Our shower surround is some kind of laminate, and it has been that way since we moved in. I would love to tile it, but I'm afraid to start a project like that, with only having one bathroom and no experience tiling.
I had been putting off doing any thing to the bathroom since I couldn't do it the way I wanted to.
I had finally had enough, and decided that I wanted to like the way our bathroom looked.
I bought paint at home depot, the paint-plus-primer, and that was it. Everything else used to redo the bathroom we already had.
I started with a light gray, and painted the walls, ceiling, and trim the same color. I then took both light fixtures down, and replaced then with a nice pan light I already had in the garage, and used a simple vintage porcelain socket for between the medicine cabinet and mirror. I paint both with primer and flat black spray paint. I then used 2 large round white bulbs, for both fixtures.
The medicine cabinet was found in an alley, and it was primed and painted flat black. It was found without hinges, so we used two left over hinges from our kitchen switch. My husband then hung the cabinet on the wall , next to the mirror, that I also replaced. The mirror the husband has had for a long time, and had never really found a place.
For the hand towels, I used a hook that I also had laying around, and attached it to the wall, by the sink. I found an old gray cotton cafe curtain with my fabrics, and decided to cut it in half, and hem it to make the two new hand towels. I also switched out the handle and the cabinet under the sink with a simpler handle, also left over fro the kitchen.
I had been trying to come up with a way to hide the shower, and decided a floor to ceiling, wall to wall curtain would do the trick. I had the tapestry with my fabrics also, and it was almost the only piece that was large enough. My husband then used piping as a curtain rod, and an extra piece for the toilet paper holder/curtain tieback.
The rug is also something that I already had, just a cotton saddle blanket. We may do one more long pipe for a towel bar for our bath towels, but for now there is a hook on the back of the door for those towels.
I am very happy with how the bathroom turned out, and you can't beat it for the expense. It only took a couple of days of work, and now I wished I would have done it sooner.(and that all the other rooms would only take that long to paint)