And the sink is in! We can brush our teeth in the main upstairs bathroom again without spitting in the toilet or tub. Too much information? Probably. I think the tile and grout went in very smoothly, although you would have to ask Matt for the true story there. I didn't hear any grumpy mumblings coming from the bathroom as he was working, so I consider that a success. I'll let the photos tell the story:
How did people do DIY home improvement projects before YouTube? It was the go-to source. The trick was to watch enough different videos until several of them said the same thing, then follow those directions. Really, what could go wrong with that method?
It really did go fairly smoothly, especially since he felt like he had such trouble with the backsplash project in the downstairs bathroom. There are several tubs of premixed grout in shades of white and tan, but we wanted something light gray, which meant buying the colored powder and adding water to make grout. We ended up really liking the color, and hopefully the slight shade of gray will hide some of the toothpaste mess that's bound to grind into the grout. We can always hope.
And the final piece - the sink! Hooray! We bought the faucet about a year ago on clearance, knowing we were going to redo a bathroom eventually, but we never took it out of the box. When it was removed, we found that it was basically colored plastic. Oops. Way too late to return it at this point. No wonder it was so cheap! You would think we would know better by now. It's working great for now, and the faucets turn smoothly, so hopefully if we're careful we'll get a few years of use out of it. It's been really nice to have a bathroom with an actual working toilet, tub/shower, and sink all at once. Not that they're all in use at once, but you get the idea.
The biggest mistake we've made so far is the mirror. We didn't like the layout of the vanity lights and mirror before so we thought we would go all trendy and get fancy lights and a framed mirror. There was a reason the former owners did what they did. The bathroom has a strange slanted ceiling because it is under an eave. That slant starts right over the bathroom light fixture. The mirror we bought is in a cute frame, but that takes about 4 inches off the total height of the reflective part of the mirror, meaning Matt cannot see the top of his head at all in it. Even I have to duck a little to see my whole head. Not good. Squatting while you shave or do your hair might be great for your quads, but it gets old really fast. Plan B is to buy a plain old unframed mirror at a large home improvement store and hang it as high as we can go, directly under the vanity light fixture, and then hope someday when we sell this house the new owner is no taller than 5'10". Ah, the quirks of an old house.
Despite the long break away from this blog, work has been moving along. The trim is in, although unpainted, the vanity has been moved back in, and my grandma's antique medicine cabinet has been hung on the wall. I went into a home improvement store the other day to return a pipe section Matt didn't need, and to buy tile for the counter top. When I pulled out my driver's license to show the lady at the cash register, she just waved it away and said, "Oh, I know you. You're in here a lot."
Oh.
This should be our first sign that it's time to take a break. When the checker at the huge home improvement store in another town recognizes you, that should say something.
Here's the board and batten trim:
The original baseboard in the bathroom was 10 inches wide. Matt ripped it with his table saw into two sections -- a six-inch and a four-inch section. the six-inch section is the new baseboard and the four-inch section became the top of the molding. Towel hooks will be screwed into this top molding once everything is painted. Now that the vanity is fully painted and waxed, I really like the way it turned out. The paint was easy to work with. My mom and I distressed the edges of the drawers a little, so it wasn't quite as perfect and smooth. The idea is that as soon as we start using this regularly it is bound to get some chips in the paint. If we have already started that process gently, maybe they won't show as much. I can always dream.
Now for the counter - I mentioned in a previous post that we weren't sure what direction we were headed. One piece units seemed to be either low quality, or insanely expensive. The materials to tile are far cheaper, but to hire someone to install the tile puts the price up higher than getting a good quality all-in-one counter and sink because of the time it takes to put everything in and then wait for everything to dry before the grout can go in. We haven't really tiled before. We (Matt) installed a small backsplash in the downstairs powder room and used two sheets of mosaic tile. The installation was simple, although the grout gave him trouble. He didn't enjoy the experience at all. Those youtube videos make it look a lot easier than it actually is, apparently. He finally decided to tackle another tile job. It is cheaper all around and should hold up well if it is installed correctly. After buying all the supplies, including a tile cutter, we're ready to go.
After placing a few tiles so he would know how many he would need, they all came back off so he could draw and cut the opening for the sink. This went through the heavy-duty plywood he put on top of the vanity, and the HardieBacker that goes directly under the tile. (By the way, I learned through this process that this stuff is named after a person. I always thought it was "hardy-backer", you know, because it was hard, or something. Duh. James Hardie is a cement siding guy. I wonder what they would have called it if his name had been something like Bagdonovich. Just wondering. These are the things that keep me up at night.)
