Remodeling the Guest Bathroom

Well, our third remodeling project in the Trifecta last summer was Remodeling the guest bathroom, after the kitchen and the walk in pantry/bathroom redo.  I think of all the remodeling I love this room the most. It has a very peaceful color scheme and it just seemed to come together very nicely. 

I loved the mirror project we did, the vessel sink in granite, even the shower curtain and rugs match pretty good.  I lucked out on so much stuff. I got the shower curtain for $3.50 from the T.J. Maxx superstore in St. George on clearance. Such a deal! The light aqua rugs were on clearance too, I love that really fat loopy yarn look in rugs now, very 70ish….Every time we go t Tuacahn outdoor theatre in the summer we go visit the giant T.J. Maxx….well John walks the doggie while I go shop for a half hour…LOL

We had this $250.00 piece of granite we had purchased at The Tile Outlet in Draper just sitting around the garage for months. It was a 2nd that had a few little flaws and pocks in it. But we knew we could cut around those or fill them with silicone if we couldn’t work around them. And we wanted to use it for both of the bathroom remodels. 

We had to cut out sink and fixture holes in the granite so the flaws wouldn’t be a problem. And it turned out to be the same granite type as our kitchen granite. I think it is called Santa Cecelia or something like that. It is a very popular creme with black and gold flecks in it.  Anyway we asked Tile Outlet if they could cut and install the 2 bathrooms.  So they worked on cutting them to our sink specifications while we went looking for vessel sinks.



I was kinda stuck with a blue tiolet and tub…but I kinda like em!


I must admit that vessel sinks come in so many types and varieties I was on the internet for weeks trying to decide what I liked best.  I have a blue tub and toilet in this guest bathroom that I kind of like. They are older but they are pretty and were custom when they remodeled the house right before we bought it 12 years ago. So I went back and forth deciding  if I wanted to rip them out and just get white or not.  So we decided that we could eventually do that someday, but that we wanted to go a little simpler on the remodeling from here on out. So we left the blue toilet and tub in. So ergo we had to have blue as one of our guest bath colors.

My good friend Aimee gave me this beatiful potted orchid…luckily it’s fake..cuz I’ve got a black thumb!

Remodeling a guest bathroom can be challenging…all those decisions to make. I decided to go with a beachy theme first.  I got a light blue color of paint and painted the existing cabinetry this light blue. Then I went over the edges with sandpaper and made it look kind of distressed and “beachy”.  Well, I thought it would look really good, but I didn’t like how it turned out.  That happens sometimes in remodeling. You try it, you don’t like it…you change it again.

Tiffany, my daughter and I painted moldings and glued onto existing mirror…Cool frame!

The same thing happened to the wallcolor.  I tried so many different shades of blue before I was satisfied.  It is such a bumber to buy a gallon and then not like it on the wall too, isn’t it? I hate when that happens.  So just simply painting the walls and cabinets took weeks. It was very discouraging to me.  I THOUGHT I had good gut instincts on paint, but to tell you the truth, I really don’t.  My husband is the one who DOES! Funny thing.  So I have come to rely on him to choose the shades once I have narrowed down the color I want.  And ALWAYS go a shade lighter. You won’t be sorry there.  It always looks darker on the wall. 



I broke the lid off this cute jar…so I filled it with Q-tips! It worked like a charm!

So the 2nd time around I painted the cabinetry black in an eggshell black finish.  It looked 1000 times better than the sanded beachy blue (which kind of looked too messy or unfinished or something). Then I found the perfect shade of pale blue in Glidden  that wouldn’t clash with the toilet and tub on the walls and painted the whole room.  Then we hired the contractors back to do tiling on the floors and we did a similar tile to the laundry room, just a tan, porcelain tile.  Pretty basic. I think we got the tile for 68 cents each at Lowes. We had to travel to about 3 Lowes in the Salt Lake valley to get enough, but it was worth it to me. It was only like $60 bucks for all that tile, maybe less.

