Bathroom Before & After

 I want to share some small and simple changes that can easily affect the feeling of your powder room.

 Boring Bathroom Before:

After:

Tip #1:  Raise the Rod!  Raising the rod adds height to your room.  I raised the curtain rod about a foot  and I really like that it's off the floor-- I feel its more sanitary since this 3 kids are sharing this bathroom.

(Amy Butler Shower curtain from BB&B)

Tip #2- Update the towels!!!  Surprise, these pretty patterned towels are from Wallyworld!! Yes, you heard me right.  (Even I get surprised sometimes!) They were part of the Better Homes and Garden collection and I love the pattern.  I was almost going to splurge on some yellow ones from Anthro, and scored these wallet-friendly ones instead:-)

(Please excuse the dark pic,  this was the best one to show the beadboard)

TIP #3- FAKE IT! I used Bead Board Wallpaper instead of the real thing and that saved me a lot of $ and labor!  It was super easy to install, and it looks as good as the real bead board on the back of my lockers.  It was only $20/roll and I only used 1 and a half rolls (anyone need half a roll?:-))

The wallpaper is paintable, so we painted it to match the existing trim and tacked on a small chair rail on top.

Before:

After:

(need some vinyl for my bucket--Haley:-))

TIP #4-- Don't match everything!  This goes for all rooms in the house:-)  I got the rug on the clearance aisle of BB&B (first photo). It was from a different collection, but was in the same color family and style I was going for.  I bought 2 of them (I would have got 3 and taped them together on the bottom if they had 3 to make my own runner) but my 2 year old might have just had an accident on one of them before these pics--TMI, sorry!!:))

.

TIP#5:  Make Your Own Art!  I save a ton of quotes and things on my pinterest boards, and so I took a few of the sayings and put them together in photoshop, and printed them in colors that would coordinate with my room.  It's easier than driving to TJ's HG's to search through all kinds of random artwork.  I was able to this quickly and inexpensively with only a few mouse clicks and a trip to the costco photo center.

That being said, I did buy the canvas over the throne at HG's (which I still love to shop at). But I still had 3 other walls to fill and I didn't want more of the same printed generic florals on each one.    I will be framing my sayings as soon as I can get to IKEA for some cheap 11x14 frames.

The only thing left is this:

Yes.  This frame I cut and painted myself over a year ago that I still haven't put around my bathroom mirror!  I was waiting to get new countertops in there too-- who knows when or if that will ever happen.

UPDATED 4/26/12

Sham--wow!!  :)

Link to my DIY Framed Mirror Tutorial 

Anyhoo,  hope that gives you a few ways to spruce up YOUR powder room.

Thanks for stopping by!