Wrapping Up the Bathroom

We've been slack about updating around here. We've got a finished bathroom and I still haven't blogged about it. I blame life. It gets in the way. I also blame the fact that I've got a semi-busted hand from ripping out our kitchen floors...but that's another blog post. That I might do. In the next year.

Regardless, I've convinced myself that I have to finish blogging about the bathroom before the new year. That starts in less than three hours. So we're going to wrap it all up in one post. God help us.

After we refinished our floors we set out to install beadboard and our new sink. Not alot to the bead board. Went in easy peasy.

After the bead board went in, Neil set out to install the sink. We wanted a console sink much like this beauty from Pottery Barn:

However, we couldn't stomach the $1,200 price. So we searched around and found an exact match for alot less via Signature Hardware. The shipping was free(!) and super quick. And they managed to get the huge tractor trailer up the narrow historic street.

The sink was super easy to install and the directions were clear and after about an hour, we had a working sink.

At first, I was nervous about the sink. Compared to the pedestal sink - the new one is HUGE! For the first day or so I felt that it took up too much space and that it dwarfed the room. Now, I'm loving it and all of the counter space that it provides.

After installing the sink, we realized that next to the white sink and white trim, our bisque/cream toilet looked well, gross. So, 4 separate trips to Home Depot and Lowes we found a new Kohler in white and installed it.

Lovely? Lovely.

Throughout this ordeal you might've noticed that we had plywood over the window. This was due to a renovation mishap that involved a dinky stick, sanding, and a broken window.

The window had some rotten wood and needed serious work, so we hired a local window restoration company to come and take the window and rebuild it, but in privacy glass and re-install it. When they reinstalled it, we discovered that most of the ropes that operate the weights were broken, so we received fresh ropes too.

After the window was installed, we made the executive decision to install new trim. The old trim just WOULD. NOT. strip and it had taken a beating during extracting the window. Luckily, Neil's been doing trim carpentry most of his life so he was able to trim out the window to look almost exactly like the original mouldings. He had quite the setup on the lawn and we had several people stop and comment on the workshop set up.

With the window in and trimmed, we finished up the mouldings for the beadboard. 7 1/2 speed base on the bottom and a basic chair rail at the top to give it more edge.

After puttying nail holes and caulking everything within an inch of our lives, the bathroom looked like this and was ready for paint.

Painting was easy and we were thrilled when the paint started going up.

We chose Sherwin Williams "Monorail Silver" for the walls and Allen + Roth/Valspar's "Subway Tile" for the trim. We added a few new accessories, cleaned it up a bit, and our bathroom finally was finished. LOOK!

I cannot tell you how proud we are of this bathroom. We took it from ordinary blah, to something sleek but still true to the time period of the house. It feels so chic and like something you'd see in a boutique hotel.

And just to give perspective - here's a poorly done side by side showing the before and after. Sadly, I had to gank the listing photo from 2006 because my original photos died on my computer.

Who knew that it could be so saucy? And who knew that my step-dad falling through the ceiling in 2009 would lead to a beautiful bathroom. In 2011.

I plan on doing a source post/what it cost us post in the near future, not to brag, but because I find those type of things helpful.

Until then, I'm going to lust after my finally finished bathroom -- and enjoy the last few hours of 2011.

Absolutely love it. <3

Evolution of the Bathroom Floor Part 2

When we last updated you, gentle reader, the bathroom floors looked like this:

We had pried all the floor up and removed most of the felt paper/glue from the linolium using various methods. We had a few patches of stuff that wouldn't come up, but felt confident we could sand it out.

Neil took on the task of sanding and staining the floors - as I was freezing my butt off at a yard sale in March.

He started by sanding with 40 grit sandpaper on a palm sander and belt sander. Which yielded these results:

After using the 40 grit to remove the remnants he switched to 120 to level out the floor and finished with a 220 to make everything nice and pretty.

Once everything was sanded he put down a coat of wood conditioner which makes the floor absorb stain more evenly. After letting that soak in, he put down the stain and let it dry for a couple of hours followed by clear coat.

We used Miniwax "Golden Pecan" - which happened to match the floors outside of the bathroom perfectly.

The bathroom floors are on the left of the line, the hallway floors to the right.

Ironically, Neil had a sample of the Golden Pecan in his truck and we put it down for giggles -- not expecting to come anywhere near a match. There you have it.

