Bathroom Remodel

It wasn't until all the paperwork was signed on this house that we realized the main bathroom's tub was in fact ONLY a tub, and not a shower. We weren't too worried though, thinking about the "easy" fixes we could make. We talked about just adding a shower head, using an adapter on the faucet, and running pipe on the outside of the wall. Quick and cheap, right? But the walls were not waterproof, at least not high enough, so that would need to be tiled or something as well. And why add a waterproof material to the top half of the wall, but keep the ugly solid surface currently installed on the bottom half? Obviously the whole thing would need to be done. And then there was the question of the ceiling height above the tub. Between the tub itself being raised and the ceiling being lowered, there was not enough standing height to be comfortable. Soooo, we'd have to either lower the tub or knock out the ceiling.

*Photos before wallpaper was painted over by the pevious homeowner

And then there was the fact that the room was mostly carpeted. As much as I like the cushy feel of carpet in a bathroom, I know it's totally un kid-friendly. And the toilet was giving us problems and needed repair, possibly in the pipes. Just as well because once I actually used the toilet (again, after ownership of the home), it turns out it was super low and kind of uncomfortable to use. Sooooo, we'd have to replace the toilet and fix the pipes.

And if we're going to that effort to renovate the tub and toilet, we might as well rip out the carpet and the rest of the ugly floor (it matched the counter, tub surround, and basboards) and give us a proper floor. I mean, right? And if we're going to do all that, we might as well replace the ugly counters and sinks.

Hence an "easy" conversion of a tub to a shower became an entire bathroom renovation. All these decisions were made one day in August after Nate was accepted to grad school. We were talking about the craziness of how I was going to homeschool and work two jobs and Nate being busy with his new calling (Elder's Quorum councelor) and impending grad school, and I said, "you know what we should do? We should see if we can squeeze in a bathroom remodel before you start school." And Nate barely choked at all as he said, "Well, I guess the timing is as good as it's going to get." (You know, because he'll be extra busy once school starts for the next 3 years.)

We had one final vacation with the Richardsons the end of August, then we came home and I ripped out the carpet to get us started. Nate ripped out the solid surround and removed the toilet and found rotted wood around it, creating a need for subfloor repair to be added to our list. Taking out the surround naturally removed some sheetrock already, and knowing that the original cast iron tub might damage the walls anyway, he also removed all the sheetrock in the whole tub/toilet area so we could get the bathroom "greenboard" put in and just to make it easier instead of patching different places.

Eventually Nate got our 350lb tub out of the house! Wahoo! After demo, Nate repaired the subfloor and plumbed the toilet. We had a plumber come take care of the shower pipes, tub, and new surround install. Then it was time to install new sheetrock, then mud and texture it. That was an adventure, ohmygosh. 

Mudding was fine, but my first attempt at texturing about killed us all. Don't EEEEEver select the oil-based texture spray. The fumes were terrible. I mean, TERRIBLE. I barely got anywhere with 2 cans and about choked to death several times. We all had to run outside to let it air out for a bit. I was determined to use the water-based next, but realizing those cans don't get you very far, we decided to attempt to texture the walls using watered-down mud and paint rollers. I even bought a special sponge-style which kind of worked, but mostly didn't. In the end, we used a random extra piece of that sponge roller and used it to sponge the texture onto the walls by hand. All of them. 😝 A little piece of sponge about 2 inches by 1.5 inches. It honestly wasn't too bad - getting the timing right for when to knock-down was the hardest part of the process. That is, until I decided to re-do the seam between two sheets of sheetrock. I should have mudded it and smoothed it better to begin with, but instead we decided AFTER applying texture that that strip didn't look level. So, I attempted to redo the whole horizontal seam, making it infinitely worse. Painting didn't help. So I sanded it down and later applied MORE mud texture, and MORE paint. Nope. It was a giant eye-sore that I couldn't get rid of. Thus was born the decision to add a "decorative" plank along the wall. It was painted to match the cabinets and holds the towel hooks. Isn't she pretty? And totally a purposeful design idea. 😶

I'd conscientously chosen a pretty wall color and painted the walls of that area. And then didn't really like it. Weirdly, it ended up looking really really similar to the blue/gray color already on the rest of the walls. But not close enough to fool you into thinking it was the same. It just really didn't look that good. I also had the issue of how to paint the end of the wall at the end of the tub where we had replaced just the left-handed corner-beading and attempted to blend it with the other corner. I don't know if that makes sense. 

PS how about that wallpater BEHIND the solid surface?!?

See that end wall? The whole metal piece running up the corner came out and was replaced.

Anyway, I recalled that the previous owners left leftover paint, and dug it out of the shed. Perfect! I found the kitchen color and went to work repairing an old attempt to change the kitchen color before deciding it wasn't an improvement. And I found two other containers, one of which was labeled and I was pretty sure it was the same color as the bathroom.