I thought this wire basket would be cute for towels, but John has ‘ taken it over as his bookshelf while he soaks in the jacuzzi tub!

Then we had the granite installed over the black cabinets and the small hole cut for the vessel sinks and had them rip out both of the previous sinks. In this blue guest bathroom there had been 2 sinks, but we only replaced one sink, to make more counter space. Then we decided on a granite vessel sink. It was kind of expensive, I think $150 at Stone Depot, but hey, it is carved granite!  I am glad I didn’t go with glass vessels or porcelain sinks. And do you know why? I hate to clean very often, and that sink NEVER looks dirty. It’s speckled with granite for heavens sake, so it looks perfect all the time. A tip from the Stone Depot owners. 🙂 Thanks for the tip! I’m not sure I want to remodel a bathroom ever again either….

Granite counters and granite vessel sink…always looks clean!

Glass sinks would have been a nightmare to keep clean. Can you just imagine! YUCK!  The little Chinese lady gave me lots of good advice down at Stone Depot in Salt Lake City where we bought the vessel sinks for both bathroom remodels. She was a gem.  But her scrap pieces were not as cheap as Tile Outlet so we bought counter granite from them for the small bathroom countertops. (being the cheapskates that we are…) Link HERE

Cute blue pottery bowl with handles from T.J. Maxx, love that store!

Anyway, then we did this cool thing to the mirror. We had just a plain mirror. But it is giant and still in good shape. So my daughter saw this idea on a blog with a tutorial. So she came over to help us make it. First we went and bought wide molding pieces and painted them black and cut them at 45 degree angles to fit all around the mirror. We used Liguid Nails glue (the glue that you shoot out of a gun…it is at Home Depot or Lowes) and glued the molding pieces right to the wall around the mirror. Be careful when you do this because the back of the molding shows in the mirror so you actually have to paint the front AND back of the molding pieces, at least the parts in back that will show. We didn’t realize this until we’d already glued a piece on and the raw wood showed from behind! So we had to quick take it off and add paint and then glue it back on again.

 Then we pounded in some skinny nails to the moldings just around the 4 edges to be sure it wouldn’t fall off while it was drying. It turned out so pretty! I’m doing this to all my old bathroom mirrors eventually. What a cool face lift!

Finished remodel of the guest bathroom

We bought the 1 piece faucet fixtures from Overstock.com in brushed nickel. I think they were $115.  I got the same design for both bathrooms but the blue bath has all brushed nickel fixtures to match this cute glass shelf I bought from Pottery Barn. It is so pretty. Then we bought new towel bars and toilet paper holder in brushed nickel finish too.  Then I potted a fake plant in a pale blue pottery container  and had another fake orchid plant I’d been given from my sweet friend Aimee (a wonderful crafter herself). You can see it to the left on the counter and the one I did is on the toilet. Fake plants are better for me since I seriously have a BLACK THUMB!  I kill any kind of living plant.



Here’s the fake plant I arranged in a pretty pot….I kill anything living!! Blue ceramic pot from Joannes Crafts

The last thing I did was matching the towels, the counter decorations, the rugs and shower curtain. I found a cute aqua sign that says “Relax” in wood lettering and put that up in the window with a new, white faux wood blind. And I found a cute little creme color wire rack to hold bubble baths, soaps and extra towels. I think I found that at Gardner Village Whites Shop. I loved that place so much, I was so sorry it went out of business.

Cute stuff here and there..in the guest bathroom remodel.

 I really like the little Pottery Barn glass shelf, the fat blue yarn rugs, and the pale aqua towels  I got from T J Maxx. That is my FAVORITE STORE!  I got the HOME saying from Hobby Lobby. (My other favorite haunt…It’s a craft junkie’s paradise. 🙂  This is my favorite bathroom in my home. Black and light blue is just simply a wonderful color combination, don’t ya think? I’m so glad it is done too. Now onto the guest room redo.  We are still only half done in the house.  Still a craftroom, and a 2 bedrooms to redo…but they are coming along just fine….stay tuned…..