The day has finally come. It took 5 long weeks, untold hours of bickering, and about 75 million trips to Lowes, but our downstairs bathroom is finally DONE!

Dan did the entire thing himself (except a little bit of plumbing) – from tearing down the walls, to hanging drywall, laying tile, painting, repainting, grouting, nailing, replacing insulation – you name it.

Amazingly, even though this bathroom was a complete gut (even the ceilings had to be replaced!) – we completed the entire project for $1600! That’s only $100 over budget and about $6000 cheaper than what the upstairs bathroom cost us (we did that one with the help of a contractor).

It’s definitely not a luxury bathroom (damn you HGTV for making all DIYers feel grossly inept) – and the layout isn’t ideal because we opted to leave the electrical and majority of the plumbing as is to save money – but knowing we did the entire thing ourselves (I helped by instructing Dan to move the mirror a little to the left, just a tiny bit to the right…no a little bit more the left) feels pretty badass. And I CANNOT wait to have a second bathroom in the house. Hallelujah, thank you bathroom gods.

So without further ado….the before, during, and after!

Here’s what the bathroom looked like when we moved in. Note the gorgeous pink laminate countertop and matching floor tiles:

We quickly set to work tearing everything out. To be fair, though, we had a head start since a section of floor tiles were already missing. The previous home owners filled the gap with towels and put a throw rug over it. C-L-A-S-S-Y.

And 5 weeks later, we have this!

Isn’t my husband handy?!

And now…on to the next project. We spent most of the day clearing out the sun porch and have big plans for new paint, a new floor and maybe a built in bench? Dan, if you’re reading this – don’t get angry…I said MAYBE 😉