Master Bath Reveal

It's here - our first completed renovation project at our new home! 


We chose the tiny en suite bath to our master bedroom because we figured it was a smaller project to get our feet wet. Plus, with the extra bedrooms, it was easy to set up sleeping arrangements in other rooms while we completed this bathroom and the adjoining bedroom.

I last shared that we had completed the tile back in August of last year, and we "finished" the major components of the bath soon after that.  As I mentioned in my last post, we were waiting on the windows and trim to finally call this room complete.

It's certainly come a long way from when we bought the house, 1 1/2 years ago.


During our first walk-thru I remember talking about vague ideas for different rooms in the house to Mike, but when we saw this bathroom, we both said the first thing we would do is remove that wall to the shower.  We knew it would make all the difference to open this room up and make the small footprint seem bigger.


Having showered in both states of the room, I can attest that it no longer feels like a college dorm room shower and it's actually a space that I want to take my time in!

I designed everything and Mike installed it all, everything except the glass installation, which we hired out.  We didn't want to mess with that one, and we have no regrets!  While the door is almost the same size as it was before - maybe an inch or two bigger, it can swing both ways so it feels less awkward getting into the shower. 

As for the design elements, I went with SW Spare White (SW6203 - in ProMar 200 Egg Shell) on the walls.  It's the same color I used in our last home for Archer's original nursery. Spare White is a creamy white, with a cool undertone.  All the photos read a little green because of the trees outside and the tint to the shower glass.  Any white would have worked in here because of the simple color palette, but I loved Spare White in our last house so I was happy to use it again here.


We tried to get a custom vanity made, but no one would return calls/emails.  I ended up convincing Mike to use the Ikea GODMORGON vanity with Semihandmade drawer fronts.  Mike always rolls his eyes when I suggest Ikea, but then is always pleasantly surprised when it turns out great!  The space for a vanity was less than 2', so the GODMORGON was perfect for the drawers I wanted and maximizing the space. 

Mike was able to get a small solid surface counter top made from a fabricator on one of his jobs.  I told them the look I wanted and they used what they had on hand.  I believe it ended up being Corian Ash Concrete, and with the 2" edge, it looks like real concrete without the porosity issues. 


The rest of the accessories came out of necessity. This mirror was a splurge, but it was part of my vision for the room since the beginning so it was worth it to me.  It looks similar to a certain high-end mirror, but it's about half the cost, so this is actually a really good price.

We went back and forth on the towel bar because Mike really wanted a towel warmer.  I liked the idea, but I didn't like the cord and additional cost.  Because this room is so small we really only had the area above the toilet to put it, so we compromised and got this towel rack to maximize the space and it holds both our bath and hand towels.


I had specific requirements for the light over the vanity and while this one from West Elm fit all of them (must be opaque glass/milk glass, two bulbs, brass, and down-facing light), plus was less than $80 on sale.  I'm not in love with the "antique brass".  It's very gold to me, but I've stopped noticing after a while.  If I ever run out of projects to do (HA!) I could always try to use some Rub 'n Buff to tone down the brassiness.


I mentioned in a previous post a couple months ago that we installed heated flooring.  We used the same controls/system that we used in our last home in the basement bathroom.  It wasn't as necessary here as it was in our previous bathroom, but it's a nice treat for our master bath. 


Another way we went a little extra is adding this bidet seat to our new toilet.  We knew we wanted to splurge on a bidet and I started by looking at the full Toto experience, but realized we didn't need a spaceship toilet.  Heated seats, front and back spray, plus heated water was enough for us.  We love our seat and while we have simple bidet attachments on the rest of the toilets in the house, this feels like a little luxury in our private bathroom.

I forgot to take a better picture of the toilet, but the seat and lid are extra big, but the extra features are worth the less streamlined look. 


We didn't add any window treatments because we live in the woods, and this room overlooks our barn.  We would have been completely fine, but I was still a little nervous (what if I was getting into the shower at night and our neighbor happened to be at the very edge of their property corner and looked just at the right angle 🙄) so I added some frosted window film to the bottom 2/3rds of the bottom window, after taking these photos.  Mike rolled his eyes, but now I feel a little more covered, you know, if a deer happens to walk by.


The other upgrade we made was to the pocket door.  We're slowly switching out all the old doors, and this pocket door was no exception.  We added soft close stoppers on the open and close motions, and it is just short of life changing!  We have another pocket door downstairs in the powder bath that we haven't touched yet, and we can't wait to upgrade that one too. 


Overall, I'm really happy with how this bathroom came together! I love the modern and simple palette, and I'm glad we focused on our bath and bedroom first so we get to enjoy it longer!

Rework of our Window Replacements

It's been more than a minute since I've updated anything here (over six months!).  Renovating is very slow going with two toddlers, who knew 🙄. 

