bath rugs.
Our first stop was Target for a bright beach towel for the shower towel hanger. Since the bathroom is small, we were looking for a beach towel with vertical stripes. We also needed one with the orange but other colors we could work into our beach theme too. We found the perfect striped beach towel with a light blue background, orange, navy, yellow, lime green and red. Now we had lots of colors to work with and we found this plush beach towel was just $7.00. Two bright blue bathroom rugs for $4.00 a piece and we now had the basics for $15.00.

Making a toilet tissue holder just a little bolder.
This bathroom did not have a built in toilet tissue holder on the wall. We were able to find a polished pewter stand up model at the Good Will store for $3.00. It was adequate as is but with a hot glue gun and one clamshell perched on top now it really made an impression in the beach themed bathroom.

One, two, three- wall art from the sea.
The narrow space between the commode and the bathroom window was really the focal point wall when walking into this small bathroom. Could we make a cute focal point with just dollars? Actually, yes and we did it with sand dollars. We spent $3.00 on sand dollars at a craft store and $4.00 on removable 3M wall hanging squares. So for another $7.00 we created a really unique beach theme wall decoration.

Anything else would pale in comparison.
From day one I was most excited about the idea of using a sand pail on the vanity to holds rolls of wash cloths to add more of the colors we brought in with the beach towel. We could have found a plastic sand bucket for a dollar but this was a grown up bathroom so we were looking for something a little more adult. A $3.00 light blue metal pail from Target was perfect fill with rolled up wash clothes in navy, lime green, red, yellow and light blue for $1.00 each. Nope, there wasn't an orange washcloth to be found but this bucket of color was worth the $8.00 it took to put together.

Was a small beach theme print really in the cards?
The bathroom had a very narrow wall between the door frame and the mirror that needed just a little something. We wanted a small beach themed print, and we knew that they were affordable, but unfortunately we couldn't find one when and where we were looking. We had to get creative. A trip down the card aisle was a success. A blank card with a back view of a lady sitting under an umbrella sipping lemonade and looking at the ocean was perfect. This $2.00 card with a $5.00 wooden frame hit the spot perfectly.

This bright orange bathroom was now totally upcycled into a fun beach themed parlor. With a little creativity and a hot glue gun, we came in under budget at just $38.00.