We both kind of liked the look of the painted vanity and the stained top, but it is impractical for an area that will see so much water. I'll have to remember that look the next time I'm painting furniture, like a kid's desk. Could look good.
When my grandmother moved out of her home many years ago and into a small apartment, we got her antique medicine cabinet. I have always liked it, including the silvering on the mirror that is chipping away. Matt says that's a fancy way of saying the mirror looks awful, but I think it gives it character. It's not like I'm trying to apply makeup using that mirror anyway. At our old house we had it in our back bathroom and it was hard to see. I really like where it is now.
This medicine cabinet sat on the floor of this house for several months when we moved in because we weren't sure we were going to be able to use it. There is a rod that hangs under the bottom of the cabinet for a towel, and my refined children liked to use it to sword fight. I promptly took that away and put it in a safe place. Anyone have any idea where that safe place is? Because I can't find it now. I'm sure it will turn up at some point.
Through the middle of all this mess, school has started! After seeing all the cute "first day of school" photos my friends posted online, I realized that in true mother-of-four fashion, I had forgotten to take a first day of school picture. So here are my kids - on the SECOND day of school! I win the Mom of the Year award for being on top of things.
My oldest did not wear his "I [heart] bacon" shirt on his first day. Wouldn't want to give the wrong impression, now. We were slightly more put together on the first day. It's all downhill from here.
I took a shower tonight! In my very own house! And you know what? I might take three or four showers tomorrow, just because I CAN! That's right, folks, the shower is in and usable. The bathroom is nowhere near completed, but the most important part is done, and just in time. Matt goes back to work in 2 days, and I start my first part time job in 11 years on Monday also. [Cue the circus music, commence the plate spinning and fire juggling.]
The next steps are to finish installing the trim and painting it. We're reusing as much of the old trim as possible to save money, which makes the painting harder.
Normally I'm the painter here, but Matt took over this job since I've been trying to prepare to start work on Monday and have had some meetings to attend. It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but the color is a blue-gray. The lower 2/3 of the wall is white, and Matt is going to add some trim to give it a board-and-batten style of wainscoting. The choppy line between the blue and white will be covered by a piece of trim.
You can see the condition of the trim around the window. It's kind of interesting all chipped up like that, and some people do crazy things like make furniture out of reclaimed wood. It can look really neat, but we need the boards for the trim so it will all be repainted. Also, listen up window companies: There is no need to cement the label onto the glass. How am I supposed to get that ridiculous thing off there? I have peeled and carefully chipped away with my fingernails, but it is stuck fast. I know easy-peel labels exist, so why not use those? Really, now, you might need our business sometime in the future so why not make me think, "Hm, I think I'll go with that easy-peel label company!" Just a thought. Can you tell from the set of Matt's shoulders how much he ADORES painting? I think he would rather have a root canal.
Look, water in the tub! Isn't it pretty?
It's slowly coming together!
The bathroom looks so different than when this all started! We still have so far to go to finish completely, but it's starting to look like a bathroom again. We found out yesterday that Matt needs shoulder surgery within the next month. The full recovery time on that is close to a year, so this suddenly feels urgent. We wanted to be finished with the essentials before school started anyway, and that's about two weeks away.
Matt has been busy installing the moisture-resistant drywall around the shower, and last night he installed the shower surround. This was a much more difficult job than he expected, and by the time he realized he probably needed some help holding things in place it was too late. Thankfully the kids were gone yesterday evening so they missed all the, um, excitement.
The shower surround comes covered in a blue plastic film, and we're leaving that on as long as possible to protect it from scratches. The kids were quite confused by our choice of a blue shower, and I don't think they fully believe that it will actually be white when it's finished.
It's back to the tape and mud over the next couple of days, and then texture and paint. Now that the partial wall is covered in drywall the bathroom looks more enclosed. I can't start painting yet because Matt has more sanding to do and mud to apply, and I don't want the dust from the drywall mud to stick on a new paint job. More waiting...
Our next big decision is flooring. The one home improvement job Matt has done in the past that he swore he would never do again is lay sheet vinyl. I think grouting tile is pretty high on the list now also, but that job might be coming again anyway. When we were considering keeping the old tub, we were just going to paint over the red floor with a good, heavy-duty porch paint. Many old houses have painted floorboards upstairs, so the look would work. Now that we cut into the floor to move plumbing, we need more water protection. Hiring someone to install flooring is expensive. This might have to be a final step, where we wait awhile to save up for this. Now that we're under a time crunch, we might have to have someone else do this step. Other than spending the money, I'm sure Matt wouldn't mind passing this job off to someone else.
