My Bathroom Remodel

I was telling my students last month that I had put cabinets together myself.  And then it hit me, I never shared my bathroom re-model on my blog.

During the summer of 2014, we were about 2 days into our vacation, driving to Washington D.C., in the middle of no-where, when we got the call.  Our friends who were going over every couple of days to check on our house and our dogs, opened the front door and water gushed out!  One of our pipes had broken and flooded our house.

Chris was trying to figure out where the nearest airport was so that he could fly home to take care of the house while I drove back.  But, this was the vacation that we had dreamed about for years!  So, once we calmed down, we called the insurance company and hired a company to go in and dry stuff out.  Special thanks to Chris' dad, Mike, for going over and helping as well.

The next month was spent going through all our stuff, finding out what was ruined and what was salvageable and making a list for our insurance.  The bathroom was a total loss.  The main room (living room) on the bottom floor is never used.  It lost a wall.  Hopefully, we will finally get to updating that room this summer.  We decided to do ALL the work ourselves to save money so that the insurance money could be used on nicer finishes.

This is what was waiting for us when we got home from vacation.  It was dry but paneling, flooring, and cabinets were removed.

The company that came in to dry out stuff pulled a couple sheets of paneling down, pulled out the sink cabinet, and pulled up the linoleum.  We removed the rest of the paneling, the shower stall, the toilet, and the ceiling.  We changed the location of the door to the laundry room in order to fit in a new bathtub.

Garrett and Chris pulling down the ceiling to install a new light and fan as well.

The drain for the bathtub was only a few inches off from where the drain for the shower was but it was a major pain to re-route the drain.  Three jack-hammers later, it finally lined up.  I wanted my bathroom to have an open feel with a pony 1/2 wall at the end of the tub.  Chris was a real trooper because a pony wall requires much more support (and headaches) than a regular wall.

Tub with pony wall.

We picked all our cabinets out from Ikea.  I really liked that the sink cabinet had drawers.  Routing the "European" plumbing fixtures behind the drawers was another pain that Chris awesomely mastered!

The cabinet has drawers so the pipes run right against the wall for the sink.

It works!

We learned how to tile by watching YouTube.  I really like TileGuyGA.  I watched several of his videos multiple times.  But, somehow he doesn't get covered in mortar and grout like I did.

Michelle putting up tile.

We had just enough leftover trim tile to put a little backsplash behind the sink.

 I just took a few pictures of the bathroom, a year after the remodel was finished.  I love my bathroom.  It is so calming and beautiful.  I have a tub and a makeup station.  I feel blessed.

The shower curtain has to be extra long and extra wide.  They don't sell such things. So, I bought extra long and taped 1 1/2 shower curtains together.

The bathroom today (complete with dirty laundry in the hamper).

Michelle's Makeup station.

The main light has a fan, too.