Along with kitchens, bathrooms are another big selling feature for potential buyers. They’re a great space for you to invest your money to get the biggest return. These rooms aren’t necessarily large in space, but you can make them speak volumes with your style. With that being said…welcome to a few of my favourite bathroom renovations.

For us, neither of these renovations were about changing the configuration of the space. It was more about making the most of what we had and updating the style to our taste.  

This first bathroom was renovated for our own use, meaning no move was planned yet at this point 🙂 .

In this bathroom, the sloped ceiling was something that we needed to work with.  We weren’t interested in changing the configuration of the roof, so we embraced the slope. We kept the shower where it was, which allowed us to renovate this nook with minimal challenges.  We did our best to make the space look as tall as we could by extending the tile all the way up the shower to include the ceiling. We chose a simple white subway tile but used a grey grout. This allowed us to keep our tile costs down in the shower, but still add some definition and interest.

We decided to make the most of the space by adding some built-in open shelving for storage into the knee wall.  This would have otherwise been useless space for us, so having the shelving built into the wall, provided some much needed storage. For a busy family with 2 kiddos that go through towels like it’s their jobs…this was a bonus and it didn’t eat into our floor plan.

Moving to the opposite wall, we did our best to work with what we had there too.  The original mirror extended across the entire wall and it made the room look that much larger. We decided to go with the same idea to maximize the light and give the illusion of a bigger space. We had a pane of mirror cut to size and mounted on the wall.

We kept the plumbing where it was and updated the toilet to a more modern design. We decided on a modern double vanity and then paired it with simple faucets. We finished it off with 2 modern light fixtures centered to the wall to keep the space nice and bright. By going with a more budget-friendly vanity, we were able to splurge a bit on the floor tile. Like I said in my kitchen reno blog, you can easily pair less expensive pieces with some pricier finishes to really make an impact. We decided to go with an octagon Carrara Marble tile floor here for a little hint of elegance. For us it was important that the bathroom was functional for a family of 4, but it still had to be pretty. This reno wasn’t anything fancy, but it all came together quite nicely.

This second bathroom was nicknamed the “Murder Bathroom” by our contractor…catchy I know.  This particular room was located in the basement and was just as dark as seen in the photo. Bonus…it had a red heat lamp you could turn on after getting out of the shower 🙂 .

Now having said all that, it was already complete with a shower, sink and toilet, so all the basics were there. For this reno, we were getting ready to list our house for sale, so we weren’t interested in putting too much money into the renovation. However, like I’ve mentioned before “cheap and cheerful” is one thing, but cutting corners is something else and we definitely weren’t interested in any of that! So we stuck with a very simple renovation. One that made the most of the space, was clean, bright, and done right.

We took this bathroom down to the studs. For the most part, we kept the plumbing in the same location. The one change, we did move the water supply that previously ran in the wall between the shower and toilet. This wasn’t too much of a challenge once you’ve opened up all the walls and have taken everything apart anyways. Doing this allowed us to put in an open corner shower unit, remove that existing wall, which in turn opened up the space.  We went with simple colour choices and a budget-friendly vanity. A simple renovation, with simple finishes; but it was exactly what we were looking for and provided a nice clean bonus bathroom for the lucky new home owners.

Thinking of doing a bathroom renovation for yourself or to list your home for sale??  Feel free to reach out and I’d be happy to share my two cents of where to put your money and how to get the best return on your investment.