Main bath remodel: conclusion

Finally, a few before-and-after photos to give you a sense of our remodeled main bath now that the work is complete.  I encourage you to click on the photos so you can see more detail in the enlarged versions.

After.  Now that I look at these photos, I'm a little startled that there is very little left in the room that has not been replaced.  The stained glass panel in the window, and the register on the forced-air vent in the floor are the only "old" items I can see in this view.

Before. 

After.  I didn't expect to replace the toilet, but since its performance declined following re-installation in the new room, it found a new home in the landfill.

Before.

After. The new window seems larger than the old one even though it fit in the same hole in the wall.  The glass area is bigger since this window has a fixed pane instead of the double hung design we had previously.  Note: the ceiling light in the middle of the room is the same one we installed a few years ago, only mounted on a new ceiling!

Before.

After. Even though the mirror and the cabinets came from different sources, I think they match close enough for our purposes.  Both are quarter sawn oak with similar finishes.

Before.

After. A new door to match the other doors in the house that have been replaced since we moved in.  This shot also shows the new trim that matches the other trim in the house that was replaced before we moved in.

Before.

After.  Everything is new in this shot including the plumbing behind the walls.  We chose subway tile for the bottom courses, a chair rail, and harlequin tile for the top.  You can see the tile shape a little more clearly in the enlarged view of the photo.

Before.  Probably the most painful part of the project was throwing out this tile that we installed five years ago before we moved in.

After.  One last shot of the cabinets, sink, mirror, and window.  Call us what you like, we rather prefer the new bathroom to the old one.

(Previous posts on this project: part 1, part 2 and part 3).

Main bathroom remodel, part 3

Our last bathroom post left the room covered in white primer -- an empty canvas in many respects.  We had several ideas about a new color scheme for the room, but none of the ideas was obviously superior to the others.  When all your options look good, pick one and move forward!

We knew we would be applying a different color glaze over a satin base coat so we found this brownish/grayish combination that seemed to go well with our plans for white tile around the white tub, as well as the white trim and baseboard.

The glaze was applied with a sheep wool pad we found several years ago, and it appeared that the wall color would also coordinate well with the new cabinets.

We even found tile that also promised to coordinate well with the other colors in the room.  There was only one problem: when Karen looked at the walls and floor and imagined facing each day in this room, she felt more depressed than livened.  Even though the gray worked in theory, it did not show much promise in practice.

On to plan B.  This combination of yellows was more acceptable.  As with the gray, the darker base coat (Cup of Tea) was covered with a lighter glaze (Creamy Camel) applied with the sheep wool pad.

Once applied, we weren't happy with the contrast between the two colors, so we added another coat of glaze over the Creamy Camel, this time using the darker Cup of Tea as the colorant in the glaze.  That extra coat softened and blended the colors so the effect is more subtle.

The new wall color didn't go very well with the floor tile, so the gray tile came out and this tile with a browner hue replaced it.

Not long after the walls and floor were finished, we were able to install the cabinets in their new configuration.  The base cabinets will give us about as much storage as we had previously, but the wall cabinets add significantly more volume.  More progress has been made since these photos were taken, but that will have to wait until our next report.  Thanks for visiting!

Main bathroom remodel, part 2

When we last reported from the bathroom, things were still pretty rough.  The photos for this post span a couple weeks, so we've got a good bit of progress to report.

This shot shows the west wall covered in drywall, which means the supply and drain plumbing were complete in that wall along with the wiring.  The north wall still needed a little more work before it was covered.

The new tub found a home at this point so it could be plumbed before the walls were closed up.  Notice we put fiberglass insulation in the east wall as a sort of noise isolation between the bathroom and our bedroom.

Here's evidence the supply plumbing for the bath and shower were properly installed before the sheetrock covered it up.

This new window was part of the unfinished work on the north wall.  You might recall we said the old window was pretty leaky.  This new window, on the other hand, appears to let more light in the room while allowing less air to leak in.

Next came the mud to patch the joints and holes...

...and following that a coat of primer on the ceiling and all the walls.  Our next post will document color choices for the walls and floor, which turned out to be a bigger event than we'd anticipated.

Finally, I wanted to share this shot of part of the bottom of the old tub.  Notice the manufacturing date for the tub recorded as November 27, 1956.  I consider that good evidence that the house was not built before that date.  I could be wrong, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Time for another bathroom update

Until we added the bathroom in the basement this summer, this bathroom near the bedrooms served as our primary bathing facility.  Sadly, it had not received a lot of attention when we remodeled several other rooms before moving in four years ago.

The sink and counter top are original, over 50 years old.  Cabinets: original.  Mirror: original.  Window: replacement, about 20(?) years ago.  Wall paint by previous owner about seven years ago.

The blue print around the window is wallpaper (original?) that was covered by trim boards (which I removed just before these pictures were taken).  A previous owner painted over the wallpaper and added the border near the ceiling.  The toilet is probably less than 10 years old, and I believe the floor tile was added less than 7 years ago.  The tile around the tub is one of the few changes we made four years ago.

Karen found the stained glass a number of years ago, and it finally found a place (of sorts) in this room.

Here's another look at the tub and tile.  When we bought the house, plastic shower walls and a sliding door surrounded the tub. We removed those and added the tile, curtain, and rod.  The tub is another original -- cast iron with a porcelain coating.  Unfortunately, the coating was getting very rough on the bottom of the tub; so rough that we had to address the issue.  After investigating a few options, it was apparent our most economical (and lowest risk) option was to simply replace the tub.

The door is original, although we painted it to match the white trim in the hallway.  We also added the robe hook on the door.

The view from the toilet.  The light in the soffit is original.  The wall decoration was our addition.

This is the "after" picture.  As I mentioned, the tub had to go.  The floor was installed improperly and was cracked in many places.  The "before" pictures are very flattering to the cabinets, which were pretty sad in person.  The plumbing had issues on both the supply and drain sides.  The window has been leaky since we moved in, and typically received an extra layer of plastic in the winter.  After removing the plaster from the outside wall, it was apparent that our insulating efforts four years ago were only partially successful.  In the end, it was easiest to simply remove almost everything in the room.

The hole in the floor in the corner was where the toilet used to sit.  The tub used to sit in the right foreground, with a wall in between.  Not much left at this point!

In this image you can see the wall between the tub and toilet has been rebuilt, some plumbing vent pipes have been installed, and styrofoam board insulation has been added to the outside wall.

More plumbing drain and vent pipes on this side, and additional outlet boxes.

In this view you can see the can lights in the ceiling where the soffit used to be.  The light fixture on the wall in this view was only temporarily mounted for construction lighting.  Construction has progressed since these photos were taken, but that will have to wait for another blog post.