15 Ways to Refresh Your Walls on a Budget

Turn beadboard on its side for a whole new bathroom look, says Ili Hidalgo-Nilsson, architect and designer with Terracotta Design Build in Atlanta. The horizontal lines of the beadboard can make a small room appear wider than a traditional vertical design. You can also use mirrors in multiple spots, to increase the glamour and spacious feel of a bathroom. 

Employ simple DIY tricks for upmarket style that saves a pretty penny. Atlanta designer and builder Nancy Keenan took pieces of one-by-six lumber and nailed them into place behind this stand alone tub to mimic judges’ paneling, a more expensive architectural detail that can be bought in sheets. After cutting the lumber, nail the pieces onto your wall in squares or rectangles. Paint them all a semi-gloss color to create a stylish accent wall. 

Add a special treatment halfway up the wall, to cut your costs. Tile or wood paneling, which can be cheaper, gives any bathroom a certain finished style. Designer Stephanie A. Bruntz in Nebraska used tile in this National Kitchen + Bath Association-winning bathroom, but also suggests using beadboard. If you opt for beadboard, she suggests adding chair rail around the room and a stand alone backsplash above the vanity. “It would be faster to install and less expensive on the material purchase,” says Bruntz, who lives in Nebraska.

Embrace shiplap, the wide wooden boards that have historically been used to construct barns and older homes and a design favorite of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. Allison Worley, senior designer at Atlanta's Haven Design Works, installed shiplap in her bathroom and painted it in Sherwin-Williams Agreeable Gray. Shiplap can be done as an accent wall or installed along the entire room. Haven owner Donna Mathis adds that putting shiplap or tile just behind a vanity mirror can change the whole look of a bathroom.