Small Master Bathroom Coastal Farmhouse Updates

Our master bathroom was a sight for sore eyes but was luckily in pretty good shape. We also kinda didn’t care what it looked like because the fact that we had a large closet AND a full bathroom in the master bedroom was extremely rare, if possible at all, in our price range in our town. Most homes we looked at were 1 bath 2 bedroom or 1 bath 3 bedroom so we immediately lucked out in the bathroom department. The hall bathroom is a  larger full bath that the previous owners completely redid before selling the house so that was also a HUGE bonus for our renovation budget.

Our master bathroom is small but practical. It has a stand up shower and room for a 30/31 inch vanity. Cosmetically is was completely not our taste and pretty ugly. Maroon wallpaper (UGH). A small and short vanity that I knew wouldn’t work for all of my products and that was up to Steve’s knees (exaggerating but I’m 5’1″ and I even had to bend way over when washing my face). A shower that has roses on the tiles. Everything was cream- a cream toilet, cream trim, cream shower tiles, cream floor tiles, cream vanity top…..just so bland, dated, and dark. We knew this would not be an overhaul of a bathroom renovation but more of a small cosmetic makeover. We definitely want to completely redo it in the future, but it’s just not an immediate need or in the immediate budget.

We unfortunately don’t have too many before pictures. My phone completely died in December and I lost all of my photos (still so upset about that) so we only have 1 photo of the bathroom before we even touched it from the listing photos.

First and foremost, the wall paper needed to come out. Steve worked wallpaper removal in the master bedroom then immediately went into the master bathroom to remove that wallpaper. If you have ever removed wallpaper, you will know that you will never EVER want wallpaper in your house again…no matter how many times it comes ‘back in style.’ The bathroom was one of the hardest rooms to remove and we assume it’s because of the shower steam over the years. We painted it the same color as the main color in our bedroom- Yarn by Magnolia Home paint and the trim was painted the same color as the rest of our house- Chantily Lace by Benjamin Moore. 

It took me months to decide on a vanity and that is not an exaggeration. I couldn’t find anything I envisioned or liked that was not an astronomical price. And yes, I scoured the internet. We needed a 30/31 inch vanity and I refused to spend over a $1,000 for it and even got annoyed at thinking of spending $500 on one. I’m very frugal with my money so I understand that if I am paying for a nice, large vanity it comes with a cost but the fact that ours would not be that large and even $600 ones had terrible reviews, it just frustrated me and still frustrates me to think about. Since when should a product that is $600 be made poorly and fall apart within a year? It’s absurd. Ok, rant over. We wound up realizing we would need to spend around $500 and we were fortunate to find a never used Home Depot gift card in a random drawer that we decided would be used towards the purchase of one. So our decision had to be narrowed down to Home Depot. 

I found a few and we discussed which set up would be best for our needs. We realized we really needed actual drawers and not just one large cabinet with two doors. Best advice I can give for vanity shopping is, really make sure you understand what your daily uses of the space are to decipher what kind of vanity would work best. For instance, if it’s a bathroom you would use every morning and night, where will items such as combs, brushes, and toothpaste be placed? For us, those items are best in a drawer. So that decision eliminated probably more than half the 30 inch vanity options that Home Depot offers. We finally found a couple that we liked and reviews also seemed to be even with a good amount of positive reviews. As of right now, I know what I am envisioning our future fully renovated bathroom to look like so I made sure our vanity decision would blend with that in the future. Once I decided on the overall feel of the bathroom and the vanity, I made sure to make decisions that would last even after we finally do renovate our bathroom…like think 5-10 years.

There was some manual set up with our vanity that we weren’t initially prepared for but it wound up being pretty simple. My husband had to get some new pvc piping and adjust the setup of it a bit. Long story short, the drawers in the new vanity were a bit wider that they were on the older vanity so the divider of the new one was in the way of how the elbow of the original piping was set up. The old vanity also wasn’t as deep as the new one so we needed to extend the pipe on the wall to reach the drain pipe. It wasn’t anything you need to be an expert to figure out or need a plumber to fix, but it is something you need to educate yourself on like reading about it, watching YouTube videos, and asking people (like our dads) who have done this countless times. We also had to glue the sink to the counter-top (it did not come connected) and seal the sink with caulking. We honestly had no idea what we were doing and watched a ton of videos of similar setups and we high fived after it was all attached. Yes, we really are that dorky.

Other items we needed right away were: new shower head, new faucet, new light, and new mirror.

The original shower head sprayed all over the shower and up and over the shower door even when changing the settings, so it needed to be replaced. I figured we could get a new shower head and handle to match but we quickly found that we could not get a new shower head and shower handle without redoing the entire shower. In order to get a new handle, you need one that is already compatible with your current valve and set up or possibly a universal one. I wanted the shower hardware to be matte black and there were no compatible options in matte black. If we were to update the valve, we really would have needed a plumber and they would have had to open the shower wall a bit, so tiles would have had to come out. It wound up just becoming one giant domino effect and we stuck to our decision not to renovate it right away. So just a new shower head it was. 

 

I knew I wanted to do a mixed metals style in this bathroom. I decided on the metals being matte black and brushed brass/gold. The handles on the vanity are a dark bronze but it just seems dark, almost black, unlike some other bronzed metals so it works well with the black and brass colors. I chose the brushed brass as the faucet and absolutely LOVE how it looks against the counter and the rustic wood vanity. I honestly couldn’t decide if I wanted the lights to be black or brass. I hemmed and hawed for a good amount of time and envisioned different options throughout the whole space knowing that the faucet would be brass. With the shower head and shower handle being matte black, I envision the future renovated shower door being a clean frameless glass door with subtle brass elements. So that then rolled into the feeling that design wise I don’t want it to be too matchy matchy with every other piece being a different color. Instead I would just have a few pops of brass- the shower door (eventually) and the faucet. So the light and mirror will be black.

I had my eye on the light fixture even before we decided on a vanity so I’m glad that it matched the style of the vanity and that it was an easy decision. I wanted a mirror and not a medicine cabinet and decided a round mirror would be best for the space. I found a couple online and felt that a 24 inch mirror would be too small so I went with the 30 inch and I am so glad I did…It instantly made this space look SO much larger!

For small touches, we just added two hooks to the wall for towels and we will (at some point) put up shelves above the toilet to hold more items and some decor pieces.

Eventually the chrome in the bathroom will be gone but we are just dealing with it for now. We could spray paint the shower frame a matte black but I honestly don’t know if I feel like dealing with the headache of taping and covering every wall and piece in that bathroom. I’ve read that it’s a tedious task and I think I’d rather spend my tedious renovating hours elsewhere…but we will see!

Even though we did not do an entire renovation, the small updates still made such a huge difference. The floor tile is even not as ugly looking thanks to the fresh paint and new vanity! We are so happy to finally actually use this bathroom and have it feel a bit more of our home.

Shop this post and be sure to save to Pinterest for future inspiration!