Done. Finished. Yes.
I was typing out the title to this post and it became real that we finally finished this huge project. There was literally blood, sweat and tears during this project. I thought the easiest way to do the before and after pictures was to break each section down below. I know this is a long post but I am really proud of our work so hang in there. You can always ignore my comments and look at all the pretty pictures too. I won't judge you either way. We are really happy with the outcome.
Shower-
Most people saw
the post about this already so if you want to see more details on it click on there. This was the easiest part but most expensive part of the remodel. Would I hire again to do it? Yes. It was expensive but after doing everything else ourselves it was worth it.
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Floor-
I wanted a gray/brown wood looking floor that would tie the shower into the rest of the room. We looked at a couple places and settled on this option from Menards. It is a bit thicker than other options but we really liked it and it seemed extra durable. One thing you learn really quickly when you strip a bathroom down is that people do strange things when trying to make things right. For us that meant the sub floor, a layer of linoleum and then another layer of subflooring. We worked around it. We also had to install subflooring where the old vanity was as they did not extend the floor out that far under it. That and putting in the t-strips was a little rough. T-strips if you an unaware are expensive and supposed to just "snap" in place. Yea.... Not in my house. Ryan did a good job installing the floor and I love it.
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Trim-
This was bad. The old owners did a poor job of painting so the trim had a ton of paint on it. Not to mention years of scratches. The house was built in the 80's and needed some major updating. We bought pre-primed trim that I painted it all brown. Once installed I went back through with a tiny brush and touched up all the trim. This was time consuming but it really freshened the bathroom. I sadly did not think to take a pictures of the old crappy trim. Please enjoy some after pictures instead. We picked a chocolate brown color to paint the window trim, door trim, base boards and little dividing wall.
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Toilet-
Our old toilet was fine. It was one of those energy savings ones we first put in when we bought the house. I just hated the button it had on top. It was not good looking. So, we decided to replace it easy right? WRONG. Turns out even the plumber we hired (who is an older gentlemen) had never seen such a stubborn toilet. We personally tried to install the new one (which I love) at least 4 times before we gave up and let him deal with it when he showed up to move the vanity plumbing. It is the effort that counts right? I love the new one it is more classic looking.
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Cabinet-
We have a giant built in cabinet next to the toilet. I HATED it. It was all brown and dated looking with these giant weird handles in the middle of the doors. I could go on and on about it but originally I wanted to rip it out and replace it. The bones of it were actually really good and Ryan talked me into repainting it. I wanted to tie it together with the vanity so I painted to doors the same blue chalk paint that I painted the vanity. The rest of the cabinet was updated with the same hardware as the vanity and all white exterior. I have no idea why but I got extremely excited seeing this finished. It really made the room look so much better.
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Light fixtures and power outlets-
We had cream gross outlets and we replaced them with white. You can see that in some of the pictures. Ryan also did some electrical work in this bathroom moving the light fixture. This bathroom was renovated for him to be able to use the vanity and not have to bend way over or have to have the light in his face. The light we had was really cool (we installed it when we moved in) so we used the same one and moved it up. Ryan did a great job doing this as it involved A LOT of work. I won't bore you with all the details but it had him cutting drywall, removing old fixture, watching youtube etc. It was time consuming but worth it for us tall people. If you look at this picture the light used to be where those mirrors are. Now it is way higher.
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Vanity-
Never again. I say that because this thing was a major labor of love. I ruined shirts making this thing and wore real cool masks in the process. Click
HERE HERE HERE to read about my overall progress. 8 coats of tung oil, 2 coats of poly later the top was done. The rest of the vanity had 3 coats of blue chalk paint and 2 coats of poly. The top was made by my father-in-law and really after all the stress it looks amazing. This thing involved at least 40 hours of work. When it is all said and done I have a gorgeous piece of art in my bathroom. Here are like a bunch of pictures of it so enjoy!
In closing. I love this bathroom. It sucked up 2 months of my life though. When people would ask me what I was doing I am sure they were not pleased when I talked about toilet flanges for 20 minutes. So I am sorry friends and family thanks for hanging in there during this long process. Sadly home ownership involves constant projects and we already started with our next last week before this one was finished. Onto the retaining wall project!
Until next time~
XoXo Emily
