European Inspired Small Half Bathroom Remodel

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My parents moved across the country to have a bigger part in my kids lives and with that they decided to buy a fixer upper down the street from us. My mom’s style is much more moody and full of jewel tone colors so it was exciting when I got to design a European inspired small half bathroom remodel.

This post is sponsored by Signature Hardware, all opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands we truly love!

My mom became my design client and I created a moodboard perfect for the feel she’s searching for, a jewel green-blue tone, marble countertops and brushed brass accents.

The Design Plan

The Before Half Bathroom Remodel

This bathroom hasn’t been touched since the 80s, a good amount of water damage and the lovely small of “old wood cabinets.” IYKYK. The goal is to make this tiny bathroom feel larger and to not feel so bleh. They bought one of those fixer uppers “property investors” buy and just slap some lipstick and hardware on it and call it a day. We’re going to do everything we can to update their house to be their dream home!

I fear the seashell sink is a stark reminder of how stuck in the 80’s this bathroom is.

Demo Day for the Small Bathroom

I set aside one day to demo the entire bathroom which was plenty of time. It’s a small half bathroom about 3 1/2 feet by 5 1/2 feet. The plan is to take EVERYTHING out! Nothing was safe mostly because it was all incredibly old and gross. My parents did replace the toilet upon moving in – so we are definitely keeping the toilet in the remodel!

The vanity wasn’t anything we could salvage, it had probably 30+ years of water damage under the vanity base.

I’m almost positive this is the same bathroom that has been here since the home was built. It took me almost 2 hours to just remove the vanity, it was stuck on almost everything you could possibly imagine.

The easiest way we’ve found to demo is to make a clean demo, take things apart and unscrew ALL the screws. We don’t need to swing for the hills and break everything because it creates a way bigger mess to clean up.

My dad helped me load everything into his truck and took it to our local dump. They don’t let us discard all construction materials, so check with your local dump regulations. If you aren’t looking to rent large trash bags through your trash company you can use 5 gallon buckets and take them to the dump once you’ve filled them up.

Fixing and Laying the Flooring

The subfloor was in good condition and any discoloring we saw wasn’t effecting the integrity of the subfloor. However, the small bathroom had an intense slope that would have been great if there was a shower we needed to drain. The unleveled floor wasn’t enough to add more subfloor so we used self-leveler about 1/4 of the bag.

Before pouring the self-leveler you need to prep any cracks and crevices. What we have found to be the most cost effective and works pretty good too, painters tape! You don’t need the expensive tape, I used the wide painters tape and taped to the subfloor and covered the gap between the bottom of the floor and drywall. I also taped around the air duct, entrance to the room and around the toilet sewer flange.

If you don’t make a firm stop for the self-leveler it will just keep running – under drywall, into the hvac duct work and down the toilet sewer drain.

This is QUICK DRYING self-leveler meaning you only have at most 5 minutes to mix and pour. You want it to be soupy! Not pancake consistency, it needs to be able to run into the low parts of the room hence the soupy consistency.

Where ever you decide to have the self-leveler stop, you have to feather out the edges. I used a wide putty knife and lightly feathers out the edges with each pour of the self-leveler. You can also use an aerator roller to move the self-leveler around which is really helpful for wider pours. Since this is s smaller space I could reach the end of the room by hand.

The self-leveling we used typically dries enough for light foot traffic in 2 – 4 hours and is ready for floor covering installation within 12–24 hours, though full curing can take up to 72+ hours. Factors like temperature, humidity, and thickness significantly affect drying. times.

If you are new to using self-leveler sometimes mixing it too thick can happen which causes longer drying times.

Things to keep in mind for key drying times:

Walkable: 2 – 4 hours.
Tile/Stone Installation: 4 – 24 hours.
Wood/Vinyl Installation: Often 24 hours to 3+ days, depending on moisture sensitivity.
Full Cure: Up to 7 days.

We laid vinyl flooring that runs throughout the rest of their home and waited 72 hours prior to laying.

The flooring definitely pulls more yellow and warm, so adding a cooler toned paint color neutralized the flooring. This is the lock and click vinyl flooring my parents have in their home and it’s pretty easy to install too.

Color Drenching a Small Space

There were so many people that expressed painting a small room a dark color would make the room look smaller. My mom loves jewel toned rooms and she really wanted a blue-green paint color for the room. I have always loved how jewel toned colors look color drenched even in the smallest of spaces. These were the color samples we started with and narrowed it down to two colors.

We tried Gray Heron by PPG (left) and Nature Gift by BEHR (right). The paint colors look so insanely different in a room that has no natural light.

My mom and I had originally leaned towards the Gray Heron by PPG, but after seeing the samples for a whole day we decided on the later – Nature Gift by BEHR.

