Master Bath Completion

After months of getting just a little done at a time (probably because we started the kitchen project!) we are finally done in our Master Bathroom!  Just a quick reminder, here is what we started with:

So yeah, it was definitely in need of some updating!  So here we are now...

By pushing out the shower to make it decent sized, we lost some of the space between the vanities. But that wasn't a bad thing in the end. We bought these two Hermes vanities at Ikea, and I found this rolling cart. It's the perfect for the space and adds a lot of storage, as you'll see below.

Our tub now. While I absolutely love our new shower, the bathtub is still my favorite! This is a 72 inch tub and it is SO spacious. For the first time in my life I can soak my entire body in the tub and then some. No more loud jets that spray everywhere or a tub that can't hold water. It is the perfect size for the space.

 I'm really pleased that nothing is crammed in. It feels spacious even with the shower extension. 

I took these photos at night, so the lighting isn't cooperating with my camera.  The Builder's vanity has the CFL day light bulbs. We both agree, we hate them. I plan to switch them all to the LED bulbs soon, but this works temporarily. 

Still fighting the lighting in here. This is the new light fixture we chose for the vanities. They have the same chrome finish the shower, vanity, and bath tub fixtures have, so it all coordinates together. I didn't think I wanted to chrome, but it's sparkly and pretty. I'm pleased.

The rolling cart again. So the vanities don't have a lot of counter space. Particularly for my big electric toothbrush and water pick (my dentist swears I need this and after what I've spent there this year, I'm willing to try). It also holds things like my hair dryer and flat iron, that I use consistently. I really like this because my chords don't get tangled up! Also things don't get lost or pushed to the back. Super convenient.  

So this is a perfect example of why you should look at your space before you get ready to complete a blog post. The towel on the left is mine. It's one of the new ones I bought. The towel on the right is The Builders. I always hang my towel neatly. He...doesn't. Sigh. But this is the new shower curtain as well. I can't afford the frameless shower door right now, but I really like this new shower curtain in here.

Last but not least, my vanity. The shower is on the other side of the wall. I plan to put up a small towel ring for a hand towel or my washcloth. You can see that there is a decent amount of counter space. I can easily get ready in the morning. The biggest adjustment has been the shallower sink. But it's not a deal breaker.

With the odd angles of the room, it's actually difficult to get a shot of the entire bathroom. But it's still super spacious and now completely updated. And it's so nice to have another project completed!

Plumbing, Electrical, and Drywall, Oh My!

The shower pan I left you with last was exciting, I know. And I'm probably the only one excited about plumbing, electrical and drywall (oh my!). But it's one step closer to being able to put up tile. And that is my goal at this point.

The photo to the left shows electrical that needed to be moved.  The vent, the light switch, and a light not shown, over the toilet. We also decided to add some insulation because my youngest sons' room is right over our bedroom and stairs are on the other side of that wall. Also, The Builder is showing where the new shower light is going to go in.

The total cost on this part of the renovation was under $80. That included the light for the shower, insulation, and new drywall.  We'd already bought new electrical outlets as well as the light switch (I think we should buy stock in electrical outlets, we seem to be replacing them in every room!)

new light and light switch

I was moderately concerned that this shower was going to turn into a cave, since there is no natural light in this corner now that the glass blocks are gone. And trust me, I would rather have a cave than those glass blocks back! But The Builder assured me that a light would be an easy installation. Everything went smoothly on installing it, so I am very pleased!

Now we have the drywall back in, the insulation is done, the plumbing is closed up, and the electrical is all moved.  The arrow on the top of the photo is the new light. The middle arrow is the switch that turns on the light.  The arrow on the right is the new double outlets. You can see all the drywall is back in in the vanity area (a project for another time). The section in the shower that you see barely that doesn't have insulation is where the built in shower nook is going to go. If you look really closely, you can see where The Builder penciled it in. :)

Just a quick look at the light and the vent now that they've been moved. We'll be replacing both now that we've moved them. The a/c vent had been painted white. It was awful. The light we had replaced on our prior landlord's dime after the water leak upstairs. We both hated it from the get go, but The Builder we were trying to keep it inexpensive since it wasn't on our dime. I'm not sure what fixture we'll put in yet, but this one is already starting to rust. No real surprise since I think we might have spent all of $30 on it.

