How to Give Your Tiny Bathroom a New Look While Staying Within a Tight Budget

My house was built in 1960. While it has a room that we call a Master Bathroom, the term is almost comical given the condition and size of the room. When consumers first started adding a 2^nd bathroom/master bathroom to their building plans -as opposed to having only one bathroom in the whole house, the bath was tiny -usually barely enough room to turn around. The typical master bath of this time (at least in all the homes from that time period I have seen) has a toilet, sink and walk in shower. The room is typically about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long. These are not the Master Bathrooms you see today with a nice jetted tub, a separate (huge) walk-in shower and lots of floor space.

My "master bath" if you can call it that is the typical 4 feet by 6 feet room. It even has a pocket door because there is not enough room for a door to swing into the room. To top it off, the previous owner painted the room in a "battleship gray" color. There are also shelves built in over the toilet.

I can't stand the color. To make matters worse, that pain on the walls and ceiling is peeling off -at a very fast rate. I decided that sometime (almost anything) had to be done. Here is how I saved the bath from being a total eyesore.

First of all, I cleaned everything so that it sparkled. That alone helped some. Then, I used a rough cloth and scrubbed the walls and ceiling so that the peeling paint would finish chipping off. I wanted to address the color of the walls, the ceiling, the trim and door, and the general décor.

I started with the walls. Since the walls are plaster and they were rough to the point that paint just didn't help, I invested in a roll of Illusions wall paper. To apply this paper, you tear it into haphazard pieces and just start pasting them to the wall. It gives a very textured look. I chose a blue color that has other earth tones weaved in it. Once I complete the wallpaper, it was on to the ceiling.

Since the ceiling still had multiple layers of paint and I don't use a sander due to allergies, I decided to just cover it up. I used a piece of bead board paneling painted in a bright white. We just nailed it to the ceiling and viola! My bath looks almost new.

With the ceiling and walls finished, I took on the project of painting the vanity (case and doors), the trim, the pocket door and the shelf above the toilet in a bright white. Then, I bought some wide, fancy trim and painted it bright white and installed it on the perimeter of the room.

With all the work completed, I wanted to add a few decorator touches to the room. I purchased a couple of small tile wall hangings and new towels to match the wall paper. I also was fortunate to already have a soap dish that worked well in the room. Since the space is so tiny, I couldn't put anything else in there.

The bathroom looks ten times better than it did. The best part -I spent very little. The wall paper was around thirty dollars for the roll. I already had the paint and trim left over from another project. The bead board paneling was under twenty dollars. The wall hangings and towels were bought on sale -a very good sale actually. The wall hangings were four dollars each and the towel set was six dollars. So, I now have a much nicer bathroom and I spent less than one-hundred dollars!