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Martha’s Bathroom Transformation

Hey everyone, happy Thursday! Do you remember when I posted about my amazing friend Martha who organized a gardening work party for my birthday? Well, I had a chance last week to do something for her.

Another friend, Karmen, asked if I would want to help her do a little surprise makeover on Martha’s bathroom while she was at work. I jumped at the chance because I wanted to help Martha out and also because I love before and afters. Fun, fun, fun.

Martha’s house was built in the 60’s and the bathroom still holds that… um… charm. And that charm needed a bit of help :) Here are some before pictures:

At this point we had already started a bit of the work. I almost forgot to take before pictures! I forgot my camera but I just happened to have my point and shoot in my purse. Whew! Close one :) We enlisted Jason to help us patch the walls because there were several places that needed help including a large crack in one corner and I don’t have any expertise in drywall repairs.

We also had already taken off the cabinet doors in order to repaint them.

And yes, these lovely shower doors had swans on them. Swans!

So what do you think? Kellie and Karmen to the rescue! We spent most of Friday picking out paint colors and shopping for everything we would need. Then, when we got back to the house, we also painted the vanity and all the trim. Then we had to skedaddle before Martha returned home from work.

Over the weekend, Karmen re-grouted the vanity so we would be ready to rumble come Monday morning. When I arrived on Monday, we realized we had a lot to do! So we quickly got to work. We painted, (1 coat primer and 2 coats paint), spray painted the mirror and wall vent (not shown), removed the shower doors and track, made a trip to the store because we forgot something, hung a faux wood blind, rehung the mirror, hung artwork, cleaned up all of our mess, replaced the cabinet knobs and hinges, rehung the cabinet doors, and put everything back together before Martha got home at 4:00! What a day! But, the results were worth it!!

Can you believe this is the same bathroom? We were super excited about the results and so was Martha. My only regret is that we didn’t pick larger frames for the pictures but by the time we realized it, it was 3:30 and we had no time to go to the store. Oh well, it works :)

As I said earlier, we actually removed the shower doors and the track from the tub. Karmen and I were both a bit nervous about this but it was surprisingly easy. You just take off the top rail, take out the doors, remove the screws from the tracks and then using a hammer or crowbar, yank the tracks off. We thought the tile might crumble but thankfully it did not. After a really deep cleaning (and scraping of the old caulk) all that was left was a few small screw holes in the tile which we filled with new caulk. This little project was probably the best thing we did and, along with new paint, made the biggest difference. Now that I have tried it out on a friend’s house and I know it works, I want to take off my shower doors :) Haha!

So there you have it, our bathroom makeover that we did in less than 2 days. Pretty cool huh?!