guest bathroom - after

Happy Friday everyone! The first full work week after the holidays is coming to an end and I am finally starting to ease back into the groove of daily life, here on the blog, at work and at home.

Today I will photos of our guest bathroom as promised on Wednesday, the contrast between the before and after are not as stark as with the powder room because the guest bath looked decent, if you can't see the loose tiles in the tub surround. But as I mentioned before it looked only good on the outside, below the toilet the floor was rotting away because the toilet was not installed properly and must have been leaking since it was installed. Since all the drywall was in good condition we only replaced the area around the tub with cement board and of course the subfloor was replaced as well. We had known from the beginning that we wanted white subway tile and mosaic floor tile, either hexagon or penny rounds. And I don't regret our decision one bit. Really glad we decided on black grout too. The wall color is a warm gray called Amherst Gray from Benjamin Moore's Historical Color collection. We picked the Lillången sink & cabinet from IKEA because of its depth, we didn't have enough space for anything deeper and wanted a solution with storage underneath. For a tub we loved the Cube Collection from Wetstyle but not the price, so I searched the internet for an affordable solution and found one from American Standard at a fraction of the price. We found it at a Lowes in the area and had it delivered but now they don't seem to carry it any longer. Most of the little pieces, like the mirror, towel holder and tub caddy we already owned and when I saw the matching wooden bath mats on a recent IKEA run I had to have them. I like the light birch color with the white of the tile and the gray of the walls. Hope our first guests will like the bathroom as much as we do.

I am looking forward to be able to take a nice long bath in our new tub this weekend, with candle light and a glass of wine...What are your plans this weekend? Hope you will have a great one!

 l wall color benjamin moore amherst gray #HC-167 l in regal select in pearl finish l 

l light fixture lillholmen ikea (already owned) l mirror molger ikea (already owned) similar l 
l urchin target l pharmacy bottles restoration hardware (already owned) l

l sink lillången ikea l faucet dalskär ikea l soap dispenser sävern ikea (already owned) l 

l towel holder molger ikea (already owned) l towels skagern ikea l toilet american standard l

l toilet brush holder sävern ikea (already owned) l trash can sävern ikea (already owned) l

l bathtub american standard (discontinued) l shower head l spout l and controls american standard l wooden bath mats molger ikea l tub caddy molger ikea (already owned) l
l roman shades jc penney (already owned) l

powder room - after

I know this post has been a long time in the making but now it is finally time to reveal the renovated bathrooms, the powder room makes its way onto the blog first. Can you believe we started with this sad looking space? Me neither! Even though the room is small, some serious work went into the completion of this room. As previously mentioned the exterior walls and the pipes under the floor were not insulated, which made the space feel like a chilly outhouse in the wintertime. When we started thinking about redoing the powder room we immediately knew that we wanted to use up some leftover subway tile from our upstairs bathroom. One wall tiled from floor to ceiling gives this room some interest and after painting the walls I already loved the contrast between the white tile and the dark gray. We used Benjamin Moore's Racoon Fur again, like we did in the entry vestibule. What a cute name for such a cool color. First we thought about getting a simple frameless mirror above the sink but couldn't find one in the right size, my next thought was that maybe I could find cool vintage mirror at a thrift store or an estate sale but then P suggested that we could reuse the mirrored door from the old medicine cabinet. It was a great idea because the dimensions were perfect, I just needed to spray paint the frame. Because the room was only black/gray/white we decided to use the yellow I had left over from spray painting a necklace last year. We love our new powder room and are not using it for storage and cleaning paint supplies anymore.

Are you ready for the guest bathroom reveal on Friday?

l wall color benjamin moore racoon fur # 2126-20 l in ben low voc paint in eggshell finish) l
l light fixture (already owned) l mirror (already owned) l sink lillången ikea l

l faucet ensen ikea l soap dispenser sävern ikea (already owned) l toilet lowes l 

l tissue holder (not pictured) l towel holder enudden ikea l hand towel hären ikea l 

l toilet brush holder enudden ikea (not pictured) l rice paper window film (already owned) l

bathrooms - during renovation

As promised I have a bunch of photos from the bathroom progress for you today. Unfortunately I don't have any from the days we only had bare studs on some of the walls, it was always too dark to take decent photos when I came home after work. In the guest bathroom we only redid the walls surrounding the tub to add new cement board. When the new tile was installed I was a little scared to stick to our decision to use dark grout but once it was up I loved it. In the powder room we opted for white grout because we thought it might be overpowering the small room, the floor also got white grout because the tiles were so thin and we were afraid that the white tile adhesive might show through the dark grout. I have applied sealer to the grout twice and hope that will keep it looking fresh for years to come. After removing the banged up partitions in the powder room it was clear why it was always super cold in that room during winter, there was no insulation in the exterior walls. We already suspected as much but why didn't the previous owners go the extra mile and install insulation? In order to add insulation our contractor needed to make the walls thicker and the tiny room shrank even further but now it gets pretty cozy and warm in that room. Now you don't feel like using an outhouse anymore. The pipes underneath the floor were not insulated either and because they are in an area that can get pretty cold we were lucky that they never froze and burst in the winter.

Next was painting the walls but I didn't take much photographs of the process and will jump to the finished bathrooms in my next bathroom post. Hopefully I'll get that ready for next week!

 

 

bathrooms - before

I know I have promised that December will be bathroom month on my blog but I haven't been able to post any photos yet. Today's post is all about the before conditions. 

