I have an older house that needs a little extra love and attention. Recently my boyfriend and I have undergone a renovation of our master bathroom (by master I mean the only bathroom in the house). We are on a tight budget so we are doing most of the work ourselves and it has definitely taught us a thing or two. Here are some tips that I have gathered from the experience so far.

1. Make sure you have ample ventilation. Our bathroom is basically a concrete box with a tiny window. It had no circulation of air so mold and mildew was always forming on the walls, tub, and even the ceiling. When adding a bathroom fan I would to connect it to the same switch as the light so you don’t have to remember to flip on the fan all the time. I also suggest getting a fan that circulates as much air as possible while still being as quiet as possible (a store like Home Depot should have a graph letting you know how it is rated). It is well worth the extra expense not to have a fan that made the room sound like a wind tunnel.

2. You can do it yourself with a little research and some patience. Our house was built in the 50’s so it is made up of concrete block covered in plaster. Like drywall, plaster hates moisture so a large patch of plaster on our bathroom walls started to crumble and flake. At first glance it looked like a mess and I knew a repairman would suggest putting drywall up but I found out that patching the area are pretty easy to do yourself if you have a little patience. I bought plaster patching product (similar to wall spackle) and it worked like a charm. Make sure you use bleach and water to remove any mold or mildew that might be on the wall first.

3. Take your time to do it right. The hardest part of the project was the fact that the paint on the wall was chipping and peeling from a combination of the moisture in the air and the many layers of paint on the wall from previous homeowners. The only way to deal with this is to buy a tool and scrape loose paint off. This sucked but it was well worth the effort. The best thing to do after scraping is to prime the walls with an oil-based primer. The oil-based paint will seal off the wall from any new mold and keep any residue of old paint from peeling.

4. A little bit goes a long way. We replaced the medicine cabinet with a simple glass cabinet from Lowe’s that was about $30. It looks just as good as the one for $90 and it made the whole room look better. The light fixture was also from Lowe’s and it was $48. It looks similar to the ones I liked at Restoration Hardware for about $170. Replacing these items with new more modern ones made the whole room fresher.

5. Consider refinishing the tub and tile instead of replacing it. The tile is a 70’s brown (hideous) and the tub’s finish is dull and scratched. To replace the tub and tile would cost at least $800 while merely having it refinished will have the same effect for half the cost.

Source: juicefairy.com

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