First, a couple of Before pictures. This disgusting, dirty thing posing as a bathroom was what I encountered when I first arrived to the house as the official owner. It was basically being used as a dog kennel/dog washing station. The toilet, sink, and shower were all completely clogged and non-functioning.

I cleaned the crap out of it, and ripped out that sink unit and the toilet, and replaced them with a temporary pedestal sink (gotten from the ReStore for $10) and new toilet. The shower was still functional (it was built from 1/2 thick fiberglass…it took me two evenings to cut that monster out during the real renovation). We Kilz’d twice, and painted. I also put some cheap trim up to give it the illusion that it was being taken care of. Basically, just making it functional and clean in the meantime until we could afford/get time to do a proper renovation down the road.

This is the finished product (the shower curtain will change, though). I basically had to reframe the entire shower area, and replace all the sheetrock from the sink to the shower (with greenboard, with is mildew/mold/water resistant.

The vanity is this one (31″ version). I found it in the “damaged” clearance area at Lowe’s. A brace on the backside was damaged, so I got it for $50, spent $25 on cabinet paint, and changed the color while I was at it. It came out much nicer than I expected; painting cabinets is always dicey.

The mirror and shelving brackets are IKEA. I used some scrap wood to make real wood shelves instead of IKEA’s particle/veneer ones; I stained both the mirror and shelving using General Finishes Java gel stain. The toilet is the new one I originally replaced. The tile is 6×24 gray cement-looking tile. We’re doing the same tile in the other (upstairs) bathroom, and a 12×24 version in the laundry room (through the dark doorway in the last image).

Since we only have 8ft ceilings, I decided to scale up the trim and use 7 1/4 everywhere (I’ll do slightly shorter in a couple of areas with soffits lowering the ceiling). It really makes a difference in pushing the ceiling up visually. I also went ahead with shoe molding in the bathroom; we’ll have it most other areas (soon to be wood floors), and it helps with covering the tile/baseboard transition unevenness.

All told, we probably spent around $2000 to do this. The shower stall itself, and the tile, were the big ticket items (the tile mostly because of needing to buy additional tools). I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. Hopefully, the things I learned on this one will make the next one go much faster.