Ta da, the light on in the shower! I don't know if it's obvious in the photo, but it really makes all the difference in the world. We've got more insulation to put in, as well as a waterproof barrier (no more water damaged beams for us!) and concrete board, but we're that much closer to getting the tile in. I'm ordering the the shower pan membrane this week for next week's install, and then we'll have one more layer of concrete on the shower floor, but after that, it's tile time! I think I can see a slight glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel...

The Shower Pan

This is our new shower pan. The Builder did an amazing job. I came home from work Monday night and he was almost done. I am dually impressed!

We don't anticipate getting a whole lot done in the coming weekend since it's Valentines Day. We have plans to go to Waco and visit Magnolia Acres! For those who aren't addicted to HGTV, there's an awesome show called "Fixer Upper" which stars hosts Chip and Joanna Gaines. I absolutely love their show. Magnolia Acres is their store, and The Builder is taking me to visit.  I'm so excited!

Stay tuned, we have new shower valves to install and then the concrete board.  All leading up to new tile!!

Building a Shower

Fast forward to this past Saturday. During the week leading up to Saturday, The Builder was chipping out the concrete from the bottom of the shower so that we could make a new shower pan. I'm not going to lie. This was the worst part of the demo. We had concrete dust from rafters to the front door. Friday night we had to go out to eat or we would have ended up with concrete dust in our food. I'll spare you the photo's of the dust cloud, even though we put up a tarp and tried to block as much as possible.

When we were done, this is new shower base:

The "square" bed is the original shower.  And the chipped out concrete section is the new extended portion of the shower. 

Clearly, we have more to do here.  In my previous post, I mentioned it was FFA show weekend.  The Builder and I had volunteered to do the concession stand before we ever ripped out a single piece of tiled or knocked down any walls.  Oops. So Saturday was a bust work wise (although we had a great time at the show and auction!). But this is where we were by the end of Sunday. Can you see the wall above? Yep, he framed in the wall as well. It's amazing how much an extra 16 inches of width and three inches to the depth. 

It's an awkward angle to get a photo because there's a wall to the left (the wall for the toilet alcove). But this is the new wall framed in. You can see that the light fixture is moved sideways. Yes, that will have to be moved as well. But that's a project for another day.

And here's the wall with drywall up:

Yeah, now it's really feeling like a shower!

For the rest of the week, The Builder is pouring the mortar for the shower pan, which has to be sloped to allow for proper drainage. We had contemplated tearing out the existing plumbing and moving it to the center of the shower. However, we watched a few tutorials on You Tube and realized that wasn't really necessary. And after the grit from concrete dust in my entire house after just that small section being removed, I can't fathom how bad it would be if we had to take out the whole thing. And The Builder said there is another layer of concrete below this one. No thanks. We The Builder can follow the You Tube tutorials to get the proper slope for the drain!

Have you ever read the book "If You Give a Mouse A Cookie"? In it, giving the mouse a cookie leads to more and more things. This is house this renovation feels. We realized after the drywall was up that with the glass blocks gone, the shower felt a little...cave like. I say that in the best possible way, and I'm sure the tile we chose will help lighten it up, but we also realized we're going to need to install a waterproof, recessed light. Which means taking the drywall down. And if we're going to install new electrical, we should move the current light, which is awkwardly placed between the shower and the toilet (yes, my toilet faces my shower. Don't get me started on that one..). So we're going to move that light to be centered over the toilet. At which point, The Builder noticed that the a/c vent is right in the path of the glass shower door we plan to install. So, that will need to be moved over about 6 inches as well. The Builder assures me these are all easy changes, just mildly time consuming. We shall see...

Demolition Day 2

The Teen's FFA project kept me busy this week, but The Builder has been working steadily on our shower for almost two weeks now. 

Today's post is all about tearing it down! I wish I could say I find demolition to be the exciting part of a renovation. But I don't. I hate the dust and the grime and the mess!

All the damaged parts have been completely removed. We found that the corner of the load baring wall had damage too, so we had to shore it up as well. You can see all the pink studs where we replaced the interior studs.

And yuck, look at all the debris!!!

Here's a quick picture of the corner. After The Builder removed the damaged piece, the wall actually sunk a bit. Yikes! Thankfully he was able to get the new piece in place and a little brute force later, everything was shored of securely. We'll have to do some drywall work, but at least there's no more rotten beams and load baring walls that could come down around us...

