Boys Bathroom update

So we didn't hit our goal of having the boys' bathroom finished, or at least in working order, by the time they returned from camp. But progress has been made, and so far we are all surviving just fine using one toilet---we're just cleaning it more!

My apologies in advance for the photos. the bathroom is hard to photograph as it is not all that large and some of the corners have stuff in them so I can't get to a good distance for broad shots. It will give you a general idea, though.

The floor---the previous floor was kind of similar, though the pattern was larger and the black diamonds were light blue. Grout will be a medium to dark gray.

The walls--tiling not finished, there will be a row of black subways on top of that vertical row of white. Grout will be a very light grey.

New tub and new walls, bye bye plaid wallpaper!

This area where the bucket is will be storage--in the past it was a cupboard but very deep large and mostly unusable/impossible to keep organized. Now we are thinking open pullout shelving to take advantage of the depth and make the space more utilitarian.

The front of the tub will also have the white subways, as will the shower walls.

As for the powder room, it is even more difficult to take a good picture, due to size and the fact that the walls and ceiling have been primed and so the whole place is just white. No floor there as of yet due to a mistake in tile delivery, but the correct tile should be in by the end of the week.

Thanks for reading!

Back with Bathrooms

It's been a while since I've posted here; in that time, we've had to fix our front porch (leaking and rotting wood). Aside from painting the porch ceilings "haint blue", there really wasn't much interesting about that project, so I didn't document it on the blog.

We are now on to another huge project, remodeling all three bathrooms at once. Well, technically not all at the exact same time---we have to have at least one working toilet, sink, and shower in the house, so for now, that is the master bath. The powder room and boy's bathroom are completely gutted. While taking on all three at once is a major undertaking, we figured it is better to get it over with!

Our reasons for tackling the bathrooms are many. First, they were last renovated about 20-30+ years ago (aside from perhaps a new faucet or toilet, but the tile work, tubs, sinks, floors, and countertops are at least that old if not older). Second, both the master and the powder room have seriously defects in layout; you could fit three toilets in the WC portion of the master, and the powder room was just wrong in one very major way I will explain below. Third, we are making some changes in amenities that will increase the utility of the spaces; right now we have a lot of cavernous, impossible to organize cabinets in all three bathrooms; poor water flow and pressure; one tiny sink for three growing boys; poor lighting, etc.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take "before" pictures of the powder room and boy's bathroom (PR and  BB henceforth) pre-demo; I will see if I can dig some up for a later post. Here are some photos of the work done so far--a lot in one week!

from hallway into BB

where BB bathtub used to be (toilet moved there after removal)

some fun wallpaper that was uncovered

more groovy wallpaper where the sink used to be

In these next photos you will see our biggest issue with the powder room:

the entrance to the PR is in the dining room. this is awkward.

at least only the corner sink was visible from the doorway, and not the toilet

here is the front hallway where we want to move the entrance

new doorway is cut!

it's always so interesting to see the guts of this old house

door frame of new foyer entrance

old dining room door and trim removed, looking through to new doorway

new dining room wall! all old chair rail and baseboards from foyer were carefully removed and  saved for reuse on new  DR wall

The new section of wall is also being insulated to hopefully provide some kind of sound barrier. We are also reusing the original door, albeit with a new or repaired doorknob---that thing hasn't worked right since we moved in.

Thanks for reading!