How to Decorate a Powder Room for Less than $50

Complete a beautiful powder room makeover on a $50 budget! Learn how to make inexpensive changes that create a big impact.

Sometimes I get crazy ideas in my head. Donnie knows this. I always remind him that it’s one of the things he loves most about me. 😉

He can always tell when I have an idea brewing. I start dropping subtle (or not-so subtle) hints. Usually he gently tries to talk me out of it, listing many [incredibly valid] reasons why my crazy idea is… well, crazy. But usually I do it anyway. Oops.

But, I promise– Making over the powder room when we were up to our eyeballs in a kitchen renovation made complete sense!

You know how when you get something new and it’s sitting there looking all beautiful, and then all of a sudden the thing next to it looks totally out of place, so you need to do something about that too? That is totally what happened here.

Kitchen, Entry, and Powder Room Updates

You see, things were finally starting to come together in the kitchen and look something like this:

It’s all nice and bright and pretty (and not yet finished, but we’re getting there) and looking lovely. I even turned our old coat closet into a nice, organized pantry to go with it…

I know that it can be hard to picture where everything is, so I made you a little diagram 🙂 :

So do you see what is right next to that kitchen that is coming right along and that pantry that is oh-so-nice-and-organized?

A not-so-pretty powder room.

I would grab something from our beautiful new pantry, peek in the door of the powder room right beside it, and be met with this:

Do you know what that photo is from? It’s from one of my first “room reveals” ever on the blog. This was the “after” shot– hysterical! We all have to start somewhere! Apparently I thought that the powder room had to be powder blue, and clearly that was during my “paint all of the furniture black” phase.

Since the kitchen is currently eating up most of my home improvement budget, I was determined to do a little “refresh” for this room as inexpensively as possible, setting myself a $50 limit. It is a tiny room, but accessories and decor pieces can add up quickly, so I knew I might be pushing it! So how did I decorate a powder room on a super tight budget? I’m so glad you asked!

Budget-Friendly DIY Powder Room Makeover Ideas

A huge thanks to Behr for sponsoring this post! My favorable opinion of beautiful, high-quality paint is 100% my own. 🙂 For more information, see my disclosures here.

1. Apply a fresh coat of paint.

I started with one of the most inexpensive ways to transform a room– paint. I actually had some paint left over from when we painted our primary bedroom, and I LOVED it, so I decided to use that for the walls. (The color is Behr Marquee’s Silver City MQ2-59.)

The vanity was in desperate need of a change as well, so I picked up a little $4 sample of Behr Premium Plus Ultra Clear Pond PPU13-15, and I was in business. Because do I ever do a room that doesn’t include a little aqua? Answer: no. (If you’ve never done it before, this post has great tips for painting a bathroom cabinet!)

I am always amazed at how much a little bit of paint and a few accessories can change a room. Bye bye powder blue, hello…

…light, bright, and beautiful! I’m always nervous when I try to pick an aqua color that it’s going to be too blue or too green or too neon. But Clear Pond was perfection– the exact color I was looking for.

Not bad for $4 worth of paint + a sparkly little knob I already had! 🙂 Oh and speaking of that…

2. Decorate using items from around the house.

I recently talked about the oh-so-simple shelf we made for this room:

It is painted in my most favorite shade of white (yes, there are totally shades of white!), Behr Marquee Cameo White MQ3-32. The shelf and everything sitting on it cost me a grand total of $0– all items I already had.

I told Donnie that my home decor & craft supply hoarding tendencies would come in handy one day! I grabbed a bunch of accessories from my stash as well as some weeds beautiful clippings from my front yard, and I had instant shelf decor!

3. Use DIY wall prints.

One of my favorite ways to save money on art is to think outside of the box and frame things you wouldn’t necessarily think of. The floral “print” on my shelf is actually wrapping paper.

I’ve also framed gift bags before, as well as fabric, paper napkins, pretty cards, old book pages, paint chips, washi tape designs– there are so many options!

I also love to incorporate family items that have special meaning (and are, again, free!). The old books were my grandmother’s, who I never got to meet. And actually, I included an old black and white photo of her on the wall opposite the shelf as well.

Another way to fill frames for free is to make something yourself! I created the “It is well with my soul” print in about 5 minutes, just using some text and a free graphic from PicMonkey.

I love the look of watercolor, but I’m not so good at it myself, so for the smaller piece on this wall, I used the Waterlogue app on my phone to make one of the photos from our beach vacation look watercolor-esque. Then I had it printed for just 30 cents– doesn’t get much cheaper than that! 🙂

4. Swap out the hardware and accessories.

Moving over to the wall next to the vanity, I added a towel ring, which I tend to like better than the old towel bar we had before, and more art.

5. Refresh the light fixtures rather than replacing them.

Light fixtures are expensive and can totally blow a budget! When I initially worked on this bathroom a few years ago, I painted the base of the light fixture and swapped the globes for something a little more modern. Swapping the light bulbs for something brighter is another easy fix to brighten the room.

Doing a little refresh rather than completely replacing the light fixture can save tons of money and still have beautiful results!

Powder Room Budget Breakdown

Do you think I stayed within my $50 budget? Here’s the breakdown:

• Paint sample- $4
• New rug- $15
• Towel ring- $14
• Towel- $6
• Basket on commode- $6
• Feather art- $1.25
• Beach photo- $0.30

Grand total: $46.55 — Woot!

Not a bad little transformation for less than $50! And wait until you see the before and after. Ridiculous!

I would say it looks just a tiny bit better. 😉 I love how a little paint and a few simple swaps can totally transform a space!

Thanks so much for following along! Have a wonderful week!

A huge thanks to Behr for sponsoring this post! My favorable opinion of beautiful, high-quality paint is 100% my own. 🙂 For more information, see my disclosures here.