Beginnings of a Bathroom Makeover

We just left our neighbors Vica and Adam's place. We went over there to see their stunning new bathroom renovation. Vica's dad is quite the handy man, so he helped them gut their bathroom. Check out the before and after photos here. Doesn't it look amazing? Such a smart blend of modern and traditional styles -- and I love the colors and textures!

So naturally we have bathroom remodeling on the brain.

Okay, so if you follow this blog, you've seen "before" photos of our main bathroom. It's about the length of a standard tub, and about just as deep.

The bathroom has "biscuit" colored wall tiles, an old cabinet, a dated vanity and lights, white hexagon floor tile and probably original damask wallpaper. When I walk into our bathroom, I imagine it looked exactly the same 30 or 40 years ago.

When we purchased the home.

Now. We took down some of the extra towel hangers and shelves. Hope to replace this cabinet with a dark wood one.

I almost love this metallicy wallpaper. Unfortunately it's a little antiquated looking and and starting to peel off the walls. 

Current tile floor. Can't wait for this not to be white.

Well, this bathroom is going to be our next project. Our "minimal" remodel plan:

• Switch out the tub fixtures (done - see below. Love those guys at High Priority Plumbing)
• Remove wallpaper; skim walls to make them even; paint light grey-ish blue
• Remove old floor tile (or tile over existing) with a medium to dark grey slate tile (12 x 12 size) -- I am soooo ready to NOT have a white floor
• Reglaze wall tiles in white (the tile itself is in fine shape... it's the color that's the problem)
• Reglaze tub (already white but it needs a refresh)
• Install new cabinet, sink and water fixtures
• Install new lighting fixtures
• Add an outlet (we don't have one currently!)
• Hang flat, simple mirror above vanity
• Hang medicine cabinet above toilet
• Frame water colors from our honeymoon trip to Italy

See some of our original bathroom inspirations here. Maybe we'll do that beadboard in another bathroom...

So on to our first step: replacing the leaky/tough-to-turn faucets in the tub:

Before.

After. Gah, this is going to look so much sharper with the tile reglazed white. Faucet/fixtures seen here are Price Pfister from Amazon.com ($128 for the fixtures/valves plus $46 for the "rough in" or body materials required to install). The most expensive part was the three-hour installation ($285).

And if you didn't see our AJC article about our house hunt that was published this weekend, check it out here. We had fun being a part of the article, though I never mentioned the word "disaster" in describing our new place. Even in the shape we found it in, I never considered it to be a disaster.