With all the heavy lifting, it's no wonder Matt needs surgery. I told him not to worry about it. I'll just finish up the bathroom. I see no downsides to that plan, right? What could possibly go wrong?
The vanity is partly painted. I'm not sure what I think right now. It still needs to be waxed to finish it off and that will change the color a little.
And we have a tub! It's not usable yet, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. July 5th - that's when the old tub went out. It's been a smelly July. The plumbing only needed to be moved over about a foot or so:
and then run up the wall for the shower. Matt also had to build a false wall to go on the other side of the tub. It makes the bathroom feel a little smaller, but it needed to be there to fit the tub into.
Isn't it pretty? We hope we can start using it by the end of the week. Obviously, the whole bathroom will take awhile longer, but at least we'll have water upstairs.
A tub comes in a giant box. What does one do with a giant box? Really now, what else would we do with it?
I'm finally able to help in this whole process, and I'm pawning my work off on someone else. This bathroom has a five foot long vanity with a single sink bowl. We've been asked many times by many people if we're going to add another sink. The short answer - it would take a massive plumbing job to add a sink. New pipes, new drain, the whole nine yards. In the end, I would rather have extra counter space than another sink anyway. The only time right now that we're in there at the same time is on Sunday mornings, and it hasn't been an issue having one sink. The vanity looks like this:
except of course the drawers and cupboards are all attached and in the runners. It's the basic golden oak color, and it's in decent shape. The drawers all open smoothly and everything is straight. We looked into putting something new in, but in the end we would be spending money for something when the one that's here is perfectly serviceable. I still want to update it a little. My mom has refinished a lot of furniture over the years - I think almost every desk and bed I had as a kid came from a junk store and was stripped, sanded, and refinished by my mom. We couldn't decide what we wanted to do - stain it darker, or paint it. Paint, stain, paint, stain, paint, stain... You wouldn't think this would be such a big decision. After a little research we've decided to paint it using chalk paint. This is the "new" darling of the furniture painting world, and I've never used it so it could be a disaster. This is what we're using: http://www.anniesloan.com/acatalog/United_Kingdom.html and I picked it up at a paint store in Clovis. The kids voted on blue, so that's what we're going with. The vanity is sitting on my parents' patio. (You know how you can tell this picture wasn't taken at my house? Look how clean the ground is. Dirt is afraid of my mom. It sees her coming and just decides it would be better to keep on moving.) She vacuumed it all out and sanded the doors and sides a little, and we will attempt the painting process next week. Wish us luck.
The old vanity top is a beige cultured marble. I don't love the color, but I would keep it if it was in good shape. However, all around the drain are hairline cracks, and since the sink is integrated as part of the vanity top, it's not like we can just replace the sink itself.
This has been tough - we have discovered that vanity tops are INSANELY expensive. Really. There is really only one option in stock in home improvement stores. It's also a one-piece integrated sink design, and it's all white. It looks like a hotel counter top. Again, that's not necessarily a problem, but if the cracks around the drain are a common problem then we will be dealing with this again in several years. I stayed in a hotel last week with that kind of sink, and there were cracks. My father-in-law has been helping us sell some of the stuff we've pulled out of the bathroom, and a woman contacted him looking to replace her vanity top because hers had cracks. Getting a solid slab counter and a drop in sink more than doubles the price, so that option is out. I called a tile guy to get a quote, and that was even more because of the time to lay the tile. Right now we're deciding between just going with the in-stock white counter top and hoping for the best, or figuring out how to install tile. Our budget for this whole project is practically in the negative numbers, so we're trying to be really careful, but we also want to always think to the future. I don't want to be replacing things in just a few years.
On another note - with all the comings and goings of this project, the door to the house is open a lot. Matt will prop open the front door, then go around the back to carry in the next heavy object. Kids will follow him outside, and leave the door wide open until I yell like a shrew at them to just SHUT IT ALREADY! Then the other day, I saw this:
Um, what is that?
Well, hello there. Perhaps it was gathering warmth from the sunset-colored carpet. Maybe it was hoping for a bath, and it will now be sorely disappointed.
Is this bathroom finished yet? I feel like we've been at a standstill for a week. Hopefully the plumber comes in the next day or two and work can start again.
