The Power of Paint: Our Master Bathroom Before & After

Earlier this year, we challenged ourselves to give our master bathroom an entirely new look with just paint a few minimal materials. The makeover is finally complete and today I’m sharing all of the details on what we did and how it’s holding up!

This post is sponsored by Rust-Oleum and contains affiliate links.

One of the things I love the most about DIY is finding creative and unique ways to make things in our home look better on a budget. It’s so satisfying to try a new technique and see how much it can transform our space, and looking back at before photos brings me so much joy.

So, it goes without saying that I’m really really excited to be sharing the big, official reveal of our master bathroom makeover with you today!

If you are new around here, let me catch you up. At the beginning of the year, Corey and I partnered up with our friends at Rust-Oleum to showcase how you can totally transform a space like a bathroom (which is generally costly and difficult to renovate) in a totally affordable and accessible way – using almost nothing but paint!

Today I wanted to walk you step by step through everything we did so you can see how powerful these simple little projects can add up to be!

Let’s start with the before:

This bathroom is a great size, but when we moved in it felt dated and dark. The green tile always looked dirty, the builder-grade cabinets weren’t doing the room any favors, and the yellow-ish tub was just plain bad.

We would have loved to give this room a total makeover, but we already had plans to gut our hallway bathroom and didn’t want to take on another major renovation project in this house. So, we decided to keep things simple.

Project one: painting the vanity

To kick things off, I painted the vanity using Rust-Oleum’s Cabinet Transformations Kit in Gray Harbor. This was the first time I used this product (I recently used it in our kitchen too!) and I really loved how simple it was to use, and how durable the finished result was.

Immediately the room felt a little more updated and I hated the green tile a little less. But, we still had a loooong way to go!

Project two: Adding some shelving

Next up, we painted the walls a fresh white using Rust-Oleum’s interior paint and added some shelving above the toilet (stained with our favorite Varathane stain color, Dark Walnut).

It was so nice to get rid of the clunky cabinet above the toilet – the door never closed all the way (because the towels that we kept in there were too big for it!), and I was constantly hitting my head on it. We were also able to make the shelves a little wider than the cabinet was, which gave us a bit more functional space, and it just plain looked better.

Project three: painting the bathtub

This is the big one! We used Rust-Oleum’s Tub & Tile Kit to paint (yes, PAINT!) our bathtub and shower surround and totally refreshed the space. I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a difference it has made to have a fresh white tub instead of a dingy yellow-ish one. The room feels cleaner and brighter, and I don’t spend my shower time fantasizing about ripping the whole thing out anymore.

We have been preaching how wonderful this project is to anyone who will listen, and we even got to go on the Rachael Ray Show back in February to share how much we love it.

This might seem like an intimidating project, but it’s actually so incredibly simple. Honestly the hardest part is dealing with how smelly the epoxy is!

Project four: painting the tile floor

And finally, that brings us to the last project that we just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago – getting rid of that green tile floor! Replacing the tile was never an option, so painting it was a perfect simple solution and I’m so, so glad we did it.

I can’t get over how much brighter the room feels with the painted tile, and it’s only been there a short time but it’s holding up beautifully so far (and I really trust the brand, so I feel confident it will last for years to come!).

Of course, you’ll also notice the cedar ceiling we added – that was really the only major non-painting project that we did in this room, and it was totally worth the small splurge. It makes the bathroom feel a bit like a spa, and the ceilings surprisingly feel much taller now!

And after aaaaaall of those little projects all added together, you end up with a before and after that looks a little something like this:

Can you even believe that’s the same room? And that we didn’t spend an arm and a leg to make it look like that?!

I think we often forget that paint isn’t just for walls – there are so many creative products out there than can help you completely transform just about every surface in your home, and with a little bit of elbow grease you can get a new look on just about any budget!

Here’s a handy little list of all of the products that we used in these projects

• Cabinet Transformations Kit in Gray Harbor
• Varathane Stain in Dark Walnut
• Tub & Tile Kit
• Rock Solid Home Floor Paint

And some quick links to each of the projects:

• Painting the vanity
• Adding shelving
• Painting the tub
• Painting the tile

I really hope this makeover encourages you to remember that you can tackle those expensive-to-renovate spots in your home even if you don’t have a giant budget. This bathroom is actually pretty now, and we did almost everything with just a little bit of paint and elbow grease.

Thanks, again, to our dear friends at Rust-Oleum for being amazing partners on this project and for not telling me I was totally crazy when I told them I wanted to paint every surface in my bathroom with their products. They’re truly the best, and they have a solution for everything!