It’s Week 5 of the One Room Challenge (or ORC for short)! We’ve got one more week until the big reveal and while we are on track, this week is going to be a BIG one! But that’s in the future – let’s talk about Week 5, because we accomplished a LOT!
(Quick review – if you have never heard of the ORC before, it is a 6 week challenge hosted by One Room Challenge and Better Homes & Gardens. The challenge encourages all participants, both Featured (there are 20 featured designers) and Guest (anyone with a blog or IG can participate!) to rally behind one another to tackle a one room makeover in just 6 weeks! This is our second time participating in the challenge, and we are tackling our master bath (We remodeled our kitchen in the Spring). You can also check out all the other participants by visiting the main ORC page HERE!
You can also check out the previous weeks posts here:
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4
**This post may contain affiliate links – see my full Disclosure policy HERE**
Here is our updated To Do list (I bolded the items I completed this week!)
- Tile shower and mirror wall
- Grout tile and seal/caulk
- Install new floor tiles
- Install barn door
- Install wallpaper in water closet
- Spray paint sink fixtures
- Reinstall sink fixtures
- Have contractor return to install shower fixtures
- Paint cabinets (we’ll be using Giani, Inc. cabinet paint)
- Paint countertops (also with a kit from Giani, Inc.)
- Paint floors (I’ll be using a stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils)
- Install new cabinet hardware
- Install new shower rod and towel hooks
- Install new doorknobs
- Install trim on water closet door and paint
- Fix baseboards (some were ruined during the tub demo and install)
- Remove closet door and install curtain
- Install new light fixture
- Style and photograph!
- Restore sinks to original condition
- Clean & Hang mirrors
- Clean floors and sinks to free from Epoxy drips (#facepalm)
- ADDED THIS WEEK: clean tub, paint touch ups, touch up caulk, finish medicine cabinet makeover
As you can see, we really tackled a TON this week! Here is what the bathroom looks like RIGHT NOW:
It’s actually starting to look like a real bathroom again! Can’t wait to take a bath here, especially with my new bathtub tray!
The biggest change this week was the painted cabinets. I will totally have a tutorial up on the blog about it soon (I want to make sure I don’t rush it and give you guys all the great tips I learned along the way), but I cannot say enough good things about Giani’s Nuvo Cabinet Paint.** We used the color “Hearthstone,” which is a warm greige, but Giani has tons of other color options! The kit is fantastic as well because it really gives you everything you need except a paint trey. You could even use a paper plate if you wanted. The best part? You can paint OVER painted surfaces without having to sand off all of the paint!
This is what I painted over, and the finish came out SO smooth (with just a brush and a roller!)
The most important part about the Nuvo paint is getting your cabinets CLEAN, rather than paint free. If they are not clean, the paint can crack. I did get just a couple cracks (mostly where the epoxy from the counters got on the cabinets and I didn’t get it completely sanded off), but it’s barely noticeable. That said, if you use this paint, and you think your cabinets are clean, clean them AGAIN anyway – you’ll be glad you did! The Nuvo paint is truly fantastic though, and you don’t even have to take the doors off!
Painting with the doors attached was not only a time saver, but it worked so well! I chose to paint the hinges on our cabinets because they are outside mount hinges and I wanted them to blend in, but you could tape yours off, paint around them, or paint them individually after the cabinets are dry.
As you can see, we added the cabinet hardware, which I got at Hobby Lobby for half off. It was such a great deal and I’m so happy with the bit of femininity they add to the space. We also got the mirrors hung (they were an OfferUp find for $10 a piece – SUCH an amazing steal!), and I honestly cannot imagine the space without them!
The mirrors are the perfect size and a total statement piece. I just adore that they are one of a kind, too!
I will say that drilling into by brand new, shiny, beautiful tile was one of the most terrifying things EVER! Thanks to hubs for helping with that, but I was secretly (or not so secretly) having a minor panic attack. We used a special wet diamond drill bit to do this, but it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world – the drill tended to jump around a bit, so patience (and a steady hand) were KEY.
Even seeing this photo stresses me out! Thankfully, it all worked out and the mirrors are perfect!
The shower curtain also went up (more holes to drill in the tile), and I even built a little bathtub tray in between larger projects (tutorial on that coming soon, too)!
I also spent a LOT of time caulking, and was reminded why I despise it so much. Seriously, I procrastinated SO much trying to not have to caulk. It’s just so messy and so hard to get it where you want it and not ALL over everything else. I definitely have paint touch ups to do because of it, and even some spots (particularly at the edge of the top of the tub) that I need to touch up with caulk, just to be sure it’s super duper water proof. But alas, it is (mostly) done.
I also got the towel hooks, OTJ (that’s “Over the John” – LOL) and a DIY pipe toilet paper holder installed (my DIY TP holder is a smaller version of my DIY paper towel holder from our kitchen). Screwing and nailing into the wallpaper was equally as traumatizing as the tile (okay, maybe slightly less so) 😛
I was able to keep track of the holes that were already in the wall for this puppy even after I got the wallpaper up, so hanging it up again wasn’t a huge pain because it was already spaced appropriately and leveled! It’s the small wins that keep me motivated, ya know? This is the spot we store our towels and I just love it!
We then got our recently spray painted vanity fixtures back in (after I cleaned out the sinks, and the floors too, to remove all the extra epoxy that got on them from last week). That took a bit longer than expected, but we did it (with only ONE phone call to our contractor for a bit of advice)!
The “upcycled” fixtures, if you will, just compliment the black light fixture and black water closet door so well! And it was a great, cost effective alternative to spray paint them, rather than to buy brand new fixtures, which can be quite pricey. I sprayed them last week, and they are finished using a shiny lacquer.
And finally, I DID get started on the floors, which you might have noticed above. They are painted with the base coat and ready for stenciling, which will likely begin this Friday! I CANNOT wait to see it all come together, especially now that the final styling piece for the bathroom has arrived – a vintage Turkish rug that was shipped all the way from TURKEY! It is so beautiful and I cannot wait to show it to you next week and give you all the deets on the amazing Etsy shop I got it from!
But until then friends, it’s another week of digging in and getting things DONE. One week to go, and we got this! Make sure you subscribe to the blog to get the very first look at the reveal next Wednesday, Nov 7! See ya, then, and again, don’t forget to check out all the other amazing ORC participants HERE!
XO,
Ana
P.S. If you would like real time updates, you can follow along on my Instagram – I post story updates on the Challenge regularly and just love interacting with all of you there!
** Giani was generous enough to send me the Nuvo Cabinet paint kit in exchange for my honest review.
This looks GORGEOUS! Wow, you should be so proud!!
Thank you so much Jenn!
Ana,
Those mirrors are GORGEOUS. Can’t wait to see the rug at the reveal. Good luck during this final push to the reveal.
Libbie@alifeunfolding
Thank you Libbie! Can’t wait to see your reveal as well!