Finishing Our Bathroom Renovation at 7 Months Pregnant
It’s finally time to unveil our bathroom reno! We are not handy people, although we are slowly becoming so, and so this was a big undertaking for us. Money has been an issue since Jason’s stroke, and normally it would not have been the time to do a big renovation like this, but our bathroom was just awful and we’d discovered a leak in the roof affecting the bathroom ceiling and some bad pipes that were super close to causing a major problem. That, combined with a little one (four months pregnant when we started) on the way and dreams of a bathtub we could actually use to give the girls a bath gave us the push to finally do it. So here it is!
Before:
Our first day was on January 12th, and it was demo day! We had this awful green tile from the sixties all over the bathtub, and up half the walls. Above that was the horrible textured walls, peeling and stained. Gross. The tile was especially hard to remove against the outer wall because it had been adhered to some concrete and wire. We had to pull it off, as well as smash it, and it was a lot of effort! Bebe helped us a lot on demo day, watching Everly sometimes, and then trading with me to tear down the walls. Originally we thought we wouldn’t have to move the big sink cabinetry, so we only tore out right above it. We corrected that much later on.
Our next work day we had a little extra help, as we had another foster kiddo come and stay with us for about a week. Everyone thought putting in insulation would be fun, so I had lots of help while Jason worked. We’d also had Bathfitter come by this point, so our tub was done (all in one day!), and we’d removed the window frame and leftover tile from next to the installation, and moved the light fixture up to the ceiling so we could drywall. There’s a sneak peek of the bathtub in the top left photo:
The next step was putting up drywall, taping and mudding, and that process took several days, so here is Everly amidst my mess on various days! She got to be quite good at navigating the construction zone. During this time we also had a roofer come out to fix the roof, and plumbers come out and install new piping in the walls. This was probably a period of a few weeks.
Our light fixture is pretty spectacular, of you ask me. We repurposed the old one and hung it instead, and it’s a focal piece in the room for sure. We took the former light (pictured at top left) that was hanging above the mirror originally (shown top right) and painted it, screwed it to a piece of painted wood, drilled holes for rope, screwed in mason jar lids, added candelabra lights, and screwed on the jars. The whole thing took a few dedicated hours, and it makes a huge difference in the room.
By the way, I hadn’t mentioned that awful towel bar and wall heating unit before. Taking those out was therapeutic, but that wall unit almost shocked Jason, as it showed up on the meter as being dead but was fully wired and alive! Good thing his wire cutters had a rubber handle. That pop was loud ad scary!
Finishing touches by the end of March were getting pipe and designing our own shelves, toilet paper rack and towel rack, and of course trim work. We like the pipes as fixtures quite a lot, as it’s a functional decoration (and those are best kinds). I decorated the shelves with other functional decor, like toilet paper rolls, a basket for epsom salt, soap and other bath items, mason jars of cotton balls and q-tips, and pictures of Everly and Jacey’s first baths. I don’t have a good picture for all the trim work I did, but basically we reused the door trim (newly painted of course), got new frames for the windows since they broke when we took them down, and updated the floors by adding a thick baseboard and quarter round. It’s kind of shocking at the difference good moulding can make!
Special thanks to Mike Smith for his expertise and help, and for these blogs and pins for the ideas and instructions they provided!
Pipe fixtures: http://craftthyme.com/achieving-an-industrial-decor-with-black-iron-pipe-part-i/
Mirror frame (including how we hung it): https://www.shanty-2-chic.com/2013/03/diy-mirror-easy-upgrade.html
Chandelier light: https://www.remodelaholic.com/upcycle-vanity-light-strip-hanging-pendant-light/
Painting the faucet: https://www.blesserhouse.com/how-to-spray-paint-shower-fixtures/
Shelves inspiration: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj11PkAF7oo/
Bathfitter: https://www.bathfitter.com/
Flooring, pipe fixtures, and all tools purchased from Home Depot.