I told my mom I was going to color drench the room and that meant painting the ceiling, door, baseboards and door frame. She was nervous at first, but I told her trust me it was the ONLY way to do this kind of color in a small space.

Color drenching means painting everything even the switch plates and vent covers. These switch plates are paintable which is amazing!

The door frame for a color drenching room can be a bit tricky, but the easiest cheat is to close the door and paint whats visible when the door is CLOSED.

The left side of the door frame is inside the bathroom and the right side of the door frame is visible outside the bathroom.

Installing the Vanity

Installing the vanity in this small bathroom was some what a domino effect. In order to install the vanity we had to get a few things situated with plumbing and the unfortunate placement of the floor vent.

The plumbing came up through the flooring and we are using a furniture style vanity – which means its raised above the floor. The plumbing was not flexible so I had to replace it to something I’d be able to weave inside the vanity.

PERFECT FIT! Well…almost. We had to make a few holes in the vanity to be able to accommodate for the waterlines and the p-trap.

The vanity came delivered without the counter and sink attached which ended up working out better for installation in the small half bathroom. If you’ve got some DIY skills up your sleeve, I recommend this type of vanity because it make it easier to install in the long run for a smaller space.

To install the vanity I found the studs and used 3″ long wood screws to attach to at least 2 studs.

I didn’t realize we had to let the silicone cure for 24 hours after attaching the sink to the underside of the countertop – so try to factor that into your timeline! We used this clear silicone and use some type of latex gloves because the silicone does not come off your skin easily!

After placing the sink I added the clips that came with the vanity. All the instructions are really easy to follow for Signature Hardware which made the install process a breeze!

The sink attachment to the countertop cure for 24 hours then we installed the countertop on-top of the vanity. I used the same silicone to adhere the countertop, backsplash and to caulk the seam between the countertop and backsplash.

When wiping the bead of silicone caulk I used my latex gloves and wrapped a baby wipe around my finger to wipe the excess. My kids have been out of diapers for a hot second and we still buy baby wipes, but for DIY intensive purposes now.

DIYing Our Own Box Trim Molding

Before we cut all the box trim molding we mapped out with 1″ painters tape the layout we wanted to do. This helps visualize how large you want the box trim molding and how many and where you want them to go.

This math took about an entire day with a lot of trial and error, but we measured the inside corner for the boxes to cut the mitered corners.

Before we added the box trim molding we added the baseboards, the same style they already had throughout their home – traditional baseboards 3 1/4″.

We used PVC trim pieces for the box trim molding, which is really helpful for beginners trying out box trim molding. This type of trim is malleable and can be ok for 16th of an inch error. However, they are pretty expensive!

I used my miter saw to cut the pieces which took a LONG time. There was a lot of back and forth, a big time saver would be to use these miter sheers if you’re using PVC. Anything other than PVC these would not work.

I used my pin nailer and 1 3/8″ size pin nails to install the trim because it was light and didn’t need a lot to grab into the drywall. We decided not to use construction adhesive because we felt the pin nails would be enough. When using the pin nailer, make sure you alternate the angle in which you shoot the pin nail into the trim. Angled pin nails make it easier for them to grab into the drywall.

I used a scrap piece of the baseboard as a spacer for the box trim molding which help me create the same size gap between all the boxes.

The box trim molding looked so good and you could already tell even before I was finished how much taller and larger the bathroom looked.

My sister really wanted me to keep the trim white, she felt like it really complimented the white vanity we chose to go in here. However, it was always my intention to paint all the box trim molding because we were color drenching the room.

Installing the Finishing Fixtures

I really tested my plumbing skills….more like my DIY skills in general for this whole project. Since the drain was so close to the interior part of the drawers we went with this flexible p-trap drain.

My sister snapped a picture of me working on the plumbing and honestly, looking at it makes me so proud. The bathroom wasn’t finished but we were both oh so proud of how far it had already come.

This was the original light fixture we had picked for the space and I DO NOT recommend this one. The wiring was a little off and we couldn’t get the other light to work despite rewiring it a few times and swapping out light bulbs to no avail.

It also would not tighten at the base, so it would fall upside-down every-time the door was closed shut. It was awful and quite cheap to say the least.

I ended up swapping the light fixture for this straight across 3-light sconce and originally didn’t really pay it any mind at first but my mom loved it. She ended up picking a beautiful option! The straight across really elevated your eye to how tall the space looked.

A little peak at the difference between the light on vs. the light off in this small bathroom. Yes of course it’s dark because there’s no window. However, it doesn’t make the space feel smaller.

The After Half Bathroom Remodel

It’s incredible what good design and beautiful fixtures can do for a small bathroom remodel!

I’m so proud of how this project turned out! It was the first project I did in my parents new house and there were a lot of DIY firsts for me in here too!