Bathroom Remodel (finally!)

These pictures are mostly for my sister-in-law, Karlie, and the story is for our own documentation, but I thought maybe some of you would be interested in the pictures and story of our bathroom remodel, too.

Here is what we started with:

Not only was the whole bathroom either wallpaper or plastic tiles, but the tub surround was detaching from the walls and there was mold growing behind it. When we moved in, she shower had shower doors on it, but we quickly removed those after discovering what a chore it was to work around those when giving the kids a bath. There was really nothing wrong with the vanity, it was just old, outdated, and smelled of old wood. There was one outlet and it wasn't up to code. It was unusable for any type of hair device, anyway, because the light switch prevented the cord from being able to be plugged in all the way. The medicine cabinet stuck out about eight inches from the wall and although it provided a lot of storage, was such a sore thumb.

The first step in the bathroom remodel was gutting the room. Everything was taken out except for the bathtub, which was still in pretty good condition. Our bathroom was out of commission for several weeks. We sponge bathed in the kitchen sink and used the old toilet down in the dark, cold, yucky basement. Looking back, it was a lot harder to live without a functioning bathroom and two kids than I originally thought, especially since our entire family got the stomach flu during this time period - YUCK!

The old window was taken out of the tub and a new glass block window was put in. New piping, new electrical, and new insulation in the walls and ceiling were put in, too, along with dry wall around our new light fixtures, tub fixtures, and bathroom fan/heater.

Picking out tile was very time consuming! We wanted something cheap, but something that looked nice. We wanted something unique, but nothing that was too extravagant. We finally settled on a combination of brushed and tumbled Travertine stone, which has a lot of variation between tiles (which I LOVE) and laid it in a very unique pattern that Erik designed. We also decided on using some pencil borders to accent with, along with the bull nose tile around the room for the baseboard instead of a wood baseboard.

Our finished bathroom:

We have a floating vanity (hangs from the wall with no legs) and a bowl sink to match the tile. The vanity was a actually a big disappointment - we ordered it online because we couldn't find anything else we liked, however the vanity we chose didn't give an accurate description and we were surprised at what showed up at our door. However, we worked with it (plumbing leaks and all!) and have finally started enjoying the beauty of it. The sink is the first thing that people comment on when they see the bathroom.

The faucet was also special ordered online and I love how the water trickles out! The mirror behind the sink is just a cut piece of glass! Our Hookless shower curtain is one that we first saw at a hotel and since we loved it so much, we always planned on getting one for our house someday. The top has a mesh window across and the bottom inner layer snaps off for easy washing.

We decided at the last minute to put some built-in shelves in the the corner of the shower. It was a good decision! Now we don't have the awkward, ugly shower caddy hanging from the shower head.

The most practical thing we put in the bathroom was a built-in potty chair (I couldn't find a link to it, but we got it at Home Depot). Take a look...

No ugly potty chair hanging out in the bathroom and no dumping out or cleaning out a potty chair. Love, love, LOVE it!

And that's the story of our bathroom remodel, complete with pictures for Karlie! :)