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!

The last time I mentioned the bed and bathroom progress was a few months ago to show the demo progress.  A couple weeks after Finn was born, we found our groove again and Mike started building the rooms back together.  Mike's rebuilt everything and is in the middle of tiling the bath and I've painted the walls and will start on the doors and trim soon.



There was a lot of work that went into these still-very-much-in-progress shots above though.  Mike started by redoing most of the plumbing and electrical in the bathroom, and because we had most of the fixtures picked out, he also added in blocking for extra support before adding in the drywall.  This isn't necessary, but with careful planning it's really helpful and reduces drywall anchors.


We've got the towel bar on the left above the toilet and the vanity and mirror on the right.

Once he had finalized everything, Mike wrapped everything up with drywall and cement board. 



It's hard to get a good shot of the color right now but, I chose Sherwin Williams Moderne White. It's a soft white with a slight green undertone.  I wanted almost white, but enough warmth to let the white trim contrast. 


I'm more conservative with my sheen finishes and always use flat on ceilings, semi-gloss on trim, doors and in closets, and satin/eggshell on walls.

In the bathroom I painted the walls Sherwin Williams Spare White, the same color I used for the white walls in Archer's nursery in our last home.  It has less green than Moderne White and a little cooler in my opinion.  Everything looks very yellow right now due to the waterproofing, but even that bright yellow is still less yellow than when we started!


Mike had already finished the tile on the shower floor and I love the small white hexagon with contrasting grout.  You can also see the start of our ledge/shelf.  This was the compromise after countless discussions after I told Mike I wanted a niche to put shower stuff, but also make it low enough to put my foot up to shave my legs.  Mike wasn't a fan of the niche for various construction reasons, and we were concerned with sound carrying through the wall which is shared with the nursery.  There is nothing more important to me than my babies' sleep!


We'll have marble tops on both the ledge and the shower step and white subway tile in the shower.

On the bathroom floor, Mike has already finished laying the black hex tile, but first he installed the heated floor coils.  To offset the thickness of the coils and the areas where there is no heating (behind the toilet and beneath the vanity) Mike did a thin layer of thinset to even it all out for the tile. 


The flooring was actually installed last week and I'm really loving all the materials in this tiny room.  Mike hopes to start on the shower walls soon because then it'll be a lot less strenuous tasks to wrap the room up!

Some of the major tasks to finish are the trim around the room, installing the closet system, replacing electrical outlets/switches, and lighting.  Since Mike is working on this pretty much any free moment he has or after the boys go to bed, he had to get creative with his efficiency and brought the chop saw upstairs with a hood that hooks up to the shop-vac.  


It took a long time for me to allow Mike to test the babies' sleeping abilities, but we've appeased the baby sleep gods because throughout this whole reno the babies have slept through almost everything without issue!!  I can't believe it, but we're thanking our lucky stars and trying to get as much done as we can while they sleep so we can cuddle and hang with them while they are awake.

I've got some doors to paint and Mikes got a date with his tile saw, but we hope to have some more major progress done in the next week or so!

It’s been slow-going on the bathroom/master bedroom project, even though we are t-minus 6 weeks until baby!  Mike has found the time to demo the room though and I thought I’d share because it already looks so different.

He started with the fixtures – vanity, lights, and toilet (we actually moved this to the downstairs powder room because it was brand new and both an elongated bowl and handicap height).  He then took the shower wall out, which just as we thought, opened the room up to seem twice as big.


After that, he took everything down to the studs and took out the tile floor.  The shower plumbing was built out from the wall (my thoughts are that they used a standard shower pan and this was built to fit), and so he removed that wall as well.  He’ll move the plumbing into the interior wall and we’ll build the shower the entire width of the room.

The biggest difference is the removal of the pocket door.  We’ve thought of every scenario to keep this as opened as it is now (even as crazy as just framing out the opening so the room is always open – even for two very comfortable married people like ourselves, that still seems weird), but the fact remains the best option is a pocket door even if it’ll close the room back up.