I took that leftover paint and repaired/blended the area that needed to match the original color. And then... I just kept going. I just painted over my new color all the way around until I ran out. Aaaaalmost done. I was left with a small area behind the toilet and the half-wall just next to the toilet. No problem, I felt sure that the 2nd, unlabeled bottle held more of the same color. So I cracked that open and slathered it on the half-wall.

It was not the same. In fact, it is a brownish. *Sigh* But, I rolled with it. I just didn't have the time to go back and get more paint, we needed to wrap this project up! So I went over the blue-gray I'd JUST painted, which was over the color I'd already put on the wall, with this brown. Only I kept it just on the lower half of the wall, knowing that that seam-hiding plank would be going in to break up the top and bottom colors. In the end, I kind of like it.  If I ever go back and "fix" the colors, I think I'll get more of the cappuccino actually. It's so pretty. 😍

In the middle of color switching, Nate and his buddy installed the floor. Ohmygosh I LOVE this flooring. Should I go into THAT story too? Basically, Nate and I picked out a floor at Home Depot, "Walden Oak." We got it home and layed it out in the hallway. I didn't really like it. I moved it into the bathroom, and still didn't like it. I knew Nate DID like it, so I held my tongue and tried really hard to like it. The thing is, we were specifically picking out flooring that we intend to expand to almost every other area of the house. I was trying to like this floor which was too dark for my taste, and then convince myself I could also learn to like it everywhere. One night I drempt about it being throughout the house and I was SO depressed. So I asked Nate if we could please return it and find another. He loves me I guess because he agreed, even though he really didn't want to waste the time. Plus the box we'd opened and destroyed already, that's like $64 down the drain. But we went back to Home Depot to find something I'd love. Unfortunately we hit a snag. The one I liked best, (the same one we'd used at Elm St.) was out of stock in store AND online. In fact, the more I looked into it, the more I grew to believe it was possibly not being manufactured anymore. No other flooring in the store would do. Everything else was either too dark, too light, or too gray for our trim. And I was scared to order something online sight unseen - I would have to go with it like it or not. So we went home empty-handed and discouraged after returning the Walden Oak.

After a day or so, Nate said I needed to pick something because we couldn't afford to wait and waste time, especially if it needed to ship to us. I agreed so I got out of bed and stayed up until 1:30am perusing the options online. My "Fresh Oak" that I wanted was simply not available and kind of seemed like it might not come back. But, after lots of comparing, I realized that the new "Elk Wood" was exactly Fresh Oak. It didn't just look LIKE it, it was the exact identicle photos. I was nervous about that fact, that the Fresh Oak got renamed seemed a bit strange, but I couldn't afford to wait, so I took a gamble and ordered it. After shipping delays caused by the fires around here, the floors FINALLY came and they are e.x.a.c.t.l.y. the old Fresh Oak, renamed Elk Wood. Phew! (Side bar: at a subsequent visit to Home Depot I wandered into the flooring section just to see if the name had changed there. There was no Elk Wood in store, however the Fresh Oak was there and different! So it appears they revamped Fresh Oak, but continue to make the old style under a new name. I don't know why, that seems like it'll only create confusion for other customers tyring to be consistent. It's also a bit funny that I was looking for the floors during the transition period.) Anyway, it all worked out and I really love these floors. I can't wait to put them in elsewhere. Next stop: Dining/Desk room!

We intended to remove the spindles, buuuut turns out they are in there SOLIDLY. We'll have to cut them out and it's going to be a beast of a job. So we'll worry about that some other time.

Next in line was the baseboard - Nate wanted all the area behind the toilet done while he could reach it. We went with white, with the ONLY option that was tall enough to match the previous baseboard height, to avoid more wall/paint touch ups.

FINALLY we could get the toilet installed. Well, at least after Nate had to redo some of the plumbing to fit the "univeral" gasket he wanted to use. Oh brother. Lucky for him our crawl space is pretty tall, and luckier still, Brennan enjoys going under the house and is always game to be the crawl-space guy when possible.

I finished cabinet painting - mostly, and installed new hardware. You know, after yet another hardware store run because the screws that came with the new hardware didn't fit EITHER the drawers or cupboards. Naturally. And somehow I lost (or probably they got tossed) a couple of the original hardware screws.

We're still not done-done, but we're close enough that the shower has offically been used! Wahoo, what an exciting day!!!

 Oh, and yes, those are the same counters and sinks. Since Nate started school already, we missed our deadline and just kind of tired of the project. Add that to the fact that I hate them a lot less now that the cabinets are painted and that it's the kids' bathroom, we decided to wait on the counters and just start using the room for a while.