The entire process staining/sealing/etc took about 12 hours (two six hour afternoons....and only two because we decided to put another layer of stain on to make the floors darker than how they look in the pictures). We used a water based polyurethane on the floor simply because it dries faster and this is our only bathroom. Also, we find that water based poly smells less than other products and since I have severe migraines that tend to be triggered by smells we decided to play it safe. The smell wasn't bad at all and had cleared out of the house after 3 days.

All and all, we're pretty proud of ourselves. We had zero experience doing floors of any kind and we think they turned out pretty damn good.

Yay!

Bathroom Shower Progres

We're going to be a bit delayed with the bathroom reveal. We had a tragic accident involving paint, freshly refinished hardwood floors and a lack of a drop cloth. So until we can refinish the floors, again, I thought I'd show some bits and pieces of our reno.

The bathroom shower was gross. Not even going to lie. The white grout absorbed every dirt/scum you could imagine. The tile was basic standard contractors tile. And it was uneven. The tiles didn't line up and there was a big bulge in one of the shower walls. Needless to say, it needed to go.

During out bout with the flu in January, Neil and I were forced to take a realistic look at our expectations of finishing the bathroom - specifically with tiling the shower. While we wanted to try it, we also realized that it's taken us almost three years to get to this point. And when it's your only bathroom? You have to get serious. So, if we wanted a working shower, we should hire someone else to do it for us. Luckily, with Neil working in the construction industry, he called upon his tile guy to help us out.

We agreed to take care of the demo. Neil and I had a mutual agreement to take care of it the evening before the tile guy came. Then I had the phone call from hell, specifically in regards to my student loans. I had been battling for FOUR MONTHS to try to get my loans deferred. According to the company, all I needed to do was show my W-2 and *poof* my loans would be deferred. However, I'm an independent contractor, so I have a 1099 for tax purposes. To make a long story short, a 1099, letter from my employer, AND my tax returns were not sufficient enough evidence for the student loans people to determine if I could make my payment. They actually argued with me that a 1099 is not a legal document and was insufficient proof of wages earned. At which point I became completely belligerent, starting looking up tax laws while on the phone, demanding a supervisor, etc. To make a long story even shorter, the supervisor eventually got on the phone and apologized and told me that they did, in fact, have had sufficient proof for months to defer the loans, but they had, "dropped the ball."

You think?

So, I hung up the phone, grabbed a glass of wine, and proceeded to wail the hell out of the tile wall. Didn't even take off my work clothes, I was THAT pissed.

Special note: I took the action shot on my own. I am *that* talented.

Neil said when he walked through the door he knew something was up from the music blaring and the constant pounding. He was pretty impressed with the amount of progress I had made thanks to the rage I had coursing through my veins.

After pulling the tile completely down, we were able to see why there was a bulge. When the tile was done, it appears that they removed the lathing to a point and replaced it with drywall as a backer board, and then tiled all the way up. Thus, there was two different thicknesses of material on the wall - causing an uneven surface.

At this point, I was feeling remarkably stress free (amazing how demo is therapeutic) and turned it over to Neil to remove the rest of the wall, as we had decided to tile to the ceiling.

After removing everything, we inspected around the tub for damage (only a small chip - which was my fault for not throwing something down to protect it) and discovered that the tub had no insulation surrounding it.

Of course, part of it faced an exterior wall - so really, why would we expect it to have insulation?

Meanwhile, the cat was fascinated.

Regarding the lack of insulation, we decided to improvise and stuff some left over insulation between the tub and the walls. And let me tell you, it has made a HUGE different. I used to be able to make my hot baths last about 20-25 minutes before the water cooled off to the point of getting out or having to refill with hot water. Now I get 40-50 minutes of a hot bath before having to refill/get out. It's absolutely amazing! And so worth the five minutes.

The next day, the tile guy came to put up the permabase and thinset. It took him two days to get the walls even, which made Neil and I both SUPER thankful that we hadn't taken on this ourselves. Because we would've ended up right back where we started - with uneven tile and bulging walls. I did, however, discover that I LOVE the smell of permabase. Yes, I know how weird that sounds. I'm a weird person.

After another two days of work (he was fitting us in between other jobs) we had this!

You guys, I actually squealed when I walked in and saw it. Such a drastic change from before.

While we were at it, I convinced Neil to switch out the hardware from this

to this:

Those beauties are thanks to Kim from Newly Woodwards. She has the same set in her bathroom and was nice enough to share the source.

So there you have it. I'll have a final picture when we do our final reveal - but we think the shower has improved by LEAPS and BOUNDS. Best $500 we ever spent.

What do you think?