What you also can see to the left of the photo above is the first attempts at that wallpaper removal.  I spent a couple hours with a tiny garment steamer trying to remove the paper.  It seemed to work really well at first with the piece right next to the sliding exterior door (I’m thinking there was some moisture issues with the door that helped the paper come off easier), turned into a nightmare with the piece next to it.  The fact that I was using a dinky garment steamer didn’t help either.

I was getting completely discouraged and even thought of hiring it out (which I imagine would be extremely expensive, since it’s such an awful job), until Mike volunteered to help one night.  His method of removing all the leftover pieces from the area I already worked on was to wet it down as much as possible with a damp rag and peel it off.  I suggested a water bottle and our method was born.  Most of the room came off relatively easy, just a lot of spraying and a lot of patience, but of course when we got to the last wall, which happened to be the exterior wall, we had some hiccups.  A lot of water later, and we had all the wallpaper off and found ourselves in a very lilac hued room!




Then we had this corner, which just happened to be the spot we ended on.

You can see glue marks and drywall paper peeled off in some spots.  I have to sand the whole room and then I’ll do a primer coat with some Kilz, before Mike goes back to skim coat the more stubborn spots where the drywall peeled.  The reason for the Kilz first is to that the moisture from the skim coat doesn’t leas to bubbling and more peeling.  While it’s only necessary in the spots he’ll skim coat, I don’t want any residual wallpaper glue to seep through the paint, and I’m not feeling this lilac color, so I’m going to make sure it’s getting well buried!


   To add even more hiccups, there’s water damage under the window that will need to be replaced – the drywall and the window.  The windows are old and single paned and we knew we would be replacing them, we just planned to do them all at once in a couple years.  This one and the bathroom window are getting replaced during this phase because there’s water damage and we might as well!

We’re down to the wire before baby comes so I doubt we’ll be finishing this project before then, (Archer keeps catching bugs at the sitters and sharing with us knocking one of us out for a week before getting something new and sharing with the other parent), but we’re going to keep trekking and working on whatever we can!

In my last post I mentioned that our first renovation will be the master bath.  We figured it would be easy enough given the size and scope and since we’re able to play musical bedrooms until the new baby comes we left the master bedroom empty in anticipation.


This home may not be our ‘forever home’, but it will be our home for the next 20 or so years (I grew up in the same home my entire life and stayed in the same small school district my whole education, so it was important for me to give that same stability/experience to my kids as well), so our design decisions are being approached a little different than our last house.  We also have a lot more room for improvement so upgrading the finishes won’t push us out of the local market.  There are many multi-million dollar homes in our town, even some on our own street (even though we’re nowhere near that), so we know that using high-end materials won’t be a waste come time for resale.

We also are thinking about function even more so than form this time around.  Not to say I’m not making sure I’m making everything look good, I’m focused more on how we use our home, then looking at how I want it to look.

For example, I shed a lot of hair (weird tidbit to share, but hear me out), I have don’t have as thick of hair as I used to, but I have lots of it, and with postpartum hormones, I lose even more.  Mike’s constantly complaining about all the hair after I blow-dry.  Because of this, I knew I wanted darker tile to hide this fact until I’m able to vacuum it all up.

With these factors in mind, I actually had most of it designed in my head to start.  The room is small and so the layout won’t be changing, but we’re ripping it down to the studs to make sure everything is done correctly (we’re noticing a lot of short cuts here already so we want to make sure nothing is hiding behind the walls that will come back to haunt us later).


The one thing we both knew we were doing was tearing out the shower half wall.  We even mentioned it during our first walk through!  It would make the otherwise small shower feel a lot bigger just by opening it up to the rest of the room.  I want white subway tile with darker grout (learned my lesson in the last house with white grout) in the shower to brighten it up, but also because subway tile is timeless and inexpensive.  To make it a little trendier, and make the shower really feel bigger, we’re planning on laying it in a vertical pattern.