OK, the walls look lavender.  They're not.  But here's The Builder removing one of our vanities. We had to do this to move the plumbing. And the electrical. And install a new shower wall. Yeah, lots going on here. The vanity was probably the cheapest thing they could find. The doors and drawer fronts were real wood, but everything else was particle board. The last renovation this bathroom saw had them painting over the faux wood grain. Which bubbled up and peeled with the water leak. There was not point in trying to save this vanity. So it came out too.

And the only part of the demolition phase that I admit to enjoying?

Yes, down with the ugly 80's glass blocks!! We weren't sure how easily these would come out, but after trying a few different methods of removal, the sawzall worked best. These came down relatively quickly (I missed the rest of it coming out because I made a quick food run - that's how fast it went!). We've stacked them in the garage for now because I'm hoping to sell them on Craig's List. No, I would never buy them, but they still sell them at Home Depot, so someone must want them. I'm happy to make a small profit on them!

At the end of the weekend, we managed to get the drywall on the outside of the wall re-installed. Can you see how much larger the bathroom looks by taking out that glass wall?! I am never going to miss those blocks. I can say that with 100% confidence.

Yeah, the cat is really curious during this project. He refused to stay out of the photos at the end of the day, and I gave up trying to snap one without him in it. He's aptly named Zorro!

As anxious as we are to have our shower back, we're doing this shower in small bits each weekend. The Builder's work can start to get really busy in the spring and I don't want him to work 7 days a week!

Stayed tuned for more update...

Parting shot of Zorro. Because he's our little shadow!

Demolition Day

Today is the day. Today is the day I finally tear out the thing we call our master bathroom shower. The builder and I got up this morning and jumped head first into the project. 

First we tore out the drywall on the other side of the shower wall to determine how bad the water damage was to the wall studs:

As you can see, the water damage was limited to just the bottom portion of the wall where the leak was. We had opened up the outside of this wall during the fall to let the wall dry out (it had been heavily saturated at one point) and only closed it in with a piece of drywall during the holidays (because nothing says Merry Christmas when you open the front door like a glaring hole in the entryway wall!)

From first inspection, this really didn't seem so bad and was about what we expected to find. The Builder had already told me we'd need to replace the one wall stud and of course the drywall we ripped out.

What I wasn't prepared for was what we couldn't see. I felt like we were on a HGTV show where the host has to come tell the family the bad news that the damage is worse than they initially thought:

See the arrows?  That's where the stud is complete disintegrated from the water damage. And it's not just in one spot, it was two different beams. Thankfully, the one closest to the wall is not a structural beam. In fact, after closer inspection, that stupid part of the wall that juts into my shower and makes it the 30 tiny inches that it is is purely by design. So we're removing that section and moving the electrical to widen the shower and make it more functional.

Just in case you forgot, here's a close up of the actual shower itself:

Those gloss blocks were from a renovation after the house was built. No one in my neighborhood with my floor plan has a shower built like this. The arrows point to where we first started seeing signs of mold and water damage.  It was coming in BEHIND the grout and caulk. So no matter how much I bleached the shower, it was never really clean.  In the last couple of weeks, it started doing the same thing on the wall where the shower handle is too. There was just a little bit of water seepage when we pulled down the tile, but no stud damage, which was good. Can you tell how narrow this shower really is?

Here's what it looked like after we tore things out:

The tile on the back shower wall pulled off without any effort. Not even a hammer. The Builder just stuck his pry bar in to wedge out a corner and the whole thing came sliding down. The other side he did use his pry bar and hammer to remove the tiles. Except for the bottom corner, they took a bit of muscle to chisel out. That's how all the tile should have been!

This was all reduced to a pile of rubble by the time The Builder was done. We're going to have to remove the tile and that small shower pan so the curb is coming down too.

Let's take a minute to look at the section of wall that juts out to my shower:

The only purpose of that small section of wall that juts out the 8-10 inches is to house the only electrical outlet in the entire bathroom. No, you didn't read that wrong. That little plug is it. It charges The Builders shaver, my electric toothbrush, my curling iron, my blow dryer, etc. And of course, the vanity you're looking at is not mine. It's The Builders. He really loves sharing with me. Really...