First up is the guest bathroom. After moving into the house we painted the walls to match the green tiles in the shower surround and gotten rid of the pedestal piece under the sink to be able to add a storage shelf. I also replaced the old medicine cabinet and the light fixture. Throw in a new shade for the window and a shower curtain as well as small accessories and we called it a day as we had a functional and not too shabby looking bathroom. Unfortunately the tiles started to come loose around the tub and we thought about redoing them and this led us to wanting a new and deeper tub and eventually to redo the whole shebang. Luckily we made the decision to renovate the whole bathroom as the toilet had been leaking under the tiles for years, which you couldn't see in the bathroom or in the basement below.

 

 

Close to our back door we also have a small powder room in which we didn't do a thing besides cleaning it when we moved in. I used it to clean my brushes and rollers after painting and as a catch for all things floating around that I didn't want to see.The toilet had a hairline crack and we were afraid it might not make it for long and will start to leak soon. When we decided to redo the guest bathroom we wanted to make this tiny room look nice too. It is in a convenient location when you are sitting out in the back yard and need to use a bathroom. Once we have a real back yard and hanging out in it more often it will certainly come in handy...

 

bathroom inspirations

As I mentioned sometime before we are planning to redo our guest bathroom and our powder room and now the time is almost here. We will be starting the Monday after Thanksgiving. First food induced coma followed by construction crazies. Of course before even planning to redo our bathrooms I had pinned away pretty bathroom images on Pinterest. We both love white subway tile and knew we wanted to use it again in the downstairs bathrooms. Our bathroom upstairs also has subway tile in the shower and the floor is black hexagon tile. I never showed any photos of the finished bathroom and will definitely snap photos of that bath as well. Consider upcoming December to be bathroom month on my blog…

ooh_food / remodelista 

Jason Gnewikow & Jeff Madalena via design sponge / micasa via desire to inspire

The powder room is a tiny little space that we only use to clean and store our painting supplies as well as storing our stash of toilet paper. I think that room only got a cleaning once right when we moved into the house in April 2010…Oops! We will be tiling the wall behind the sink with white subway tile from floor to ceiling. The tile is left over from a previous project. We already owned the light fixture and have already purchased the sink & cabinet, faucet and the black and white hexagon tile for the floor.

Of course the guest bath will get white subway tile around the bathtub as well and for the floor we have chosen white penny rounds. I think the white on white will look great with black grout. We also chose the same style sink/cabinet combination from IKEA, just a little wider. Both bathrooms are very small and we needed sinks that aren’t too deep and the Lillangen series fit the bill. The storage underneath is also a big plus! We already own the light fixture, mirror and towel rack and use it in the bathroom.  The tub is ordered, we actually just ordered it last night. Both of us fell in love with a tub we saw at one of the apartments at OHNY but we found out that the price for it is way out of our league. After that we had a hard time finding the right tub for the right price. Bathtub and shower fixtures are also already purchased. The only things missing now are new toilets and that’s another thing we have a hard time deciding because we wanted to use the same model we used in the upstairs bathroom but that one is sadly discontinued and we haven’t made a final decision yet. Why do I always get hung up on the smaller details? It’s just a toilet, right? Once the bathrooms have received their new tile I can make a decision about paint color, I have to see it in order to get a better feel. Right now I am not sure if I would go dark or light on the paint. I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

PS. Before, during and after shots will follow! :)

bathroom radiator cover

The renovation of our upstairs bathroom is nearing its end. Yay! To complete the project we only need a door or rather refinish the one we have and hang it as I already mentioned in my last post...

Last weekend I finally hung the shutters that I found in our basement and turned into a radiator cover. On the first pictures you can see how it was covered before we started the renovation. After I took the cover down I knew we needed something that gave us access to the radiator whenever needed, one thing the old one didn't do. When I finally pried the old one open it was broken but it didn't look that good anyways...We thought about building a frame around the opening in the wall and then have some kind of door to access the radiator. Then I remembered the shutters I saw lying around in the basement, they were not in best shape but I thought some paint and pretty knobs could fix it. Had my eyes on the Snodd knob from Ikea for a while but was never sure where to use it. Finally I found the perfect project! We had the contractor who did the bathroom renovation also built the frame for us.

First I had to clean the shutters, then sanded them with fine sand paper. After that they got a coat of oil based primer and two coats of Benjamin Moore White Diamond, the same color I used for the rest of the trim as well as the walls. I even spray painted the thingies black that connect and move the individual shutters. Not that you can really see it but it's a nice touch and lately I have developed an addiction to spray painting...The oil base primer I used for the shutters also came in a spray can...Lucky me!

redoing the master bathroom - part two

This is how the bathroom looked after the demolition. There were so many layers of sheetrock, that the room is still a couple of inches bigger with the new drywall in place.

While installing the old drywall in the bathroom somebody treated themself to some cold beers. Cheers to renovating bathrooms! If I remember correctly they were from 2000 so the bathroom wasn't renovated that long ago.

Here the drywall is already up, the shower is tiled, vanity and medicine cabinet are in place. You can already start seeing it come together.

The bathroom is quite small so it's had to take good pictures. Can you see me hiding behind the door? Speaking of the door it will have to go, it's such a cheap and wobbly thing...

redoing the master bathroom - part one

Our upstairs bathroom was not really our style and the shower was a fiberglass (?) insert shower with a frosted glass door which made the already small room feel even smaller. I always felt like I was at a motel taking a shower. We both agreed the bathroom needed to change and started talking about what we wanted in a new bathroom. Since the room is on the small side and even has a slanted ceiling above the toilet the layout needed to stay as is, which also kept the cost down.

We knew we wanted white subway tile in the shower and a dark floor. Also we liked the Kohler Purist fixtures because they look nice but are not crazy expensive like some other bathroom fixture series and brands. The IKEA vanity and sink had the perfect size and price. It's actually a little smaller than the old vanity but the drawers give maximized storage space - more room for us and our stuff!

This is what we came up with...