A “Gray and Boring” Bathroom Got a $1,000 Makeover with a Gorgeous IKEA Hack
One of homeowner and interior designer Chloë Rideout’s (@chloerideoutinteriors) goals for her bathroom makeover was to make it look less cookie-cutter and more vintage. After all, her condo is in an 1835 rowhome.
But in the first three years that Chloë and her husband, Joe, lived there, the bathroom was “gray and boring,” Chloë says.
It was outfitted with white walls, gray floors, and an IKEA HEMNES/ORRSJÖN vanity and matching medicine cabinet, which Chloë did love for the storage — she just wanted to liven up the color. (Again, the bathroom was overwhelmingly gray.)
A little bit of paint went a long way.
Chloë and Joe painted the walls of the bathroom a warmer tan (Benjamin Moore’s Seapearl). They also painted the vanity in Benjamin Moore’s New London Burgundy. “The vintage wool rug and shower curtain are also fun and colorful accents in the space,” Chloe adds.
Chloë especially loves the new vanity color. “It’s OK to embrace color, and not everything has to be another shade of blue or sage green!” she says. “Bring on the pinks and purples.”
The vanity was ripe for an IKEA hack.
But before painting the vanity, Chlöe and Joe gave the HEMNES (and the matching medicine cabinets) an upgrade. “We used a small band moulding from The Home Depot and miter shears to add the decorative molding detail to the otherwise flat drawer slabs,” she explains. “We also glued the molding to the top fascia of the medicine cabinets.”
They used a clamp to get the molding to dry straight, and the project “makes the vanity look much more custom,” Chloë says. She says in a dream world, she would also swap out the sink hardware to upgrade the vanity: “I dislike the contemporary chrome plumbing fixtures, but they coordinate with the vanity drain system, and I knew it would be too costly to swap those out,” Chloë says. Her budget for the project was about $1,000.
A new medicine cabinet adds a vintage vibe.
“We didn’t need to demo much besides an old cabinet over the toilet,” Chloë says. In that spot, she and Joe added a cabinet from Ballard Designs that adds a vintage vibe. “The cleat to install that was super simple; I wish more wall-hung decor was as easy!” Chloë says.
The bathroom mixes brass and nickel.
She was able to add the vintage brass look she was after elsewhere, like with the new light fixture, cabinet knobs, and gold picture frames.
Chloë says she would have picked a different tile if given the option, and she doesn’t love the jacuzzi tub “but again, budget and time,” she adds. In the meantime, “painting cabinetry and swapping light fixtures always has a much bigger impact than people think,” she says.
She’s pleased with her result, and “it makes me feel excited to get ready in the space — even if my toddler doesn’t let me spend much time alone in here,” she says.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.