This “Very Old Bathroom” Got a $150 Makeover in One Weekend — And It’s SO Stylish

Jun 05, 2025

HOME TYPE: Historic Home

PROJECT TYPE: Bathroom

STYLE: Colorful, Parisian, Vintage

SKILL LEVEL: DIY

RENTAL FRIENDLY: Yes

When it comes to making a big change for very little money, designer Kate Pearce (@katepearcevintage) says you can’t go wrong with paint. “We wanted to find a very low- budget solution to make our bathroom feel like a place we could retreat,” she says of her own home. “We went bold on color, knowing we could use paint to make a big impact for a low cost.”

Paint — plus a few other budget-friendly fixes — helped the “very old bathroom that was renovated in the 1970s and completely lacked any interest or color,” as Kate puts it, become a place she actually likes spending time in. Even though Kate owns her historic home, the fixes are fairly renter-friendly.

Kate used Behr’s Aerial View for the bathroom’s blue walls, cabinets, and radiator. “Don’t be afraid to make some bolder choices in regards to paint — it’s such an easy change,” she says, but “be sure to get some samples of the paint to see how it looks in your specific space.”

Her favorite detail in the bathroom is the painted cabinet fronts. This is “the detail that pulled it all together and made the entire renovation feel thoughtful,” she says, and she used some thrift store stencils and two other paint colors (a pink-meets-white, Behr’s Nutmeg Frost, and a deep red, Behr’s Rumors) to do it.

Another big difference-maker in the bathroom, according to Kate, is the new checkerboard flooring. It was “quick, easy, and cheap” Kate says — in fact, it was only $60 — because she and her husband used peel-and-stick tiles on top of the existing tiles.

“It was a much easier install than I had expected, and I actually liked the quality of the tiles way more than I had anticipated,” Kate says.

The bathroom came together for about $150 total, and the final frugal but design-forward details to note are the shower curtain and sink skirt. Using extra fabric from another project, Kate made a shower curtain and cafe-style curtain for underneath her sink using iron-on hem tape.

“I don’t think I would change anything,” Kate says of the whole transformation. “I am very happy with how it came out!” Down the line, she says she might do a major renovation where she replaces the tub and the shower and the tile in the shower, “but doing this small DIY project made me feel like I could put off that major renovation for much longer now,” she says.

Inspired? Submit your own project here.

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