5 Ways to Bring Your Bathroom Floor Back to Life

One of the most used rooms in your house—the bathroom—can easily show wear and tear. No doubt that over time, your bathroom floors have become dingy and decrepit. Of course, you can always replace the floor completely, but that’s not always an option financially or time-wise. Whether you’re looking to update your house to sell it or just want a fresh look for your bathroom, we have a few budget-friendly options to bring your bathroom floor back to life.

1. Give it a Deep Clean

Sometimes all your bathroom floor needs is a good cleaning. A simple search online can lead you to all sorts of homemade solutions to give those floors a good scrub. Usually, these mixtures are some variation of Dawn dish detergent, lemon juice, baking soda, and peroxide. Each solution is different but effective in washing away all those stains that have been accumulating all these years. You’ll be surprised what a deep clean will do to your floor—friends will think you did some remodeling!

2. Whiten the Grout

If your bathroom has a tile floor, whitening the tile grout can be a simple, effective option. Whether or not you clean your tile on a daily basis or a yearly basis, that grout is going to go from a radiant white to a grimy brown over time. You may not even notice the change because it will be so gradual, but once you whiten it, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

There are many products on the market, such as Tile Guard's “Tile Grout Coating” and “Polyblend: Grout Renew,” that within just a few minutes will bring your dirty tile floor back to its gleaming, former self. Clorox toilet bowl cleaner is another option. The directions may be different for each product, but essentially you will brush the solution directly on the grout, wait 10 minutes, and voilá! That’s all there is to it.

Obviously, the more tile you have the lengthier and tedious the process, but it's definitely worth it in the end.

3. Pour a Concrete Floor

Concrete flooring such as Quickcrete Floor Mud is a Portland cement-based underlayment mortar that is proven to work well for bathroom floors. It may sound plain and boring, but a well-done concrete floor stained to perfection will make anyone become a believer. This type of renovation is a little bit more work and a little bit more dollar, but definitely cheaper than redoing the floor with any other material.

Like when painting, it’s imperative that your floors be absolutely clean before the concrete is placed. It’s as simple as mixing the concrete, dumping it on your floors, leveling everything out, and waiting for it to dry. During the process, things may look uneven and rough, but concrete can be very forgiving and even with small mistakes it will usually even itself out. Once it’s done, choose a stain it to give it a gorgeous, almost wood-like, color and shine. It’s one of the cheapest ways to completely redo a bathroom floor.

4. Cover it With Paint

It may sound strange to think about painting your bathroom floor, but with the right kind of paint, you can paint almost anything these days. Chalk paint is a popular choice for painting your floors because it adheres well and requires little to no prep, besides the cleaning beforehand using sugar soap to remove all stains and dirt. There are several brands and many colors to choose from. Let your creative juices flow on this one.

Don’t limit yourself to painting the whole floor in just one color; try a pattern, like stripes or checks, to really spice things up. If all else fails, you can easily paint over those patterns and it will be like it never happened. Before you begin the painting process, it’s imperative that your floors are squeaky clean. Use one of those solutions we talked about before to ensure there is not a speck of dirt on the floor. Don’t forget to seal your floor to protect it and make your hard work last.

5. Spice up the Surrounding Décor

Bringing your bathroom floor back to life doesn’t necessarily mean you need to do anything to the bathroom floor itself. Sometimes, it’s a matter of changing up the décor around the floor that makes everything seem brighter and more alive. Consider a bold color to paint the walls—the eye will immediately be drawn to that dazzling color and not to your floor.

A vibrant accent rug can cover up a lot of the flooring. Decorate your walls with different styles and sizes of mirrors, or create a gallery wall. Just make sure the attention goes to anywhere else but the floor. However, there's no need to go overboard on the décor—too much can make the space feel cluttered and your guests may stare at your ugly floor just to take a break from the disorder.