Guest Bathroom Makeover: from Drab to Glam

Last updated: March 15, 2024

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We’ve been settling into our forever home since March and there was one room that just screamed contractor grade: the guest bathroom.

There were several things I wanted to change:

• The brushed nickel. I used to love this, as early as my sweet Somerville home, but since my Indiana home, my preference had moved to matte black. I actually only tried this because I knew I wasn’t staying in that Indiana house forever and turns out, I fell in love with it. So… all the brushed nickel accents had to go and be replaced with black.
• The bathroom vanity. WHY. It was way too short for the space! It left a huge gap between the vanity and the toilet insomuch that it looked extremely awkward. This meant a new vanity needed to be purchased so we could switch it out.
• The mirror. Nothing screams contractor grade like a frameless mirror. That thing had to go.
• The lights. Just no.

Let’s share some visuals so you can see what I mean.

Here’s the before before photo. What I mean by that is this is what it looked like before the fire. From what I understand, there was a fire on this side of the house so everything had to be rebuilt.

And here is what it looked like after the fire as part of the listing:

You can see they decided to save money with the shorter vanity.

And here’s what it looked like when we moved in… they had removed all the staging. You can see they I already added the black shower curtain rod and the shower curtain. Hint: take those shower curtain rods ALL the way to the ceiling and buy a longer than average shower curtain!

And now… with all the changes I made:

Aren’t the black accents so much better? My dad helped me one Saturday and we got this done in one day. For the shower faucets, I just ordered the exact same thing that was there, except in matte black. We just unscrewed the old ones and screwed in the new ones. One thing I planned to do which didn’t work out was raise those vanity lights. Due to the wiring, this was not possible. I had already purchased the mirror so I had to drop the mirror lower than I wanted (almost sitting on the sink backsplash). If I could go back and change one thing, I’d get a shorter mirror, but overall, I’m really happy with how this came out!

I love that I had the idea to keep these amazing towels in this metal rolling basket for guests to grab when they finish showering.

One thing I do like is the tiled shower. It’s a simple, white subway tile with light gray grout. Definitely on the safe side, but it’s beautiful and I don’t plan to change that.

I added some words of affirmation to the mirror for my guests, and you can see on the opposite wall is a place for them to hang towels and some art I framed.

I’m still fine tuning it a bit but it’s coming along and turning out great.

As a reminder, here’s the before and after.

Thank you for stopping by and keeping up with me. Truly… it means a lot. I’d love know what you’ve been up to and what you think of this transformation. If you have a blog you’d like me to follow, please drop it in the comments below. 😊

Here’s to making our homes beautiful! 💗🏡