The Contest Results!

Thank you all for your patience during our busy weekend and the crazy ER trip day! It has been really fun to see your budget remodels — you beat DIY all hollow! A few ladies didn’t post their entries as comments but emailed them, and, though I wrote to ask them to post, they never got around to it. If those of you who emailed want to repost even now, you’re welcome to do so. It’s just fun to see what you’re able to do!

Rather than forcing you to go back and find the posted re-dos in the comments, I’ll put them here so you can see them all in one place. First I’ll share mine:

• Knobs – $4.36 (4 @ $1.09/ea on eBay)

• Cup pulls – $15.42 (6 @ $2.57/ea on eBay)

• Light fixture – $39.99 (on eBay)

• Faucet – $24.99  (on eBay – Someone bought it after I saved the link, though!)

• Frame – $24.95  (on eBay)

• Paint – $27.48 (Behr at Home Depot)

• TOTAL: $137.19

I didn’t include shipping, nor did I expect others to do so. If I added in all my shipping, I’d come right in around the $190 mark, though. Now, here are the other entries…. First, the winner!

Sibyl’s $160.47 remodel:

• framed mirror from Craigslist 25.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/fuo/1106897243.html)
• New bathroom faucet on Craigslist 15.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/1090431280.html)
• New light fixture on Craigslist 3 globes 60.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/1105445083.html)
• Knobs (http://www.myknobs.com/hok101pc.html 4 x 2.34= 9.26)
• Cup pulls (http://www.myknobs.com/hok107pc1.html 6 x 3.04 18.24)
• Behr interior paint 1 gallon 32.97 (http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=938917&Ntt=938917&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&recN=118572&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber) – Note: Sibyl forgot to pick bathroom paint, but it would have been even cheaper than what she got, so she still stays in budget!
• My total is  $160.47

Congratulations, Sibyl! That was almost $30 under budget — and almost $740 under DIY’s budget! Woo-hoo!!! You’ve won a year’s subscription to Mary Jane’s Farm!

Now for our second-place winner:

Sandy’s Redo:

• 1 gallon bathroom paint 34.40 … 4 x 8.60 tintable white (4 quarts) (https://www.cornerhardware.com/permawhite_satin_bathroom_paint/6746_6927/16377)
• 6 Drawer/4 cabinet pulls: 3.40 … 4 x .85 cabinet knobs (http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/wiglbrnikn13.html); 12.42 … 6 drawer pulls @ 2.07 (http://www.woodworkershdwe.net/servlet/the-424/Amerock-Cabinet-Pull-Satin/Detail)
• 3-light fixture $39.95 (http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Avion-Brushed-Nickel-Bathroom-Vanity-3-Light-Bar_W0QQitemZ170318026102QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item170318026102&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A5)
• Vintage-style faucet $60.12 (http://orangecounty.backpage.com/FurnitureForSale/_60_12_satin_nickel_4_center_set_hi_arch_bathroom_faucet/classifieds/ViewAd?oid=3841627)
• Frame$20 gold “antique-looking” (http://bham.craigslist.org/hsh/1114678041.html)  Would have been $12 if I’d documented the frame in the 90% off bin at Hobby Lobby!
• My total is $170.29 (or $162.29 if I used the Hobby Lobby frame + spray paint for the frame)

Great job, Sandy! This comes almost $20 below my top end and $730 under DIY’s!

Finally, here’s our third-place winner, who would have come in first except that she linked to a quart of paint rather than a gallon — multiplying out the quarts is what killed the win. OUCH! Still, this remodel is almost $14 under my $190 limit and beats DIY by almost $725! Fantastic!

Michelle Z’s $176.23 bathroom redo:

• Paint $55.80 ($13.98 per quart times four quarts):   http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=132643-4-132643&lpage=none
• Light $44.65 (light fixture plus shipping): http://tinyurl.com/d73sbj
• Hardware $15.78 (these are all from one ebay seller, and shipping is free):
• Cup pulls: http://tinyurl.com/damxu6
• Knobs: http://tinyurl.com/dhmkpg
• Faucet $20 (not exact, but close and I’ll keep looking): http://kansascity.craigslist.org/hsh/1096057021.html
• Frame $40: http://kansascity.craigslist.org/hsh/1107423608.html
• Grand total: $176.23

This was so much fun, I think we’ll have to do it again sometime with another remodel challenge! Maybe a kitchen refresh on the cheap? Thanks so much for participating!

