Bathroom Reborn

Posted by Mark:

2 new posts today. Make sure to scroll past this bathroom post to hear about our trip to Cali last month.

Firstly though I wanted to talk about our remodeled bathroom which I am quite proud of.

Kimmi and I have a small "On Suite" half bathroom. And by small I mean tiny. It's just a sink and a toilet. Like the rest of our house it was old and out-dated. The tile was an ugly brownish/orange/pink and the toilet and vanity were ancient. The faucet water pressure was more like a trickle. Most annoying thing was the toilet. It ALWAYS ran, so I would generally just turn off the water supply valve making the toilet predominantly useless. that being the case, the bathroom RARELY got used.

The initial plan was to get the ugly tile reglazed white at the same time we reglazed our pink sink and tub in the main bathroom. However, upon further thought we decided it didn't make sense to pay to reglaze the tile when we weren't even sure we'd like the final result. Not only did this change of plans save us money this realization also meant I could start on the remodel immediately instead of having to wait for the day we start remodeling the main bathroom. It's always a great day when I can break out the sledge hammer. Firstly though, let me show some "Before" pictures.

Thankfully for me, everything came out pretty easily. Here are some pictures of the demo aftermath.

Not much needed to be changed to the overall bones. I did add an outlet since the only one that was in there before was the one attached to the light fixture. I also put the light switch on the inside of the room instead of it previously being on the outside.

We started by painting the upper wall and tiling the floor. we found some great 18 x 18 tiles that we really liked except that since it was such a small room I decided to cut them in half to make them 9 x 18 instead. I then laid them in a brick patter. It turned out quite nicely.

My wonderful design consultant and wife decided on recessed panel weinscoating for the walls. I had never done weinscoating before but I understood the basic principle. The progress continues.

Then the most time consuming part. painting the weinscoating. it probably took 5 coats of primer and paint to get them to the quality I was happy with. The room is really coming together now.

We found a nice toilet at Costo. I was instantly drawn to it cause it had the "dual flush" function that I thought was so cool in Australia. I liked it so much I bought two toilets. One for this bathroom and one for downstairs when we remodel that bathroom. I would have bought 3 but the main bathroom needs a round front toilet and not an elongated one like these were. Plus it was Costco so they were quite cheep!

The complete vanity took us a bit longer to figure out. Everything we liked was from Restoration Hardware or somewhere else equally expensive. Thanks to Pintrest we found a couple who made their own vanity of similar style for a lot less. After more searching of KSL and local antique stores we found this gem at a consignment store in Holliday called "The Pink Flamingo" it was a great store which we plan on visiting it more in the future. It was such a beautiful piece of furniture it almost felt wrong to cut it up. They don't make furniture like this anymore. it's all real solid wood of gorgeous color and grain. The dresser was too tall with it's legs but I forgot to take a picture of it before I knocked the legs off.

We bought a vessel sink and faucet online so next came the ethically hard part of cutting a gaping hole in the top of the beautiful dresser. The top was also a bit faded so I quickly sanded it down and refinished the top.

After installing the sink and vanity I had the fun challenge of getting 5 drawers to wrap around the pluming without loosing the actual use of the drawers. I had a fun time with my jig saw and nail gun to make new drawer walls that wrapped around the pipes. Turned out nicely. I'm happy to say that all the drawers are still able to be used.

Lastly we needed a little art on the wall. we found this awesome print online and got it framed.
The text says: "The Kraken - Enormous Length in Size-

Anyway, without further delay, I give you the finished product. Kimmi and I LOVE the end result.

At this point I usually like to write about challenges and things I would do differently. I'm happy to say that other then having to install two different light fixtures (we didn't like the first one once it was up) There was only one thing I would do differently if I were to do it again.
Kimmi and I wanted a noticeable step in size from the baseboard to the weinscoating. after installing the baseboard and the lower rail of the weinscoating we realized that the step wasn't as prominent as we wanted. After some thought I finally had to rip off all the baseboard and put a piece of 1/8th inch plywood behind the baseboard to bring it out a bit more. It was annoying to rip out all the baseboards but this simple change made all the difference. (in our minds)

Total time of completion. 2.5 months.

As always, the end of one project just means the beginning of another. Let the remodeling continue!