Finally! The moment you all have been waiting for! Ok, maybe not. You probably don’t think about my bathroom renovation too often, but if you’ve visited my house you probably have been wondering… when will Danielle post her bathroom renovation?!
Well, I’ll be honest. We didn’t finish it for a long time. That’s right: we rewatched all the seasons of Parks and Recreation between when we made the bathroom workable to when it was actually fully finished. Am I embarrassed about this? A little. But I’m pretty happy that it’s over, and we can enjoy it now without thinking, I wish this was done…
So much went into the project, so it’s going to be a pretty long post! Get ready for supply lists, tips and tricks, and things NOT TO DO. And also – it’s very difficult to get good photos of a 5’6″x5’6″ bathroom, but I tried my best
Check out Bathroom Renovation: Before
Click the heading above to see my bathroom “before” photos and see the inspiration for the design. I basically bought everything in this blog post from Beginning in the Middle, so go check them out! I love ALL of their designs, so following them on Instagram is really fun 🙂
And here’s a few photos of the construction going on … so much dust and drilling and holes in the floor and messiness. I really did not enjoy this process. I know it saved us money, but it would have been much faster if we had professionals do it.
Supply List
We needed to buy everything new for this bathroom. We had to redo all of the plumbing… it was just a huge project. For a 5.5 ft x 5.5 ft bathroom. We really wanted to expand it and make it bigger, but we just didn’t have the time or money to move walls and everything. We did what we could, and I think it looks great!
The amazon.com links are affiliate links (if you click on them, I get a small commission but you’re not charged a different price).
- Clawfoot Tub from Home Depot (this is fiberglass and only weighs 50 lbs!! It’s amazing! and it was less than $1,000! Go buy one!)
- Clawfoot Tub Drain from Amazon
- Delta Linden Tub & Shower Trim Kit from Home Depot with this adapter
- Delta Shower Head Extender
- D-Shaped Shower Curtain Rod from Home Depot (you’ll need to trim the ceiling support rod because it’s super long… and you might need to order another one. I ordered this one from Amazon)
- Long Shower Curtain from Amazon
- Bluetooth Speaker Shower Fan and Light from Home Depot (this is pretty cool, but was not easy to install and was missing a bunch of parts even though we opened a sealed box)
- Shower Caddy from Amazon
- Pedestal Sink from Lowe’s (looked around a lot for the perfect one because I wanted ledges around the sides)
- Delta Lahara Sink Fixtures from Home Depot (not a big fan of the Linden sink fixtures for some reason… and these barely fit my sink, but whatever)
- Sink Light from Home Depot
- Delta Linden Towel Ring from Amazon
- Gold Spray Paint! This is “Satin Bronze” to match the other fixtures
- Cabinet and Shelf from Ikea
- Toilet Paper Holder from Amazon (just want you to have as much info as possible lol)
- Merola Ceramic Floor Tile from Home Depot
- Wall Tile from Lowe’s (I regret this because it’s not bright white. Should have bought this tile from Home Depot)
- Edging Tile from Home Depot (this one is bright white, so they don’t match… but I’m sure it looks ok)
- Grey Grout from Home Depot (we bought the pre-mixed stuff…. it worked really well!)
- Grey Caulk 🙂
- Minwax American Chestnut Wood Stain from Home Depot
You’ll need some obvious tools, as well. Tile drill bits, wet saw, tile sponges, etc….
Onto the fun stuff…
Shower & Tub
Part of the reason this took a little longer than expected was all the plumbing… and the fact that Eric’s not a plumber. He worked so hard on this, but plumbing is not easy. Since we’re not professionals doing this everyday, there were mistakes that needed to be redone, and then we didn’t buy enough pipe or tubing or something…. SO MANY TRIPS TO HOME DEPOT. I THINK I WAS THERE EVERY DAY.
Can we talk about how amazing my tub is?! It’s a soaking tub, so the back is higher, and it’s just so beautiful!
Tile
Also, one of the great things about an old house are all the uneven floors! ? Ok, but seriously, it’s pretty challenging to install tile when the floor isn’t level or square. We had to custom cut a lot of little slices along the edges, and the tile isn’t perfectly straight in some areas where we didn’t know what we were doing.
Sink
The medicine cabinet is original to the house, so I just spray painted it gold to match. Aaaand I could not decide on a light fixture, so I bought the cheapest one and spray painted it gold, as well. Lights are so expensive and I just wasn’t ready to make a commitment.
Window/ Door Trim
Ahhh the doorway. Our original plan was to save all the trim, strip it, and re-stain it, but most of the old trim was rotten. Instead, we built new trim in a similar style and stained it to match the rest of the trim in our house (the rest of our house has chestnut trim, which is very rare and so cool!). For some reason we couldn’t replace the door frame… I don’t remember the details. Anyway, we decided to sand it down and stain it. I tried to do it by hand, but there were too many layers of paint. Eric said the beltsander would take it off in like 5 seconds. OMG THERE WAS SO MUCH PAINT.
So that’s the part of the project that took the longest, because we could live without it. But also, because I was waiting for someone to tell me an easier way! We thought maybe we could just stain the window and paint the doorway… but that would look dumb. Finally, last week in NOVEMBER (we finished the project in June), I decided to wrap this up.
I definitely expected the sanding to go faster (and with less body sore-ness), but the completed trim looks great. However, I decided I don’t really enjoy doing this, and I would much rather be hanging out with my puppy and reading a book. Never again.
One portion of the door was really bad, and we eventually bought paint stripper to help out. This stuff burns through everything and the house smelled awful, but it did help. Unfortunately, all the paint STILL didn’t come off, but now we say it just give it character ?
Storage
Storage was a big problem in the old version of the bathroom, so I was really excited to find this giant cabinet from Ikea that’s been working great. Also… minimalism helps in these situation… This holds the basic cleaning supplies, makeup, first-aid kit, and hair brushes… towels are in the cabinet in the hallway, and the guest room closet has the extra toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues :/ we work with what we have, and it works well.
Next Projects
We have so many projects going on with the house right now. We recently dug up the yard because of a well issue, but the next thing will probably be new heat in the house! And a bigger closet in the hallway!
I have plans to paint the living room white, add some Ikea billy bookcases, maybe some wallpaper in the hallway…. Oh, and I need to put together a post about my new office in the attic.
I just bought some autumn-colored fabric (a little late, I know), so hopefully that quilt will be finished before Thanksgiving ?
Sorry for such a long post (and for not posting in MONTHS)! Hope you enjoyed it!
The bathroom looks so amazing!! So glad your were finally able to finish it. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy (and already have) many relaxing soaks in that awesome tub.