We’ve done quite a few things to our bathroom since we’ve moved in, not all of which I’ve shared on the blog. Today I’m getting you all caught up!

Here’s the bathroom in all of it’s original glory. If glory is ugly and painted like Kermit the frog.

Aaaannnd here it is today. Sorry for the weird yellow glow but that’s what you get for using your i-Phone. The biggest change was painting the room a nice, calm bluish-gray. It really is  amazing how much a $30 gallon of paint can change a space.

We also replaced the gold chandelier with a much sleeker recessed LED light. This was the first electrical project Justin and I took on together and when it actually worked, well, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder. We’ve found out that the wiring in the house is a bit interesting, so we’re approaching future projects with a it’s-going-to-take-much-longer-and-more-effort-that-you-think attitude. For now, we’re extremely happy to have said good-bye to the gold!

Another extremely affordable project I tackled was spray painting the cabinet hardware. Since we really want to completely re-do the bathroom down the road, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money on new drawer knobs right now. Instead, I spent $7 on a can of spray paint and in an hour had completely “new” knobs. In case you can’t remember what the old ones are, or don’t want to scroll up, they were gold. See a theme here?

The last big change in this space so far has been the window. If you remember, there was a faux stained glass window insert that I blogged about removing { here }. Once the insert was removed, we were left with a completely blank canvas.

When I was in Home Depot one day, I happened to pass a curtain panel in the pattern below. It wasn’t the right style since it was a single long panel, but I figured I could work with it. Using my favorite no-sew tape I hemmed the curtain to fit our window and then layered the fabric to give the appearance of a roman shade. I started at the top left and every six inches or so I hand sewed a stitch. I repeated it for every row and it added a fun effect to the curtain.

Here’s a better picture from the side. It’s almost ruffled, but in a more relaxed and imperfect way. We finished it off by adding a set of blinds for extra privacy and have been very happy with the results!

We’ve also managed to replace the ugly shell toilet, but I didn’t figure you guys needed to see that. I mean it’s a toilet. Not such an exciting project. There are still a million things to do for this bathroom but all in good time. The big things on our list are to find a rug, add some artwork and replace the faucets. Again, this project is more about updating this bathroom as cheaply as we can since we plan to remodel down the road.

For under $150, we took this bathroom from outdated to updated. Not too shabby, I’d say.

I am beyond excited to share with you the first completely designed and renovated room in our house…my closet!

I’m really fortunate to not have to share a closet with my husband. I love the guy, but I need all the space I can get. This is the first time in years that I have every single piece of clothing and all my accessories in one place and I have only one word to describe it, heaven.

This week I’ll be posting lots of great tips and tutorials to show you ways to make your own closet (big or small!) just as fabulous. There’s even a surprise project (not shown in the picture) that is so easy and cheap, you’ll call your husband to stop at Home Depot on his way home from work.

Here’s the transformation!

Check back this week for tips on how to paint stripes, loads of organizational ideas and the reveal for that “table” on the left side of the picture.

I’ll tell you this, getting dressing in the morning has never been so much fun.

Remember in { this post } when I hinted that the bathroom wasn’t green anymore? Well, this is what it looks like now…

SO much better! Now it’s light, bright and worlds away from that dark green cave. The color is a very soft gray-blue. It’s hard to show the exact color in a picture, but it’s a bit lighter than it appears online.

All that’s left now is curtains, a rug, artwork and finally replacing that 22 year old clam shell toilet. Yep, clam shell. Welcome to the 1980′s.

There’s still a lot to do, but it’s all about doing what you can, when you can. I know I say it a millions times but I truly believe it. Taking it slow and putting in a little hard work will help to really transform a space. All this bathroom has cost us is a gallon of paint and some elbow grease. Well worth it if you ask me.

P.S. We used the Behr paint that has the primer and paint in one and LOVED it! It only took two coats to cover that dark green and saved us the hassle of priming separately. At around $32 it’s incredibly reasonable versus having to buy a gallon of paint and a gallon of primer. It actually saved us a couple bucks!

When we first moved into this house, we knew one of the first rooms we wanted to tackle was the master bathroom. Here’s a reminder of what it looked like…

Here’s a close up shot of the offending window…

That faux stained glass insert just had to go. Along with the Kermit the Frog green. A friend who recently saw the bathroom for the first time actually said, “Oh it really is Kermit green. I thought you were exaggerating”. Nope. Friends, it really is that horrible in person.

Now the great thing about this bathroom is that is had great bones. It’s large, has great storage and lighting in all the right places. The only thing we need to do is give it a few updates. I do have a master plan for way, way down the road, but I believe you do what you can, when you can afford it. We can swing a few easy updates like a new coat of paint and a few accessories, but future plans for tiling, a new shower and more built-in cabinets will have to wait.

We decided to start with the most obvious feature, the faux stained glass window. I thought it would pop out pretty easily, but true to DIY fashion, it was a bit more intensive than that. The insert was actually being held in place by part of the window trim. I started by running a razor blade on either side of the trim to loosen it from any paint or caulk holding it in place.

Next, I used a screwdriver to try and pry up the trim. You can see where I made several nicks in the surrounding trim trying to get it off. Those holes didn’t concern me too much since I knew I would have to paint and caulk everything once the trim was replaced.

After prying up all the trim, this is what I was left with. Not too pretty, but allowed easy access to remove the insert.

And here’s the most beautiful shot in the post…the hideous window finally starting to come down. There may or may not have been a couple high fives at this point. Luckily Justin was there to help me actually remove this beast. It started to crack as we were taking it down and how it didn’t completely shatter on the bathroom floor I’ll never know. It’s currently sitting in our garage waiting to be taken to the trash heap. We’re completely fine with the fact that if we hear a loud crashing noise from the garage, it’ll be this this thing finally breaking into a million pieces. You know why? Because it’s finally out of our bathroom. Out of sight, out of mind is my current motto.

And will you look at that? There was a beautiful window hiding back there the whole time. I wish we could leave it like this but I’m not entirely comfortable with the whole exhibitionist idea. It was pretty for the 10 minutes it stayed like that, but alas I pressed on. (And evidently pressed on the picture. Please ignore my finger.)

I ordered { this } window film online and it took me about 45 minutes to add it to the window. I can’t say I would recommend doing this to a large window that you are planning to leave uncovered. You could see every seam since they don’t sell it in a wide width (see picture at bottom of post) and it was nearly impossible to get out all the air bubbles. I will say it does a great job of letting in light, while adding a good bit of privacy. It worked fine for us since we plan on adding blinds, but I’d try another route if you’re leaving it bare.

Putting the trim back up was also pretty easy. I used some wood glue and trim nails to ensure a cozy fit. For some reason, the previous owners had a flat piece of trim at the bottom of the window but an angled piece at the top. We learned from hanging blinds in the bedroom that angled trim pieces don’t allow for easy installation of blinds. We plan on adding blinds to this window down the road so I simply switched the trim pieces and put the top piece on the bottom and vice versa.

This is what we were left with after switching the trim pieces. Not a perfect fit, but nothing some caulk and paint couldn’t fix.

Finally, the finished picture! I know it’s dark, but I’ll have a better picture to share soon. (Hint: The walls aren’t green anymore!)

I still have some painting and caulking to finish up, but we’re really happy with the outcome. All we need now is 2″ blinds and a roman shade for the top! What about you guys? Did you tackle any fun weekend projects?