Friday, March 23, 2012

Bathroom updates!

My mom said I'm like Sarah Winchester, because I always need to make some renovation around the house. Sort of true, but this one HAD to be done. Our bathroom floor was rotting away! About two weeks ago I noticed a dark line in our vinyl flooring around our very vintage pink toilet. As I touched it trying to rub the mark out, I realized that it felt like wet cardboard underneath which meant that our subfloor was soaked and rotting. Awesome! I had immediate thoughts of a plumbing disaster and thousands of dollars wiped out of our savings account, and freaked out every time we sat on the toilet thinking we'd crash down into the foundation.

We got on it right away and it turned out to be localized to just around the toilet (it was not level I guess and water was leaking out when we flushed) so the flooring installers were able to rip it out and install a brand new plywood subfloor, mortar board, and then shiny new tiles on top! They also removed and hauled away our pink toilet and installed our brand new white one, no need for the plumber even!

We kept the improvements going and took down the glass shower doors to replace with a shower curtain. It's SO much easier to clean, but the main reason we took them down was to make bathing Elsa in the bathtub a lot easier too. It makes the bathroom feel bigger we think, and I like that the shower curtain hides all our bath products. No one needs to see Jeff's Costco-sized Rogaine. (It's why he's so hairy.)

After the bright white tile went down (with gray grout- one more detail to make keeping the bathroom clean easier!), the "white" walls, sink cabinet and baseboards look so gross. So of course those have to be painted which we're in the middle of doing right now. So you'll only get  half-way done progress photos for now.


EWW!! I can't believe that was under our feet this whole time. Nasty.


Poor pink toilet. They had to sledgehammer her out to remove her from the bathroom, she was that rusted and beat up. Bye bye, you were cute, and probably gorgeous when you were new and amongst your other pink friends who survive you.


Yay! New non-rotted subfloor! And wonderboard for the tile.


Because this was a rush job (1. We didn't want the toilet to crash into the crawl space, 2. Sue was visiting us that weekend and 3. We only have one bathroom and a few bushes) we had to go with a basic tile that they could get quickly. I liked these white octagons and squares anyway, but if I had my dream tile, it'd be from Heath. I think they look great though with the vintageness still preserved in the bathroom, and the gray grout makes them look a little more special.


Ta-da!! New white toilet. We got a basic Kohler model, but it's leaps and bounds better than old Pinkie. It flushes so quietly and quickly, but c'mon, it's a toilet. Not much more to say.


The shower curtain though... pretty great, right? My mom said it looked like Marimekko which I can totally see. It's DwellStudio though, that I got at Target (not available online anymore, and Amazon jacked up the price by $15!). Love the colors and graphic boldness it brings to the space. The bathmat was another score from Macy's, on clearance with an additional 40% off AND including Sue's extra 15% off coupon, it ended up being like 7 cents. Thanks Sue!


And the last improvement to be covered in this post, a new towel rack and Elsa's toy pod! Removing the shower doors meant removing one of our two towel bars, so with the very limited wall space we had in there, this Grundtal rack from IKEA was perfect. It has four bars that swivel out. Super useful AND it matches our AARP shower bar in brushed nickel!

Elsa's frog was a baby shower gift and it holds her new bath toys which she is a big fan of. To keep my fans happy, I'll close with a picture of her enjoying her new splash time surroundings.



5 comments:

ET said...

Thanks for the detailed account of the bathroom remodeling experience. We were also worried it would be a costly and painful affair, but looks like it worked out well, and not too painful. GREAT job. Looks very nice and sure it makes Elsa very happy when she gets her daily baths, which I know she enjoys.

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Martha Ward said...

It’s about time you got rid of that rusted and beat-up pink toilet. Your bathroom will be in a lot better shape, now that the renovation is done. I hope everything went well! Now you don’t have to worry about expensive repairs due to plumbing disasters. Cheers!

Martha Ward @ Son-Rise Plumbing

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Mindy Powers said...

Amazing transformation! You did a great job in renovating your bathroom. It’s also nice that you replaced the old toilet bowl. I just hope that everything will function at their fullest extent for the long haul. It’s always good to be assured that everything is perfectly installed. Thanks for sharing that, Liv! All the best to your family!

Mindy Powers @ The Plumbing Authority