If you look at the side between the shower and the vanity though, you can see that there is quite a bit of yuck building up:

Yes, that's water damage on the wall. And that section is SO hard to clean. My blow dryer typically hangs on a hook on the side here, but due to the dampness, the hook recently fell off. This vanity is coming out (we're buying new ones for this renovation) since we're widening the shower and we're moving the electrical. None of that will get done this weekend. This weekend is just about the demolition and repairing the rotted studs. We'll have to install new drywall too or you have a straight view from the front door to my toilet. Not my definition of room with a view! Also, since my bedroom is an "open concept" with no door to separate the mast bath from the master bedroom, the wall being down leaves no privacy whatsoever. 

The Builder is doing all the stud repairs as I type so expect another update soon!

Another Bathroom

The Builder and I are about to embark on another bathroom renovation, this time in our Master Bath. We've been putting it off for a good six months, but it really is time. No matter how much I bleach my shower, it looks gross in a matter of days. Plus we're worried about the structural beam getting damaged from water. In case you forgot, here's the bathroom at it's present state:

The shower in it's present state is 30" wide.  It's TINY. Since it has to be gutted, we're widening it to 47". We're also putting in a shower niche for a more practical storage for shampoo bottles. Instead of glass blocks (I really, really won't be sad to see them go) there will be a solid wall so we can have dual shower heads. Say goodbye shower curtain that hides the ugliness behind it and hello to a glass shower door.

The first step was to decide on tile. I stalled here because I wasn't really impressed with the selection at either Lowe's or Home Depot.  Then I happened on a local tile store and found this:

It may be hard to see in the photo, but these are large, rectangular tiles. And while I would love the diagonal (over and a herringbone) pattern, The Builder emphatically said no. Something about too many cuts, the expense of extra tile, blah blah blah (yep, that's what I heard after he said no, lol).

We also plan to run a band of decorative tile in a vertical stripe all the way up the middle of the back shower wall. The tile I fell in love with was on clearance that day, so we bought it. This will run through the niche as well:

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but when I saw this tile, I knew it had to be my accent and we'd need to find a tile to coordinate with it (I suspect you're supposed to do it the other way around!). I was OK with the price, but when the cashier rang it up and it was 50% off (I literally spent $40 on one box and two extra sheets) I was beyond pleased!

Surprisingly, it was the shower floor tile that was the most difficult to decide on. We looked at a river rock style, but it was too dark. We looked at a "penny" style tile in gray, but the The Builder thought it looked too cheap. Then we came upon this octagon tile:

If you look closely, there's a band of dark tile sort of in the middle. On the left is a large tile, on the right is a smaller tile. We both agreed we like the larger tile better. This tile picks up the darker color in the accent tile, as well as coordinates with the carrera marble tiles in the wall. 

The shower doors we're ordering custom from Home Depot. A little over $200 for a custom fit, frameless shower door is a good price. Before we can order it though, we have to rip out the old shower, replace all the damaged studs behind the wall, replace the cement board, drywall, build a new floor pan (thank goodness for YouTube videos!!) build the new wall and redo the plumbing - not necessarily all in that order! It's going to be a lot of work, but definitely worth it in the end.

Since this is our master bath, the full renovation will have to be done in stages.  Here's the current plan:

1. Shower renovation - we're hoping for a 6 week turn around, unless The Builder has to start working weekends again, then it could be longer
2. Replace both vanities, which will include reworking the plumbing and adding more electrical (there is ONE plug in the whole bathroom, and it's not on my side). We estimate this to take about 3 weeks since we're purchasing vanities from Ikea (more on that in another post).
3. Tub re-do. We're either going to refinish our existing tub, which we're not 100% excited about since the jets have recently started leaking rusty water even when we don't use them, or buy a updated tub from Restore, which still may need to be refinished. We're seriously leaning towards the second option, since we'd like a larger tub as well.  I'm a bath girl!! We also want to do built in shelving behind the tub for decorative and storage purposes, as well as tear out the medicine cabinet and put in a recessed panel there as well. I don't have a time frame since I'm not 100% sure which option we'll go with
4. Add a bathroom door! So we have an "open concept" master bedroom where there is no separate of space. I hate it. If I leave for work first, I have to tip toe in a dark bathroom to get ready with only the light of my cell phone to do my hair. If The Builder leaves first, there's no way he can be quiet, and I'm going to get woken up anyway. Plus if the kids are hanging out with us watching TV, I have to have them leave if we need to use our restroom, or go use our powder room toilet. Not practical. This should be a weekend job for The Builder and is last on the list of priorities.

Huge list when I look at it, but since we won't start a new phase until the first one is completed, it shouldn't be too bad.  Famous last words...

