Warning... long post

with lots of photos -- about the great bathroom re-do:

Before: This bathroom is downstairs, between the boys’ bedrooms and used by guests in our home. It’s never been updated since its 1954 build date. We lived with it for a while – the blue tile was in good shape on the walls, but cracked and pitiful [and moldy] in the bathtub – I kept it hidden with a dark blue shower curtain – when the boys moved on to college I gave up trying to re-grout it every year or more to keep it clean looking. Also the porcelain on the tub was so worn that it really needed a good re-glazing since it looked dirty no matter how much I cleaned…

[I probably should have taken photos – but didn’t really want to remember how truly bad it was – lol] and then a few years back the toilet became temperamental and we were having the plumber come out every 6 – 9 months to work on it. The last time they were out they worked for 3+ hours and gave up [not charging us anything] and that’s when we got serious about saving the money for the great bath-room re-do. [Wish I'd taken 'before' photos of the closet...]

Let me start by saying that even though it was not fun having workers in the house for a couple of weeks and cleaning dust over and over and over again – it WAS wonderful to have someone else do the work. An example – I left for work one morning and when I came home it was completely gutted and looked like this:

Yay. It would have taken us weeks to get everything out of there. And day-after-day, we saw progress that, again, would have taken us weeks to do – not to mention the time we’d need to re-coup from the work – lol.

Glitches -- And of course, there were some - Glitch # 1 - We really wanted to put in one large walk-in shower, but the shower we chose [and bought] was 4 inches deeper than we had planned - taking away four precious inches of floor space, so we had to give that up - Glitch #2 - At first the closet-turned-bench area wasn't finished with bead board as I'd planned [and drawn out for the workers] so we had to plan for another day to do that, not a real problem - and Glitch #3 - we found that there was water leaking from under the tub... so a little extra work had to be done there. They also re-worked the vent system, which we suspect had been the root of all the problems all along...

So, here’s the details:

Sink – Ikea [Lingar ??] now unavailable – they still have similar styles [and I’ve seen some look-a-likes at Home Depot / Lowe’s.] I ‘fell in love’ with this sink five years ago and when I realized it was being discontinued last year we had to make the Ikea run to pick it up. I adore the little stainless tray and soap holder, and hooks on the sides. FUN. [Our closest Ikea is 4 hours away – but so worth the trip for this sink – and of course the other goodies found there!] Floor – Black and white hexagon tiles from Lowes. Love it. Walls – bead board painted 'green tea', walls: misty morning [ a green tint] on the wall above, and trim: swan white; Toilet – Nothing special - new – it works! Yay! Tub – Lowes – out of a box because I’m so tired of tile. I’m loving the good clean look of this! The plan is to have clear glass doors, but budget and timing got in the way so for now we have a clear shower curtain. Maybe when we find a weekend at home we’ll get the doors on - [but when will that be during this glorious spring?] I seriously love the white-ness of this bathtub!

Big Change: Since this is a small bathroom we really wanted to give it a bigger ‘feel’, and hoped to accomplish this with the white tub / surround , white and black tiled floor, and smaller sink and toilet. But we also took off the closet door and had it finished as a ‘dressing area’ – they put a bench in with room underneath for the laundry basket and shelves above to hold extra bathroom items [we still have the boys’ sesame street step stools and plastic bathroom toys up there behind the baskets – lol.]

Finishing touches: Baskets from Old Time pottery [$6] – they were a different color green so I spray painted them to come into the color scheme. I stitched up the cushion cover from one ‘black-out’ curtain from Wal-Mart [$12] and had plenty left over for window valence. I love the dots. And I love that it has a backing that will not soak up water. [I searched every specialty fabric store between here and Montgomery and couldn’t find something that grabbed my attention – if I should come across something I’ll get it, but I refuse to pay $20-30 / yard for something that doesn’t just jump out at me…] I used a lawn chair cushion that Craig picked up on sale, again, at Wal-Mart [took apart the cover and used it a pattern – recovered the trim – yay!] We plan to put shutters on the lower half of the window, but haven't had a moment to even go look for some... The towel hooks are from Target; towels from Wal-Mart. [The cushion is really much brighter than it looks in this photo -]

We took out the old medicine cabinet [and who remembers that people used to dispose of their razor blades through a little slit that went into the wall? There were HUNDREDS – Craig saved a cupful for me to use in an art project, but I digress…]

We wanted a BIG mirror with black trim there and found one at Old Time Pottery for less than $40 that we thought could easily be painted black. Wrong. Something in the finish kept bubbling up, no matter how much I sanded, and primed, and re-painted. Craig finally got the power sander out for me and took it down to the base and got it done. Love it, but it took a little more work than I’d first planned on doing. To the left of the mirror is the shelf that’s been hanging in the boys’ bathroom for 20 years now, it’s on its third painting / distressing and holds the same photos as before [boys in bathtub] that have been put in new black frames from The Dollar Tree. And to the right: I found this cute little bathroom accessory at a discount store in Gadsden [seriously three sets of these, pink-blue-yellow, in a box for $4] and re-painted the outside black – it holds extra toothbrushes, etc. and cups for guests. Above that are more photos of the boys in $1 frames.

Lighting: We love fun and quirky. We didn’t want to re-wire anything [although we did add a couple of outlets for hairdryers, etc.] The light above the mirror can be directed to different areas in the room so that the shower and bench area have plenty of light. We had originally wanted to put in a vent fan light, but since the playroom is directly above the bathroom that would have required some extensive maneuvering… so Craig and I set out to hunt for an overhead light that we both liked – and there a lot of choices out there! We finally settled on this fun light / fan that looks like an airplane propeller. Very quirky. I love it – and it clears the air after showering. Both lights are from Home Depot.

I love the pop of green accented by black and white that I see from the foyer. I was going for a fresh retro-vintage feel. What do y’all think? And of course, we know how it goes, once one room is updated, it makes the others seem especially in need - so I'll be painting the hallway soon... and then the foyer.... and then the living / dining....