Don’t Miss This Fun Contest!

If you haven’t seen my April 4 post, be sure to check it out! I’m having a budget remodel contest — see if you can beat DIY Magazine’s bathroom remodel budget. The winner gets a one-year subscription to the wonderful Mary Jane’s Farm magazine.

A few ladies have already posted their entries in the comment sections on the April 4 post (that’s where to enter). I’m keeping the entries private until the end of the contest, and then I’ll reveal everyone’s finds and their bottom line budgets!

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure the links to each of the items you find works — we need to be able to verify your finds.
2. Be sure you pick bathroom-grade paint rather than run-of-the-mill paint. It makes a difference!
3. It’s perfectly kosher to check eBay, Craigslist, and Freecycle for your bargains!

Have fun!

Warmly,
Amanda

Quick bathroom floor re-do

One Friday afternoon with the house freshly cleaned and the children watching a movie, I decided to tackle their bathroom floor. It had the same white linoleum that was in the kitchen, and with lots of muddy feet and little bodies, this floor was never clean for long! I had plenty of tile left over from the kitchen floor re-do, since I never ended up tiling into the large utility closet. I’m glad now that I didn’t, since reflooring the bathroom was a much better investment of the tile and the time! At left you see the bathroom before. I’ve removed the floor vent cover, and the linoleum has been mopped and stripped to remove any waxing remnants. You can see the vinyl sticky tiles waiting for me.

I debated on where to start tiling in this room, since it is so small. It seemed silly to mark the exact center and begin from there, so I chose instead to start behind the door (the lower right-hand corner in the photo above). This proved to be a very good choice, as I ended up not having to cut so many tiles to get around the air vent hole.

Here you see the first tile with a notch cut out to go around the corner where the door’s threshhold met the hallway’s carpet. As in the kitchen, I laid the tile down, fitting carefully, then used an old rolling pin to firmly adhere the sticky backing to the floor. I followed up with the second tile, making sure its left edge matched exactly to the first tile and its upper edge butted up against the hallway carpet. Below are the first two tiles in place. See how the second tile comes exactly to the edge of the air vent? I was so happy about that little bit of serendipity. (I confess I didn’t measure–I just eyeballed it and guessed; I’d recommend measuring if you’re having a first go at this sticky tile thing! Measuring in the large kitchen saved us a lot of grief.)

The first two tiles

With these tiles in place, I quickly moved on, since I could just place all the tiles along the left-hand wall and match another row next to them before I had to cut around either the vent hole or the toilet. Cutting around the vent hole wasn’t very hard, since I only had to cut two tiles, and both of those tiles went up against the bath cabinet. The only tricky tile was the one that had to go around the door jamb (which you can see in the upper right-hand corner of the photo above). But after all my practice in the kitchen, I just sailed on through with my handy-dandy utility scissors.

The part of the bathroom floor re-do that took the longest was going around the toilet. Here you see the last bit of tiling yet to be done (and the tiling that required all the cutting for a perfect fit):

I should have been a good girl and made pattern pieces out of cardboard or paper for the curved base of the toilet, but I was in a hurry and just eyeballed and hand-cut a tile to go around the front of the toilet. I was tickled pink when it was a perfect fit and prematurely patted myself on the back:

I figured that, having eyeballed the first tile so easily, it would also be a piece of cake to eyeball the final tile, but the final one included not only the curved back edge of the toilet but the metal pipe running into the floor and the metal ring around it:

I sailed blithely into cutting the last tile anyway, doing my best to accommodate the little curve at the corner. That proved a bit more difficult than I’d initially thought. When I laid the tile down for a test, I saw that I’d cut too little away from the corner where the small ring sits and too much away from the curve to go around the toilet. Blah. I didn’t want to waste an entire tile, so instead of cutting a new one, I just picked up the scrap that came from cutting out the larger curve and cut a piece from it to fill in the half-moon area of linoleum that still showed. When I stepped back a couple of feet, I couldn’t even see the “patch,” and I was delighted to have the entire bathroom floor redone in under 45 minutes! The new floor is very nice to look at and much easier to keep clean. Total cost for this redo (at 44 cents per sticky tile)? $11! Can’t be beat. Well worth the elbow grease! Next bathroom project: painting over the vinyl wallboard’s “wallpaper” to give the bathroom a more updated look. Hurrah!

All finished and looking good!