The downstairs toilet was the room she dreaded walking into: dark blue marbled tile, a navy border running the walls, a beige floor that matched nothing. Ripping it all out was the obvious fix, and the expensive one. So she did something most people never consider. She left the tile exactly where it was and painted right over it.
The makeover comes from @dailydoseoftash_, who shared the full before and after on Instagram. Her reasoning is the part worth stealing. She and her partner had agreed not to properly redo the downstairs toilet until they tackle the whole downstairs at once, so the floors and finishes all flow together. That day is not here yet.
Living with a room she was sick of looking at until then was not an option either. What she landed on is a genuinely useful middle path: a deliberate holding pattern, done almost entirely with paint and things already sitting in the garage.
The Honest Version of a Budget Refresh
This is not a flawless renovation, and she is the first to say so. It is a refresh that bought her time, made a hated room livable, and cost almost nothing because the materials were already on hand. The leftover bedroom paint, the tile paint, the peel-and-stick floor she had bought for a different project that fell through. That is the whole point of it.
What makes it worth a closer look is the method, not the price tag. Painting directly over wall tile is the move that does the heavy lifting here, and it is the one most people assume will look cheap or peel within a month. Up close it is not perfect. From the doorway, where anyone actually stands, the cold blue is gone and the room reads soft, warm, and finished.
Here is the full materials list she shared, and the part that makes the budget real: the tile paint was the only thing she actually had to buy. Everything else was already in the house or the garage.
| What She Used | Product | Where It Went | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tile paint | Ronseal one-coat tile paint, white satin | Painted over the blue wall tile | The only purchase (under $35) |
| Wall & ceiling paint | Lick Green 02, eggshell | Walls and ceiling, sage | Already owned (bedroom leftover) |
| Sill & radiator paint | Johnstone’s quick-dry satin wood & metal | Window sill and radiator | Already owned (garage stock) |
| Floor tiles | The Range Oriental peel-and-stick vinyl | Laid over the beige floor | Already owned (unused from a fallen-through move) |
| Styling | Wicker tray (Amazon), Who Gives A Crap roll, candle, diffuser, faux stems | Cistern and sill | Mostly already owned |
The numbers only work because the cupboards were already stocked from other projects. That is the realistic version of a budget makeover: not that paint is free, but that a held-back room is the perfect place to burn through the half-tins and impulse buys you already paid for.
The Tile She Refused to Remove
Dark blue-grey marbled tile climbed the lower half of every wall, capped by a busy navy-and-cream patterned border. Paired with pale blue paint above and a single small window, the whole room sat in a permanent chill, the kind of space you flick the light on in and leave as fast as possible. Tearing it out would have meant dust, a tiler, and money earmarked for the bigger job still years away.
The tile never moved. She rolled Ronseal one-coat tile paint over it in a white satin, and the dark blue simply disappeared. Above the tile line, the pale blue plaster went sage, using the same Lick Green 02 from the couple’s bedroom. She is candid that the tile paint took a few coats and could probably take another, “but not on my agenda anytime soon I just squint when I look at them,” she joked. From standing height it reads as clean white tile against a calm green wall. Nobody clocks that it is paint.
Look at the wall behind the basin and the proof is right there. The grout lines and the faint texture of the original tile are still faintly visible, but the satin white reads as a deliberate finish rather than a cover-up. That is the trick with tile paint: it does not erase the tile, it neutralizes it, and a neutral white surface is a world warmer than cold blue marble.
The Color That Did the Real Work
The original blue was the safe, forgettable kind, the shade a room gets when nobody has decided what it should be. Against the cold tile, it doubled down on the chill instead of warming anything up.
Sage was the single highest-impact change in the room. She carried it up onto the ceiling too, a deliberate choice with the eventual color-drench in mind, and the green instantly reads as intentional where the blue read as leftover. It is worth noting the paint is technically a bedroom eggshell, not a bathroom-rated finish. Her logic holds for the space: this is a downstairs toilet with no shower or tub, so the walls never get wet. For a powder room specifically, that is a reasonable call, and the sort of warm, grounded palette designers lean on to keep a small bath from feeling sterile is exactly what sage delivers here.
The Window That Went From Cold to Warm
The window reveal was its own little time capsule: a dark, glossy varnished sill, the same navy patterned tile creeping up to meet it, and bare yellow-tinged plaster around the frame. It dragged the whole corner backward in time.
Sanded back and painted white, the sill now bounces light instead of swallowing it, and the sage carried into the reveal makes the window feel built-in rather than boxed-off. A potted faux plant and a small framed photo of the couple’s two cockapoos turn a purely functional corner into the warmest spot in the room. Same window, same glass, completely different mood.
The Radiator That Got a Second Life
The old radiator told the room’s whole story in one object: rust blooming along the bottom edge, brown speckling across the white, the look of a fixture everyone had quietly given up on. Replacing it is what most people would budget for first, and the close-up shows exactly why the instinct is to rip it out.
A sand-down and a coat of Johnstone’s quick-dry satin wood and metal paint, a tin already in the garage from another project, and the radiator looks like itself again. This is the part of a refresh people skip because they assume metal and rust mean a new unit. Sanding back the spots and repainting is slower, cheaper, and for a stopgap it more than holds.
The Floor That Was Already Paid For
The original floor was beige porcelain, neutral in the worst way, reading as dated rather than calm and pulling against every other surface in the room.
The encaustic-look vinyl tiles came from The Range, originally bought for a house move that fell through, then left collecting dust. Rather than buy anything new, she laid them straight down as self-adhesive squares. Peel-and-stick over an existing floor is the definition of a reversible, low-commitment fix, which is precisely what a hold-until-later room calls for.
Up close, the grey-and-white encaustic print is the one piece of real personality in the space, and it does a lot of quiet work. The mix of geometric and floral blocks ties the white tile and sage walls together, and the busyness hides scuffs and dust far better than flat beige ever did. For a high-traffic downstairs loo, that is a practical win as much as a pretty one.
The Finishing Touches That Sell It
Paint and floor did the structural work. The warmth comes from the styling: a woven tray on the cistern holding a peach candle, a reed diffuser, and a little ceramic vase of white carnations, plus a framed golden-hour photo of two cockapoos and a hand-lettered sign on the window. None of it was a big spend. All of it is the difference between a room that has been painted and a room that feels genuinely lived-in and put-together without a full remodel.
What This Actually Teaches You
The takeaway is not the budget, though the budget is striking. It is the permission. A dated, cold, tiled room you cannot afford to gut yet is not a room you have to keep hating. You can paint directly over the tile, repaint the metal instead of replacing it, lay new flooring over old, and reach for paint and pieces you already own. The result is a refresh, not a renovation, and knowing the difference is what keeps the project honest.
She called the whole thing the definition of putting lipstick on a pig, and laughed about it. The more useful way to see it: this is what a smart holding pattern looks like, the version where you stop living with a room you can’t stand while the real plan waits its turn.
All images and project details courtesy of @dailydoseoftash_ via Instagram. Products as named by the creator: Lick Green 02 (eggshell) walls and ceiling, Ronseal one-coat tile paint in white satin, Johnstone’s quick-dry satin wood and metal paint for the sill and radiator, The Range Oriental peel-and-stick vinyl floor tiles, Who Gives A Crap toilet roll, and a wicker tray from Amazon.
