Modern Bathroom Renovation. DIY!

 




Hello Folks! Well, it's been awhile, but for good reason! What we thought would be a two week bathroom renovation, unsurprisingly, turned into 3 months. We spent our entire Spring Break tearing apart our main floor bath. Here is a photo collage of our process. If you have any questions about products or processes, feel free to ask!

We did everything ourselves, with support of the fathers. Our goal was to make it feel larger, modern, and calming. We needed to find a small vanity, and toliet in order to utlize the cramped space.

We picked our tile to help elongate and open the room. The light color and size leads the eye across the longest lines in the room. 

First, lets start with how it looked when we bout the house, about 3 years ago:

After buying, we removed all the wallpaper (UGH), the frilly stuff, the sliding glass doors, and painting it a lovely grey color.

Here we go!

The previous owners has glued and nailed a weird thin wood panel over the original plaster. It was h-e-double hockey sticks- to remove. There was no way we could salvage the walls, so they all had to come down. 

 The floor was a mess. Yucky linoleum, over some "classic" tile. It all had to come up too- bummer.

Have you ever tried to remove a cast iron tub. I CANNOT believe how heavy it was. Had to go out in pieces!

So much bigger!

After taking up 2 layers of flooring, plus concrete, we had no floor. We had to put down a new sub floor, as well as use self-leveling cerement over the entire bathroom. While more expensive, it worked awesome. 

 We used the orange membrane, which again, while more expensive, was recommended with our tile size and type.

 Might as well replace the window too! 

This was my first time tiling. My thought process was "get bigger tiles, it'll go faster". Not quite how it worked out. The tiles are 12x24, and heavy! So even though they covered a large area, the time it took to prep the wall, prep the back of the tile, and carefully line them up- was, well, exhausting.

The tile is porcelain. It has a linen, or brushed effect. Again, we used it around the tub to make it feel more spacious. We also found a tub the slightly bowed out at the top to feel bigger, but still had the same smaller footprint. 

 We chose a pretty ocean-y blue glass accent strip. Also used it in the nook.

We painted the back wall a dark grey-blue. The other three walls are a lighter blue that match the glass accent strip. 

 We decided to do two hanging lights, instead of the standard vanity light. We found this ones with a similar pattern to our tile at Menard's. 

 

 We bought the faucet from Amazon. Hubby's choice, it's pretty fancy. 

 The vanity and tall cabinet are from Ikea, as well as those spiffy auto-lights the Hub's installed (he couldn't resist adding some tech!). They only come on when it is dark, so at night you can use the restroom without being blasted by a bright light.

  

The edge and air duct are now covered in bright crisp white.

 

We are SO proud of how it came out. However, now that we've tackled such a huge project, we now know what we would do different (ex; HIRE someone to do the drywall mudding!). .... Now, hunny, what's next? That wall between the kitchen and dining room sure looks enticing! 

xo,
A