Same Story Different Day

The Builder and I were watching HGTV the other night (he'll tell you it's the only channel I watch - not true, I just love Property Brothers, Rehab Addict and Fixer Upper...well, and Sarah's House and Candace Tells all, but those two don't have new episodes anymore, bummer!!). You know, any place I can get ideas! 

Anyway, Fixer Upper was on and they opened up a wall and found water damage. And The Builder informs me he's afraid that's what he's going to find when he opens up our master bath shower. What? OK, there's a small hole along the baseboard on the outside of the wall, but it could be anything. Right? All he does is look at me. Yeah, probably not anything. Probably more shower tile that the grout is now leaking like it did last year in the kids bathroom upstairs. You know, the one that still has the temporary vanity and no bathroom mirror. Yeah. The Builder also informs me that since that's a load baring wall, we need to open it up and check sooner rather than later.  

Don't get me wrong. I am beyond ready for a bathroom update.  Take a look at what I currently have:

This shower is 34 x 30. A tiny shower. And look at those glass blocks!!!! I've seen other houses in the neighborhood - it's not original. Someone, at one point, chose to put that in. They were also leaking when we first rented the house but The Builder came in and put clear silicone over the grout lines. Overall, it's a functioning shower (and remember, this is the shower six people shared when he was renovation upstairs!!) but there is nothing about it that says master bath. I've also indicated where it's leaking (that we know of!!) which isn't apparent at all from the shower side. But take a look at the wall on the other side:

The stairs are to the left and the right opens to the dining room. That right corner is also load baring. Thankfully, we don't see any damage to that beam. This, in comparison to the upstairs bathroom, is mild. We've cleaned it up to leave it open to dry out for now but 4th of July weekend, we have plans to start our next renovation.

Here's a close up of what it looks like:

Yuck.

I swear, the hole was small. Like someone kicked the wall by accident coming downstairs (yeah, I don't know how you kick a wall by accident, but I have boys, so it could happen!). The Builder brought out his sawzall to open up the wall....but, it wasn't needed.  He just barely tapped it and it opened right up. No question is was water damage at that point. Might I add, this is the first thing you see when you enter my front door. Giant gaping hole. Fun. 

So, what do you do when faced with this dilema? Fix it and be done. A few new pieces of drywall, re-seal the grout, replace the hardy board. A true weekend project. So that would be the easy thing to do. We rarely do the easy thing.

As you can see in the first photo, this shower is ridiculously impractical. There isn't room for a single shampoo bottle or bod wash. I can't tell you the last time I bought a bar of soap. We're a body wash type of family! I've been on Houzz and I'm seeing a trend towards "shampoo niches" so this is what we're going for. The other thing we opened up was this weird spot in our wall that we thought might be part of the load baring beam. It houses the ONLY electrical outlet in the entire bathroom (which is the vanity that The Builder claimed, of course). 

Yes, it's really a two plug outlet. Enter my hair dryer, his electric shaver, my flat iron, my electric toothbrush, my curling iron, my hot rollers...at the very least, we should each have an outlet, right?! And you can see that this is about 10 inches off the wall.  It makes no sense whatsoever. 

So we have a plan.

The short term goal is to move his vanity to the right by about two feet. This will allow us to extend the shower to 54 inches wide. 34x54 is actually a normal sized shower (not super big, but almost double the width we have now). We have found shower pans online, which we won't be able to use since we are not moving the drain, but this will allow us to get rid of the hideous glass blocks and put in a standard glass shower frame. Since we're moving the vanity and the power, we're going to run power to BOTH vanities. Novel concept, right? "Eventually" we're going to build a new double vanity.

Right now we're picking out tile for the shower, which I think we've made a decision on, and pricing shower doors. I wanted a seamless glass frame but that may not be cost effective.  

Here's a few ideas for my inspiration

Traditional Bathroom by Etobicoke Design-Build Firms Design Excellence

This is about the size I'm thinking the final shower will be.  See the shower niche in the wall?  Love it! Practically speaking, we won't be tiling the ceiling, but it is lovely.

I like these vanities, particularly the bump out with the extra storage:

Traditional Bathroom by Edina General Contractors REFINED LLC

And since we're going to be opening up the wall on my side to run additional power, might as well go all the way and add some pretty shelving:

Traditional Bathroom by Clemson Architects & Building Designers Studio 511

I'm working on the final design board now. Stay tuned!