Frugal Babe

A rich life without a lot of money

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Partial Bathroom Remodel On A Shoestring

March 3, 2009 By Frugal Babe

The carnival of personal finance was hosted yesterday at Free Money Finance.  I’ve been meaning to dig through the entries and pick my favorites, but I have a teething 10 month old and a bathroom that is halfway through a paint job.   I’m feeling very glad that we decided to hire someone to re-roof our house!  The roofers were here all day today, and should be finished tomorrow.  They scramble around up there like they’re walking on the sidewalk.  They make it look very easy.  I remember last summer when my husband and I were painting our house every weekend, and we finally got to the chimney.  We had to climb around on the steep, two story section of our roof, and I was doing a little shuffle walk, and sometimes crawling.  Quite different from the jaunty walk the roofers have been doing up there all day.

The bathroom project is coming along well.  All we’ve had to buy is two gallons of drywall compound, a $3 towel rail from the thrift store, new white outlet covers (to replace the oh-so-lovely shiny gold ones), and a gallon of primer (top coat paint is left over from last year’s kitchen remodel).  I removed the peeling wallpaper and textured the walls, working a few hours each day for the last week.  I came up with a texture that I really liked, but it involved putting the drywall mud on the wall with a 3 inch trowel.  So it was a very slow process.  But I love how the texture turned out.  I’m just glad that it was a bathroom and not a bigger room!  We’re about halfway finished with the primer paint now, and hopefully we’ll be finished with the room by the end of the week.  We’re not replacing any of the main fixtures, but getting rid of the mauve painted wallpaper and gold towel rails and outlet covers is making a huge difference.  All told, the $40 that we’ve spent (and quite a few hours of labor) is going to give us a bathroom that looks nice instead of one that looks like a “before” picture on a design show.  I took some pictures of the mauve walls and gold trim before we started.  I’ll post before and after pictures soon – stay tuned!

Filed Under: home improvement 6 Comments

Comments

  1. Kelly says

    March 3, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    You never cease to amaze me with what you get done and how affordably you do it! I can’t wait to see the pictures.

    And good luck with the teething. My daughter never seemed to have a problem (she has 8 teeth at almost a year) but the little girl I babysit for has had a really hard time with each tooth. I am glad my daughter hasn’t been bothered because I am really hesitant to give her any medication or orajel.

    Reply
  2. FrugalBabe says

    March 3, 2009 at 11:07 pm

    Thanks Kelly! Our little guy has done amazingly well so far with teeth. He has 8, and hasn’t had any trouble with those. But the last couple days he’s been chewing on his hand a bit more, with his fingers further back in his mouth. So we’re thinking maybe another tooth might be on its way in. I’ve found that just nursing him more often does the trick – and he’s a pretty mellow guy anyway, so I really can’t complain. It just takes a bit more juggling of my day to fit in extra nursing sessions.

    Reply
  3. Shanna says

    March 4, 2009 at 8:53 am

    When I bought my house 8.5 years ago, I didn’t mind anything in the house except the main bath which was painted about the color of the background behind your ‘notebook’ here on the webpage. A very dark country blue. A border wall paper was around the top of the room and around the mirror. It was cream colored with huge paisley decorations in that same blue and rusty red. It made the room dark and small. I hated it.

    A few coats of off white paint and some new racks and accessories that cost less than $100 all told along with several days of elbow grease, and I had a lovely bright bath that I still love to this day. What a difference paint and a few small changes in decor can make.

    Reply
  4. myprettypennies says

    March 4, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    Wow what an impressive site I really like it! Thanks for the tweeter add!

    Reply
  5. myprettypennies says

    March 4, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    Wow impressive blog! I will definitely start following. Thanks for the tweeter add. :)

    Reply
  6. SonyaAnn says

    March 6, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    I really need some help in our down stairs bathroom. It’s awful!!! I just don’t have the $ right now. It’s so small that I slipped on soap fell out the door and hit the other wall. It’s about 2 steps from one side to the other! And it’s ugly and old. So this is a helpful reminder that maybe I should stop complaining and just try painting it. Thanks for the great post.
    PS I’m giving away a $10 gift card on my blog. Frugal Babe I would love for you to sign up and anyone else.

    Reply

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