Master Bath Re-model

So, it took us 10 months, but it’s finished. Every detail done. It was mostly done after 4 months (don’t laugh), but there were some final wonderful details that I wanted posted, so I waited. And waited. And waited. And finally, we finished everything!

So, here’s before (well, more like during):

Here’s what we had to do: Thanks to a faucet that had been leaking for years behind our shower, the entire wall had to be replaced with hardy backer and then tiled. The front part of the bathroom (with the cabinets) was carpeted, so we took all the carpet out to replace with tile all the way to the shower. The toilet and sinks were disgusting, so they, along with all the fixtures, mirrors, etc. were replaced. The countertops retiled, the cabinets painted with new hardware, the walls and trim painted, a new door for my closet—did I mention this was our biggest renovation yet, and we’d never tiled before? And that our kids got sick shortly after we started and were sleeping horrible? And that the remodel that was supposed to be mostly done at the end of Christmas vacation took at least four months? Am I painting a grim enough picture of our nightmare renovation? But…we made it! And here’s our “after” pictures to prove it:

 

And here is my favorite thing about the bathroom, the details:

Do you see that closet door? Ben built it for me. Yep. Just how I wanted it. And he found that old window for me, for $10. He’s so awesome.

I love my little jewelry section, complete with my favorite print bought in Paris. In fact we used all 3 of our Europe prints to decorate…all taken from a different room of the house, but much more suited to this color scheme. Flower arrangement purchases at Ross for $7. Old vase from different room of the house.

I bought both the faucets online for much cheaper than we could find anywhere else! The oval picture frame was a gift to me from Ben our Christmas dating. And the little bird, a Michaels special, $2, cheap and wonderful.

I love these towel hooks! I bought them at Craft Warehouse, as it was going out of business, for next to nothing. And this is our final Paris print.

 

So, you’re probably looking and thinking, four months, really? It couldn’t have been that bad, right? Well, here’s 10 “tough lessons” we learned along the way:

1. Never try to work on a project that you know nothing about while your kids are on 20+ days of antibiotics for a sinus infection. Especially if the antibiotics make them wake up screaming periodically through the night.

2. If you are tiling for the first time ever, and your only instructions are youtube videos, never start on the wall. Trust me, do the countertop first, where gravity doesn’t matter.

3. When all your friends tell you to go with the darkest grout, believe them. Because after spending hours applying it, you’ll never change the color, no matter now much you hate it.

4. When you’ve bought 2 boxes of floor tiles, before you begin laying, make sure they are exactly the same. And if they aren’t mix them up a bit, instead of having whole strips of one, and then sections of the other. (And if your husband didn’t do this, and your come home after it dries, buy cute floor mats at World Market and hope no one else notices).

5. When they say to immediately clean all your equipment after using mortar, they aren’t kidding. It really doesn’t come off tools when dry. If you’re horrible about cleaning your tools, refer to #6.

6. Learn the way your spouse operates while doing projects EARLY. Ben doesn’t do well at prep work or clean up. I do. Unfortunately we didn’t learn this well until 75 % done with the project. Which means the walls around the shower were demolished without a covering on the shower floor. And lots of muddy foots prints were brought through the house. And tools were left with mortar on them because they weren’t cleaned well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing Ben…we just didn’t learn how to do projects well together until we were almost finished. I should have offered to do these things, because I’m good at them, and then he could have focused on the details of building!

7. Also referring to #6, scrape the mortar out between the tiles before it dries. Then hours won’t be spent with a box-cutter trying to chip away mortar chunks before grout can be put it.

8. When the husband is 6’5” and the wife 5’5”, it is hard to find a bathroom mirror that accommodates both heights. And no, Ben, we cannot put mirrors at different heights. That would look stupid.

9. You cannot replace your shower head fixture unless you know how to solder pipes (which we don’t and aren’t willing to self tackle). And a plumber will cost $650 dollars to do this. So, suck it up. Your shower head won’t be the great oil-rubbed bronze deal you found on Amazon 6 months ago and can’t return. Bummer. Not such a great deal anymore.

10. Best thing to occupy 2 year old during renovation: their own tool set, so they can “help.”