Traditional Ranch Extreme Bath Makeover

Okay, extreme may be a massive exaggeration — but we did just make over our hallway bathroom in our little 1949 Decatur brick ranch.

We reglazed our yellow tile to white, took down the wall paper and painted the walls light grey, installed a new slate floor — and put in a new light sconce, fan/light, vanity, sink faucets, shower turns, etc., etc.

Both our styles are rather traditional (but not stuffy traditional) so we went with what we would picture in a 1940s bathroom but not quite so retro. I hear the word "transitional" thrown around to describe casual, traditional with a hint of modern — maybe that's us.

This has been probably the biggest transformation in our little casa. Over the past two months, we spent about $3,000 on updating this bathroom (in our minds, less than if we had gutted it and re-tiled it).

BEFORE

Yikes! We had the toothbrush holder and soap holder tiles taken down when we had the tile reglazed from yellow to white.

AFTER

Vanity cabinet and medicine cabinet are from Lowe's. They weren't part of a set but felt right together. I believe the vanity was $250 or $300 — and medicine cabinet/mirror was about $120. Chrome faucet is Moen and was $92. The new vanity cabinet is shorter and narrower than the old one, which is good since the bathroom is small. We had wanted a faucet with the same turn-style knobs we have in the shower — no luck. One negative to keeping the original tile is that the mirror has to be really high to be above the tile. Folks 5 feet and under probably can't see their reflection.

BEFORE

Because I couldn't be there when he worked, I left our painter Miguel sticky notes with what I would like done ("e.g., sand, skim and paint").

Wallpaper was a shiny dark yellow and cream damask. I doubt it was original to the house but it was probably here for at least 30 years.

AFTER

Can't remember the exact color of the paint, but we chose another Martha's Stewart color from Home Depot (a light blue-ish grey) but had it matched at Sherwin Williams because we really trust their paint. Light sconce is from Lowe's (maybe $15 for the chrome hardware and $10 for the globe).

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

New shower fixtures are Price Pfister via Amazon.com. Including the "rough in" (or behind the scenes parts), I think these were about $250.

BEFORE

I was SO over this white hexagon bathroom tile. I mean, it's neat and retro, but it looked dirty and dingy all the time (even right after cleaning).

AFTER

Replaced the floor with dark grey slate tile (12 x 12 inch). The actual color is darker than what the photo shows. I LOVE the tile. Dan's still not sure that navy is the right rug color choice — but we're working through it.

Lastly, two custom-framed watercolors we picked up in Italy on our honeymoon. (In case you you don't remember, I lost our camera so we have no photos). Got these framed at Hobby for about $110 total including frame, matte and glass.

We used Porcelain Innovations to reglaze our tile and install the new floor. We are really happy with the most important part: the tile reglazing. However, there were some little things that lead me to say I wouldn't recommend Porcelain Innovations. The owner was tough to get in touch with sometimes and they had excuses for some things that didn't get done the way we wanted them. For example, the work was done while we were out of town, and we were excited to come back to a finished job. Porcelain Innovations neglected to tell us they messed up our towel racks (took off the plastic coating and tried to paint them) and accidentally ripped our new, professional paint off the walls because of taping off the tile for reglazing. Granted, it may have been that the paint wasn't dry enough just yet — but they could have sent us a quick e-mail while we were gone to say, "hey, wanted to let you know that..." And they were the ones who recommended we have the painting done BEFORE they come to do the tile. They also said they would install the threshold but decided not to. I don't know... I just left the whole thing with a kind of bad taste in my mouth related to customer service, communication and having to convince them to come back and fix things. Anyway, they did come back to fix most of the things we weren't happy with so we still are overall satisfied. Including the old floor being demo-ed and the slate being installed, the tile work was $1,800. It does look good.

Sorry for the rambling.

Angel Painting (Miguel!) did our painting. We spent about $300 with him in the bathroom — but well worth it. The walls were raw plaster and needed to be smoothed with mud and sanded down to be even. He also patched holes where the medicine cabinet and light fixtures once were. I should also mention that Miguel came back out to re-do where the paint was messed up without excuses or requesting additional money.

Corey with High Priority Plumbing has done our plumbing work (installing new fixtures). High Priority is so easy to work with because their office folks are very communicative — and the prices are reasonable and and the work is quality. Angela at the office responds quickly to e-mail communications, and they're always able to give quick turnaround time appointments. Corey (the technician we use) is friendly and courteous. He calls on his way over to let us know he'll be arriving soon — and he calls following his appointments to tell us how they went. My favorite thing is that he sent me a text message photo of our new faucet before he left our house. Love it!