Bathroom DIY Update Easy and Cheap; Contact Paper Floor and Counter

My husband and I are approaching our second year in our new house. The house we bought was built in 1986 and very little updating had gone into the house. We bought the house knowing we were going to put a lot of blood, sweat and love into it. And of course, MONEY. Even doing everything yourself gets very expensive.

We moved in May 2018 and started our remodel journey. I'll save this story for a later time but we started in the kitchen, living room and dining room area. We replaced all of the old dated wood molding, ripped out the entire kitchen, put up ship lap, opened up a wall (hired a professional for this since it was a load bearing wall), painted, sanded, painted some more, remodeled our guest bath, removed carpet from the den, and installed hardwood just to name a few things. We worked countless hours on our home from May until August when we finally had our house warming.

Now our main floor of our house includes our master and our master bathroom. By the time we had finished remodeling and decorating the front entry, kitchen, dining room and den we had spent quite a bit of money. Besides the money, we were exhausted and needed a break. Unfortunately, this left our master bedroom and bathroom unfinished. The very 80s style blue sink, blue tinted counter top, blue tub and blue accented flooring were just too much. You can see in some areas where the blue paint on the walls were not covered by the new paint color. I can only assume at one point the toilet was blue. Luckily the toilet and walls were updated. My goal in this room was not to remodel my bathroom into my dream but was to update it enough to not feel like I was living in an episode of T he Smurf’s.

I decided to look in our supplies in the basement and find what I needed. I found some cabinet paint that I had extra of from our previous house to update the wood vanity and for the countertop I found some marble contact paper I had used for my cabinets also from the old house. Now this solved most of my problems. There was still the flooring that I really wanted to change. The contact paper had worked on the counter could it work on the floor as a quick fix??? Just enough to get me past the house warming possibly? I went online and found some articles on the topic. It had been done before; I wasn’t the only one to think of it. Well I decided to try it. What could it hurt if I spent $20 and it didn’t work? I bought contact paper in a pattern I liked and installed it onto my bathroom floor. It worked! I used some caulk I had to caulk some corners and areas where water could get under. It is a pain getting around the toilet and I tried my best to line up the pattern. I was so surprised by the results. I am even more surprised by the fact that the floor has lasted a year and a half. There is some wear in some of the high traffic areas but overall, I am still pleased.

We got pregnant for our son in December 2018. I wanted to update our upstairs bathroom before he was born. Now with baby on the way we were definitely not fully remodeling any bathrooms at this point so I again put my contact paper to work. We had some extra flooring so I didn’t need to do the floors but the counter on the vanity needed some work. I am once again pleasantly surprised by the powers of contact paper.

We have continued to do projects on the house. We added a movie theater, a nursery, our home office, remodeled part of our basement into an apartment and already re did the den into a bedroom/ playroom for our son so he is closer to us on the first floor. The only rooms we have not touched are part of the basement (next months reorganize project) and our guest room.

My next journal I will have to write about our home remodel and rooms that my husband I have done. The movie concession stand and theater are a lot of fun!

Someday I will get my fully remodeled bathroom but for now I am enjoying all my baby kisses and cuddles from my baby boy. I wouldn't trade them for the world or a remodeled bathroom.

Have you done any crafts or updates with contact paper? Share in the comments below. Even better share any photos you have. I’d love to see.