The Best Things You Can Do to Your Bathroom for Under $100

Bathrooms usually need the most work, but simple sounding changes can quickly tally into a 4-figure bill. When your budget’s not ready for a remodel, set your sights on smaller DIYs you can tackle yourself. Grab a Benjamin and a basic tool kit—here are 7 projects to easily take on this weekend.

The magical powers of a single gallon of paint never ceases to amaze me. When Ange from The Blooming Hydrangea decided to give her bathroom a budget-conscious makeover, she painted her white cabinets a moody charcoal gray. To top off the transformation, she spray-painted cheap hardware store handles gold, making them look like a million bucks.

Putting up shelving in the bathroom not only makes the space feel decorated, but it also provides more spots to stash toiletries and toilet paper. Jaymee from Jay Adores hung a set of three shelves to make use of that awkward space above the toilet. Using stained wooden planks from the hardware store and cheap metal brackets helps bring down the total cost to less than $100.

While fixtures from high-end companies can cost hundreds of dollars a piece, there are plenty of sources for room-altering lighting you can actually afford. When a restaurant was going out of business, Mia of Jilly & Mia was lucky enough to snatch up the industrial fixtures above, but you can find other options at our top ten cheap lighting sources. Replacing light fixtures yourself takes some DIY know-how, so follow our Guide to Installing a New Light Fixture.

If you can’t switch out the actual tiles in your bathroom, then updating the grout is your next best bet. In the bathroom above from One Kings Lane, black grout dye completely transforms the look of white tile—and all you need is a $12 bottle of Polyblend colorant and a paintbrush. Depending upon the grossness level of your current grout situation, it may just need some cleaning, or it could call for a total re-grout—consult our 4-step grout guide to find out.

If you use inexpensive plywood boards, shiplap can be a remarkably affordable way to upgrade your bathroom. Better (and cheaper) yet, just plank the bottom half of the walls to cut the project cost in half. The half-makeover above from The DIY Playbook cost only $70 bucks—leaving you $30 left over to buy a can of paint and refresh the wall above the wainscoting.

Sometimes it’s the tiniest changes that make the biggest difference in a space. Case in point: the beautiful handmade towel ring above from The Merrythought. All it takes is some leather, a metal ring, adhesive, and a nail, bringing the total project cost to just a few dollars. I made one of these for my rental bathroom about a year ago, and I have to say, it added way more personality than a hardware store hook would have.

Adding a frame to a plain bathroom mirror helps the whole room feel “finished.” When Ashley from Cherished Bliss realized how expensive buying a custom frame for her 60-inch-wide bathroom mirror would be, she decided to construct her own out of 1×4’s and some wood stain. Follow her how-to to build your own frame, adjusting the measurements to fit your mirror.

Re-edited from a post originally published 10.13.16.