Master Bathroom Reveal – Before & After

Master Bathroom Reveal – Before & After

I’ve started this post a handful of times and could never bring myself to finish it.  I’m starting it over in real time, post-baby, 3 months after the room was completed.

I’m going to be very open and honest here–we spent a big chunk of change on this bathroom.  When we bought our house I knew it needed updated, but I just didn’t understand the cost of fully renovating a bathroom.  It’s massive, folks. Some might ask why we didn’t just salvage what was there, and if we were in the situation we are now with just one income, that’s exactly what we’d have to do.  At the time, though, we had two full incomes and we saved for a long time so we could afford most of our wants in the room. An appraiser also told me that it is the 2nd greatest investment you can make, next to the kitchen, in relation to increasing your house value. He suggested spending 10-15% of your house value on the master bathroom and we ended up around 12% of our purchase price. (The market has improved drastically since we bought our house, and with all of the improvements we’ve made it’s probably valued around $50k more than we paid, but I like to base budgets off of what we paid for the house.)

I don’t know why I’m quick to write about the great deals I find and the things I do on a minuscule budget, but when it comes to spending more I shy away.  I’ve just decided to put it out there, though, because if anyone is looking to re-do their bathroom I want them to have an accurate depiction of what it takes!

So here are the numbers (yikes it makes me want to vomit divulging this info!)– the master bath renovation ended up costing us $16,500. And let me tell you, I got a few great deals along the way and it STILL costs that much.  That’s a lot of dollars for one small space that we only use morning and night.

“Emily, why didn’t you DIY the room?”  Well for one, there’s a LOT of demo, tiling, electric work, & sheetrocking that neither Alex nor myself have any experience with.  Second, it would take me a year, AT LEAST, to complete the job and it would likely look shoddy. I’ve learned when to call in the pros and when to learn to do something myself.  A project such as this was not a good idea to tackle ourselves.

Here was our bathroom when we moved in:

house-14

house-15

house-16

Quite the beauty, huh? The floor was uneven and slanted downhill towards the door. Several floor tiles were either missing or loose. The shower was tiny (3×3), stained, and moldy in the caulking. The vanity was extremely short with only one working sink and had a faucet that dripped constantly.  The large jetted tub was in good condition, but just took up too much space and wasn’t practical for us at all.

Here she is today:

IMG_4104

IMG_4096

IMG_4097

IMG_4002

IMG_4094

IMG_4101

IMG_4108

IMG_4110

IMG_4111

IMG_4005

IMG_4051

IMG_4052

IMG_4057

IMG_4060

IMG_4063

Another post is on its way with all of my sources and a cost breakdown.  I can’t wait to share the details of the tile and the clawfoot tub!

emily


6 responses to “Master Bathroom Reveal – Before & After”

  1. Hey Emily,

    My name is Katie. I was wondering, do you accept guest posts on http://whatemilydoes.com? It’s about home improvement and stuff, so it would be a perfect fit for your blog and would greatly increase the traffic on your site. I’ll gladly send you over some sample articles if you like.
    Will be waiting for your response.

    All the Best,

    Katie

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.