I hadn’t meant to start a bathroom renovation that night. I was mindlessly browsing Houzz before bed at 11 pm, barely clothed out of the necessity of broken shower door. Do you know how you know you’ve been settling for stupid for way too long?
It happened to me as I stood under my shower in my bathroom naked, watching the shower drip down the wall and onto the floor tiles. Our bathroom was…let’s go easy and just say “old”. Think honey oak cabinets from the late 90s/early aughts, beige marbled tiles that highlighted every single water droplet to touch them, and an antique vanity light that casts the biggest shadow of our faces every morning.
I had lived with it for 3 years with promises of “doing it someday.” Somehow, someday had come tonight. And at 11 pm with nothing but a towel and gusto, I was determined to fix it.
What I love about Houzz is what scares me about Houzz.
Every bathroom looks absolutely stunning and completely attainable until you start thinking about budget. I probably bookmarked 50 photos that night- marble waterfall countertops, rain shower heads the size of pizza plates, floating vanities that looked like they defied gravity all on their own. My Pinterest board became my dream world- budgets be damned, contractors who showed up on time weren’t REAL.
The beauty behind those inspiring photos is that they aren’t there for you to copy directly from. They’re meant to inspire you, give you ideas that you can tweak to work for you. Yes, that $4,000 brass rain shower head probably won’t make the cut.
But installing a larger shower head a few inches lower? Definitely something you can do for a $200 upgrade and some helpful plumbers. I printed out the best Houzz photos and laid them all across my kitchen table like I was planning some sort of crime.
My neighbour Sarah (who recently recovered from her ownreno nightmares) came over for wine and realism. “Yeah, that one’s nice,” she said pointing at a dark and moody black and white bathroom photo, “but you KNOW you have no natural light in your bathroom, right?” She was right. Our bathroom has one teeny window that faces north. All those dark beautiful walls I had my heart set on would make getting ready each morning feel like I was exploring a cave.
Instead, I started studying each photo with a fine-tooth comb – not for what to copy, but rather ideas I could borrow from cleverly. Subway tile came in many of my favourite photos, but in multiple shades of marble. A real slab of Carrera marble would devour my budget just for the shower surround.
Instead, I found porcelain tiles that mimicked that same appearance for about 1/3 of the cost. They photograph almost identically, and honestly might even work better for me in the long run. No more worries about red wine ruining my tiles or vinegar wipes etching into natural stone.
I loved how one of the Houzz bathrooms had an uber chic floating vanity with LED strip lights installed underneath to create a glowing effect. However, the custom woodworking that went into creating that masterpiece would have cost me my firstborn. Instead?
I bought a IKEA wall mounted vanity and installed battery-operated LED strip lights from Amazon. Cost difference? About $2800.
Look difference? Pretty damn close, considering I won’t be looking at my face at 7am when I brush my teeth anyway. Needless to say, my inspiration phase lasted me 3 months.
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I thought that was ridiculous at the time, but ended up saving me from MANY expensive mistakes. I would take screenshots of little details I loved from various photos – how herringbone subway tile was installed in one bathroom, how the brass accents were placed in another, the exact shade of grout that made white tile sparkle in another. I showed up on Mike’s (my contractor who had also done my kitchen backsplash) doorstep with my entire Houzz folder and he gave me “The Eye”. “Uh…these are all expensive looking bathrooms,” he said with hesitation.
Once we talked through each piece and what I wanted to spend money on versus where we could save, he really got excited about the project. Turn up the dollars on things that really mattered to us- in this case, the shower fixtures. We installed a thermostatically controlled shower valve (the temp actually stays consistent!) and a handheld shower wand that has seriously changed my life when washing my hair.
Houzz had taught me that good water pressure isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Two years later I’m still thanking myself for that decision every time I shower. I also used Houzz photos to guide me toward the lighting I wanted, but budget allowed me to work a little smarter.
Instead of spending $800 on the sconces I had pinned, I found similar styles at a local lighting store for $150. The important thing was making sure the fixtures were to-scale with the mirror. Too small and they looked weak; too big and they would overwhelm the mirror.
My pride and joy from scrolling through Houzz? The niche we installed in my shower. There were so many photos that featured these built in shelves that I knew I needed one.
Mike was able to frame one for me when he was doing the demo at a very small cost to me. It houses our shower poums without cluttering the space, and to this day every person who uses our shower compliments us on how convenient it is. Overall, it took us 6 weeks to complete the renovation.
To me, it felt like FOREVER because I was taking cold showers in our basement bathroom (aka concrete box with plumbing) during that time. But when I stepped into my newly renovated bathroom, flipped on the strategically placed lights…it was like I had plucked one of those Houzz photos out of existence and placed it in my home. The brass drawer pulls I spent weeks debating reflected the light in exactly the way I had hoped they would.
Those subway tiles were catching the morning light and giving the illusion that my bathroom was bigger. My vanity was JUST the right height for me and my husband, all thanks to measurements I had obsessively taken to avoid potential back pain.
Now, two years later I find myself still getting lost staring into that bathroom.
I’ll smile at how the grout lines create perfect geometry. Or how light reflects off the mirror to brighten up the space. Or how ridiculous I feel to have functional storage that actually works, rather than JUST looking nice.
Houzz photos taught me that remodeling isn’t about copying someone else’s pretty picture exactly – it’s about figuring out what you love about the spaces you see, what makes the spaces work for you and THEMING THE **** OUT OF YOUR OWN HOME WITHIN YOUR budget. Sometimes that means spending more money on things that you love and use everyday, and less on things that are cute but might not have as much value to you. So my advice?
Pin all the pics. Then ask yourself why you loved each one. It’s rarely the $10,000 piece of marble that catches your eye- more times than not, it’s the way the light hits the surface, or the clean lines, or how functional the space is.
Those things? You can definitely budget for those.
