Frog Tape Challenge

I decided to take on the basement bathroom for the $500 Frog Tape challenge because who wouldn’t want the difficulty of transforming one of the most expensive reno rooms in your home for only $500!! 

I started by figuring out what to keep, what to donate, and what to repurpose. I ended up taking out the vanity and reusing it as a play kitchen in the girls’ secret playroom (head on over to my Upcycled tab to see more of that project). I donated the mirror and light fixture and took out the closet door and vinyl floor. We decided to keep the tub and surround because it wasn’t in our budget to switch it out or tile. Fixtures were also kept because of the budget.

I decided to skim coat the floor over the existing concrete. I took a more artistic approach and wanted it to look perfectly imperfect.

After scraping the ceiling it was time to paint! I was given a specific color palette by Frog Tape which was a light, serene palette. I painted the ceiling, walls, and floor.

I enlisted my lovely husband Mike to help me with finishing touches, plumbing, and making me a custom slated door for the cabinet. He made it from custom cut wood strips and spaced it with rolls of quarters!

After some hard work and creative thinking with a limited budget, the basement bathroom is finished! I used an old MCM dresser I had for the vanity. We bought a vessel sink and new faucet. I reused a light fixture from a bathroom upstairs and reused 2 MCM mirrors I had in the dining room. We installed plumbing pipes on the ceiling and wall to hang curtains from floor to ceiling to cover the tub surround.

I found some old picture frames we had gotten as gifts for our wedding (14 years ago!) and a local artist gifted me some beautiful sketches she created. I shopped my home for accessories and snipped some wildflowers growing in my yard for a natural touch and pop of color.

I filled the linen closet with natural accessories with some soft textures to soften the hard surfaces and add some organized storage solutions.

After everything was put into place I love how this inexpensive renovation turned out. A low budget renovation can be completed with some creative thinking, reusing, and hard work. (It helped that I had some bomb diggity vintage MCM furniture and accessories lying around too!)