DIY on a Budget

When we bought this house in September of 2011, there was a laundry list of things I wanted to change: anything from painting a wall in the bedroom to putting in granite counter tops in the kitchen and bathrooms. I think as a homeowner, the "honey do" list never ends. I'm always thinking up something new to change, and Joe just thinks that I'm draining our bank account. This is our home--this is the place we're supposed to feel warm and cozy--and as the wife, its my job to make it that. 

Some things are big projects that we have to save and plan for (I'd like to knock a tiny wall down in our kitchen to open it up a little more.. we'll see if that ever happens), but some things can be done on a whim in just a few hours. Take our downstairs bathroom, for instance. This bathroom was ugly. Bright yellow painted on all of the walls, flat black paint that was chipping off of the cabinets, and an 80's light and mirror. This bathroom was screaming for a remodel. Last summer was a 'get up and do it' type of summer for me--we were doing house projects every weekend. This was one of the projects that we did, and it was SO cheap but made such a huge difference. You don't always have to spend a fortune to spruce spaces up! 

Before: Bright yellow, ugly light and mirror.
(we had already painted the cabinets and put
hardware on them before I took the picture)

After: soft grey walls, nice light fixture, and
a pretty accent mirror. Huge difference--
seems way more tranquil.

First, we went out and bought some paint. Okay--Joe went out and bought some paint. I told him that I wanted a simple grey--not too light, not too dark--and I think he nailed it. I'm obsessed with this color. I wish he would let me paint my entire house with it--so far I've painted my entire bedroom this shade (putting the room together is still a work in progress--that'll be a post for later), I've painted the wall along my stairs this shade, and I've painted a wall in my front living room this shade. Joe thinks I'm going overboard; I think that its nice when houses are painted one color with an accent color here and there (whereas my house is painted about 8 or 9 different colors and it kinda drives me nuts). This paint color is called "Elephant Skin" and its by Behr Ultra bought at Home Depot, for anyone that's interested.

Once we had the paint, we just needed to pick up a few cosmetic changes--a light fixture and a mirror--and we'd be all set. We bought the light fixture at Home Depot for around $40 I believe.. and we bought the mirror at Hobby Lobby on sale for around $30 I think. Overall, we transformed this bathroom on around a $100 budget. So easy.

Joe took down the ugly light and the huge mirror, and I spent the day painting the bathroom (I'm kinda OCD when it comes to painting; I always tell Joe that I'll just do it because I'm worried he'll leave bare spots or something.. I know, I'm weird). I still have that mirror sitting in my downstairs closet and I'm determined to use it for something else since we were able to take it down without breaking it. What that is, I have no idea. Anyways--once the paint dried, Joe put up the new lights fixture and we figured out where we wanted the mirror positioned. In a matter of hours and not a lot of money, we were able to completely change the look of the downstairs bathroom. (Like I said in the picture caption, we had already painted the cabinets with a high-gloss black paint and installed hardware on them. Because they were previously painted, we figured we'd just paint over them instead of refinishing them like we did our kitchen and master bathroom).

These are 3D butterflies that you can buy at Target for $20. It's a little push pin that you stick into the wall that has a buffer in between the wall and the pin so that it sticks out, then you clip the butterfly on. You can turn and position the butterfly however you want to; and if you don't like the placement, its extremely easy to move it. There are different versions of this; white twigs, metal flowers, etc. I love these things. This is on the wall above the toilet.

Now all that's left is getting some granite in there, and we'll be set! Granite doesn't cost that much, honestly, but its something we'll have to plan for and obviously cant do on a whim.