The current status of the world right now has been hard on everyone, and one of the smaller things that has helped me mentally has been to organize/write-up the progress of our projects.  It's not to say everything is "fine" over here, or that we're flying through projects.  More that sharing the completion and organizing thoughts on upcoming projects helps to relieve some of the stress of having so many projects on our plate.  With all the additional stress of the current social, economical, pandemic crisis right now, finding small things that bring joy and focus go a long way for my mental health!  We don't have a lot finished, but we're finding a little bit of a groove now and since this is also a bit of our home diary, I wanted to share the things we've done and catch up to what we're currently working on.   

When our new windows were installed, I was the only adult home trying to get two tiny toddlers fed and out the door.  There was some miscommunication and our windows were installed flush to the inside drywall.  I've seen this done, actually my sister's windows are mostly like this, but we didn't care for the look and wanted to be able to have a sill on the inside.  Since this was done by some of the guys who technically work for my company, Mike and I didn't want to make a big deal about it and decided to fix the issue ourselves. 

Since we were opening up the house for 6 difference windows, we waited until a decent day early spring, back in March.

I didn't grab any photos of the windows as they were installed, but the outside had a very large reveal, while the inside was flush with the drywall.  The photos I did get were all from my phone since I was helping during the whole process.  They're also from different windows because the process went pretty fast.

EDIT: I did find some photos I took right after installation (unfortunately, they were both taken at night).  These show the interior window flush with the drywall and the large ledge on the exterior.


Mike was concerned with the larger ledge on the exterior catching water and allowing snow to sit on it with the potential for issues later.


Mike also wanted to add some window flashing to better seal the sill plate, so this was a good excuse to move all the upstairs windows 2-3"!  We started by removing the window and trimming the siding which prevented the installers from pushing the window out further.  I vaguely remember one of the guys talking about this and giving me the option to install it the same way the original windows were.  I definitely remember having at least one kid in my arms for the conversation and figured they knew best, so whatever they wanted to do was fine.  I've since learned to slow down and actually pay attention to what's being said, I promise!

The opening after the window was removed.

Trimming the siding to allow the window to set back.

We tried to do everything during naps, but sometimes we got lucky and had extra help.


The kid loves any reason to wear ear protection.

We then added the flashing tape which added a waterproofing and air/vapor seal. 


We also attached and sealed the top trim piece which the previous installers didn't.  The window sits in this, so it wasn't noticeable on most of the windows, but where some of the openings weren't the exact same size, there was a bigger gap at the top.  Mike used sealant at the top and then screwed to the the frame.  We also added some insulation tape to the top of the window (inside the time piece) for better air seal.


Once that was complete, the window was ready to be placed back in and reattached.


I did make sure to borrow some vacuum cups from work for handling the glass.  These were invaluable for this!


Each window only took about 30 minutes, but each window was pretty heavy and trying to do this with toddlers under foot was ridiculous so, we only got 1-2 done per day.

This project put finishing the master bathroom on hold because we had to move the window before finishing the trim.  Once we had moved all the windows, Mike was able to finish the trim in the bathroom and bedroom.  I didn't take long to paint and finish the final touches to the bathroom. 


I took some after photos of the bathroom and will share that reveal next!  It's officially our first completed renovation in our new house, and feels really good to mark a major project off the list.  Not to mention actually getting to enjoy the new space!

Master Bath Tile

We're inching towards the finish line in the bathroom and we've completed a huge hurdle in the last week.


All the bathroom tile is complete!

The floor was done shortly after my last update and I love the black hex tile with the dark gray grout.  I took these really quickly with my iPad before the babies woke up so the lighting is bad and it's making it look like the grout is half done, but once we get more done in here I'll take better photos for sure.
 

The shower tile took the longest, and I'm really proud of the detail Mike put into this.  Both of our pet peeves in tile work is small slivers left on the edges where the spacing wasn't laid out in a thoughtful way.  Mike measured everything a dozen times and used a laser level to keep his lines straight.  He made sure he left at least half of a tile at the top so that it mimicked the half tile at the base of the step.

We both were a little disappointed with the grout lines, and I had hoped they would be smaller.  The tiles were self-spacing, but Mike had thought he was making the thinnest lines he could by spacing only 3/32".  I know that eventually the thicker lines won't seem so noticeable once we install everything else in the room, but it's something we're keeping in mind for tile projects in the future.    


The marble topped ledge and shower step are two of my favorite details and I'm so happy we went with the ledge instead of a niche.  I think it's works well with the tile design and achieves my goal of a step to shave my legs, as well as a ledge for shampoo and stuff.


We got a couple quotes for the glass shower door and just gave the official approval last week, so hopefully we have that show in a few weeks!

We're waiting to figure out a solution to a problem we have with the pocket door right now, but once we finish that we can wrap up the trim in here and start installing the vanity and toilet.  I'm not making any deadlines for us, but we're very much looking forward to moving into our new room and it's motivation for us to keep moving ahead!