For the floor I want dark hexagon tile with darker grout.  This way it hides the hair, but also adds contrast to the white shower.

For warmth I want a wood vanity, and from experience Mike and I both prefer drawers over cabinets, but with the small footprint, we may have to get something custom made for the quality we’re looking for.

With these items already designed in my mind, I wanted to find inspiration to show Mike because I find no matter how well I describe it, it’s much easier to show him a picture.  It’s a pretty basic design so I knew I could find some great examples to share.
 

This is a short post, but basically I’ve been relatively happy with our bathroom vanity lights we installed almost 5 years ago (I had to look that number up and the seems really crazy that that project was that long ago!). 


The style wasn’t something I loved, but they were okay.  What I didn’t love was the dust.


It may be difficult to see in photos, but the frosted glass made it impossible to clean off the dust.


Regular Swiffer dusters were out of the question, and even using a damp paper towel left it dirty and little paper towel pieces behind.  Besides, I know my cleaning limitations and I barely want to get on the counter now to hand clean these bad boys, I know when a baby comes it’s definitely not happening!

So I went on the hunt for something with a smooth glass cover, but I also liked the diffused light from the frosted glass.  When I came across these Oslo 3-Light Brushed Nickel Vanity Lights from Home Depot I felt like it was a winner.

While I don’t absolutely love the style, it works for our somewhat traditional bathroom, and it has both a smooth glass exterior while still providing the diffused light as the old lights.

Like the original installation, we installed with the bulbs facing down because the room is small and facing it upwards would loose light as it bounced off the ceiling first.


Installation was relatively easy, except that the screws on the mounting plate were a little too long for the new fixture.  Mike was able to get one to work, but ended up needing to cut the other set down.  Strange and annoying, but like most things, he figured it out!

While it’s not a huge change, we did add LED bulbs and the lighting is now brighter and a little cooler in temperature, it’s a nice little upgrade.  Also, knowing that cleaning them will be much easier makes me smile a little every time I turn them on!

Several months ago I mentioned I wanted a bathroom refresh.  It was easy enough to change out the accessories, but I was a little discouraged when I still didn’t feel like it was enough.  That’s when I realized I needed a new rug (isn’t that how it always goes).  I’m loving the bold colors, and the new look. 



A little color via new accessories was all it needed (and correct white balancing).


Mike couldn’t care less about the accessories, but he was a little apprehensive about the rug.  To be fair, I didn’t tell I bought a new one, I just threw it down when it was delivered.  He hated the colors at first, but the function of having a rug under both sinks and the shower won him over! 


The rug is this one from Target.  It’s actually a runner, but it was the smallest size they had and it just barely fits.  It’s really soft and is the perfect punch of color this room needed.  And, like any new accessory or anything colorful, it’s grown on Mike!


Along with the rug, I also updated the accessories on the counter.  I basically switched out the giant decorative sponge for the faux succulents that used to live on the back of the toilet and a candle.  I know, a candle in the bathroom, what a novel idea!


Over the toilet, I changed out the black and white pictures for a Clare Elsaesser print, ‘Undertow’, and a quick homemade painting on a cheap canvas.









 
On the tank I added my Himmeli Air Plant Holder and while I am not the best at remembering to soak it every week, it seems to do really well here.  I think the moisture from showering helps.  And, in another admission of laziness, I never sprayed the copper holder with a sealant, but the moisture that helps the plant doesn’t seem to discolor it, yet.


The bathroom is too small to get everything into one shot, but I deep cleaned it on a weeknight, so I was going to take as many photos as I could!


The rug was the largest purchase at $73, and the print was $25.  The air plant was $11 and I’d say I spent maybe $10 on other supplies and reused things from around the house.  So, under $120 for the refresh, not bad!


I finally feel like it reflects our style more, and the rug has added a lot more comfort when brushing my teeth, so that’s a win!

Later I want to share our secret weapon for keeping the rug in place, so look for that soon.  I don’t mean to be dramatic, but it’s a game changer around here!