Perk up your bathroom with inexpensive upgrades

It's not unheard of in today's booming renovation market for a contractor to charge $10,000 for even a small bathroom renovation. The budget for this project was approximately $1,500-which ruled out major alterations such as new floors and relocated walls. But we still wanted to give this compact, aging bathroom a fresh, new look. To keep costs down, only the elements that needed to be changed were. The renovation included wainscotting panels for the walls, a new low-volume toilet, replacing the pedestal sink and faucet, plus an updated mirror and new light fixture. And to keep the labour budget down, the whole family pitched in!

TO-DO LIST:
- replace door trim
- replace toilet
- replace mirror
- paint walls
- wainscott walls
- replace leaky faucet and damaged sink


1.
Remove the old sink, starting with the water supply lines



2.
Remove all the old wall fixtures, such as this built-in toilet-roll holder, cutting any caulking with a utility knife



3.
Use a prybar to remove the old baseboard and the door casing, which were damaged



4.
Being careful in the removal stage will lessen the repair work required later



5.
Disconnect the toilet's water-supply line, then separate the tank from the bowl before removing the hold-down bolts. Lift the bowl out of the room