Home » Latest » DIY House & Home » Remodeling a bathroom for Under $500 | DIY | How To | Modern Builds | EP. 67

Remodeling a bathroom for Under $500 | DIY | How To | Modern Builds | EP. 67

3

InfoSearched 50 0 DIY House & Home

5.2

SaveSavedRemoved 0

A dated bathroom gets a farmhouse-style facelift without a five-figure price tag.

In Episode 67 of his YouTube series, DIY builder Mike Montgomery takes on his first full room remodel on the channel, gutting the aesthetic of an old, dark bathroom and rebuilding it into something brighter — all while holding the line at under $500. The roughly 8-minute-35-second episode leans on the modern farmhouse look popularized by Chip and Joanna Gaines on HGTV’s Fixer Upper, but instead of tearing out fixtures and hiring contractors, Montgomery resurfaces, repaints, and repurposes what’s already there.

• The entire bathroom overhaul — vanity, mirror, lighting, and accessories — was completed for under $500, and it’s the first full room remodel Montgomery has tackled on the channel.
• Montgomery converted a $20 thrift-store dresser into the new bathroom vanity by removing the top, cutting a hole for the sink basin, and installing a new faucet.
• Outdated fixtures were swapped for black metal wall sconces priced at $30 each, flanking a vintage-inspired mirror to modernize the lighting on either side of the vanity.

Planning Around a Hard Budget

Montgomery starts the way any budget renovator should: with a list. Rather than trying to replace everything in the small bathroom, he isolates the elements that will move the needle most — vanity, mirror, lighting, and accessories — and builds his $500 ceiling around those four categories. That discipline is what separates a DIY refresh like this one from the kind of gutted-to-the-studs job covered in projects that involve removing a load-bearing wall; here, the existing footprint and plumbing stay put, and the money goes into cosmetic upgrades instead of structural work.

Turning a Thrift-Store Dresser Into a Vanity

The centerpiece of the remodel is the vanity swap. Instead of buying a prefabricated cabinet, Montgomery picks up an antique dresser for $20 at a local thrift store, strips the top, cuts an opening for the sink basin, and plumbs in a new faucet. The result reads as custom, farmhouse-style furniture rather than a big-box bathroom fixture — the same repurposing instinct that shows up in budget-conscious interior work like the approach used in painting-focused interior transformations, where cheap materials and careful technique stand in for a full gut renovation.

A $20 dresser, a hole saw, and a new faucet — that’s the whole vanity budget.

Lighting and Finishing Touches

With the vanity in place, Montgomery attacks the room’s biggest visual problem: dim, dated lighting. He installs black metal sconces at $30 apiece on either side of the vanity, replacing whatever dim fixture had been hanging over the mirror, and pairs them with a vintage-inspired mirror that doubles as decor. A patterned shower curtain closes out the accessory list, adding color to a space that had skewed dark and flat before the remodel.

The Under-$500 Math

Add it up and the line items are modest: a $20 dresser, two $30 sconces, a mirror, a faucet, and a curtain, plus paint and hardware — well short of what a contractor-driven bathroom remodel typically runs. It’s the same value proposition that runs through other budget-renovation content, like guides on installing epoxy floors as a DIY alternative to professional flooring: skip the labor line item, do the cutting and installing yourself, and put the savings into materials that actually change how a room looks.

For Montgomery, Episode 67 wasn’t just a bathroom — it was the first time the channel tackled a full room from top to bottom instead of a single fixture or feature, and the under-$500 number is the receipt that makes the rest of the series’ budget builds credible going forward.