If You Give a Wife a Paintbrush,..She'll Want to Remodel Your Entire Bathroom

This next project felt very much like if you give a mouse a cookie.  It was 9 months ago, so if I forget some of the details, I apologize.

I decided that I wanted to repaint the bathroom, it was a weird pink putty color. Not very exciting.  It had an annoyingly low counter top vanity that I didn’t like either, so that had to go.  I wanted to make a vanity out of a dresser, it took me a long time of searching on Craigslist.  I wanted an antique dresser preferably, but I needed one that was long enough, high enough, and narrow enough.  I knew after a while that it wasn’t likely that I would find a dresser that would take up that whole space.  I went to tape to paint, and noticed that the floor trim only went to just behind the dresser, not a long the whole wall.  I would have to try and match the trim, or remove it and replace it.  I knew that I wanted to eventually put down new flooring, there was an ugly tile look linoleum in there.  I knew we wouldn’t want to paint and put in new base boards, just to rip it out and redo it when we decided to tile in there.  So I ordered tile and researched how to install it. 

Original Sink, Light, and Window Tile

Original Flooring, Toilet and the fur balls

Paint Color

In the meantime I tried lots of gray paints in the bathroom. They were all too blue, but I finally found a shade that I liked. Benjamin Moore Coventry Gray. Of course by this point I decided if we were going to put in new floor boards, we better put in the Wainscoting I had been eying too.  Patrick was growing weary of my “What if we’s?” by that point. 

Now came the fun part.  I ripped out the base boards, and Patrick disconnected the piping on the vanity, and we pulled that out. We pulled out the toilet. Next we ripped out several layers of linoleum, we were a little  afraid of asbestos, but after talking to our parents, we decided to go for it with respirator masks since it was such a small amount. We found hardwoods, but with tar on top of it. Patrick loves original hardwoods, and really wanted to leave them in there. I’m not a fan of hardwood in bathrooms, it can get messed up too easily. Patrick spent days scraping the floor so it was even and ready to put the new base flooring in.   

Original Floors, Where the Vanity used to Sit

Getting There

Old Floor is Gone!

 

After that we installed cement board over the floor. We started in one corner, and worked our way out. We used a chalk line and measuring tape, then used a razor to score and snap the cement board. We measured from the edges of the two walls by the toilet  to the center of the toilet hole and made a center mark on the board the very center of the toilet would line up. We then used a sharpy, and a piece of string.  We measured the string to be the length of the radius of the toilet hole, and we tied the string around the sharpy, and then we held the other end of the string on the center point, and used it like a compass to draw a circle around the center point. We then cut it out using the razor. We used a thicker layer of mortar to stick the cement board down.  We secured them using 1 ¼ inch cement screws every 8-10 inches around the edges, and throughout the center.  Next we sealed the seems using special tape made for those seems.

Patrick Adding Thin Set

 

Toilet Hole in the Cement Board

Boards Are In!

Meanwhile, we were still waiting for the tile to come in, we decided to retile the Greenhouse window in there using white Subway tile.  That was a fun adventure to our local tile store! It was much more expensive than Home Depot or Lowes, but we didn’t have to wait for it to come in, and it gave us time to practice tiling since  neither of us had done it.

We bought a tile saw for around $50 off of Amazon, it’s not professional grade by any means, but it’s much cheaper than the big intense ones, and it worked great for us with a little getting used to.

 

We used a chisel to pop out the old tiles, and then sanded down the surface.  Patrick measure and cut the tile with the help of 1/4 inch Spacers by starting in the middle of the front row with bull nosed tile. We pulled it forward just enough so that it over hung enough to cover the top of the tile that would be going on the front lip of the window sill.   We had to measure and cut the end tiles. Once we had one complete row, we worked our way backward row by row, staggering the centers each row.  The final row tiles are a little narrower than the other rows.  After all of the tile was measured and cut, we used tile mortar to stick them down.  It was important to use a small grooved trowel so that it went on very thin so it didn’t come up between the tiles.  After that we used placed the tiles using the spacers, and then let them dry for a day or two.  Then Patrick grouted them with a small tub of gray premixed grout, then used a damp sponge to wipe the excess grout. There is a fine line between not wanting to re-wet grout, and not getting it off of the tile.  If you don’t get it all off before it dries, it’s takes some elbow grease to get it off, and you risk stripping the finish.  We had to use scotch brand no scratch sponges, they are blue and come in a big pack for a reasonable price at Costco. (I always have lots on hand because one of my greatest household pet peeves is a smelly sponge, the smell makes me gag.) Once the grout dried we caulked the edges with white grout.

Back to the floor tile.  The White Hextile arrived, and Patrick’s greatest annoyance arose.  Everything I read said to use spacers and be very methodical in the spacing. After days of tears, countless you tube videos and swearing, we took a page from our favorite DIY show. Thank you Nicole Curtis, we just went for it! It was much easier. There is not one square wall in our bathroom, so resistance was hopeless. We learned to start in one corner and work our way out.  It was very important to use a very small gaped trowel, because the grout came up through the tile sheets.  I made the mistake of leaning on some with my knee, I now have a honeycomb shaped grout stain on a pair of my PJ pants.  Honestly, you can think and plan this one as much as possible, but if you don’t have square walls, just wing it.  Did it come out perfect? No.  Does it look good? Yes! Do most people notice our mistakes? Probably not.  We don’t do this for a living, and doing it ourselves saved a ton of money.  We couldn’t use a tile cutter for this, we used a tile nipper.   

To grout the tile we used the gray grout that you have to mix yourself. Instead of water we used a tile sealer, which is supposed to help keep the grout from staining. Again we were afraid of getting water in the grout before it fully dried, so we didn’t get as much off as we should have.  After it dried really well we used Scotch no scratch sponges and a lot of elbow grease to remove the residue that was left behind. Patrick swore he’d never do Hextile again, but 9 months later, he thinks it looks really good, and that it might be worth a few days from hell to put it in the downstairs bathroom too. We’ll see!

Once the floor was in, Patrick decided that we should get a new toilet.  We didn’t want just a normal toilet, we wanted something that looked a little more period appropriate.  We passed over the spaceage $90 ones from Costco, and opted for ordering one from Home Depot.  I actually was really impressed by the toilet at the hotel that I stayed in on a business trip to Durham, NC. It was a Kohler and looked like it had baseboards molded into it in the bottom. I probably would have never noticed it had I not gotten food poisoning and spent the night throwing up. It was way more than I would normally spend on a toilet, but we're happy we did. It's such a small space that we really wanted to use nice pieces. It would be two weeks until the toilet came in, so we turned to the wainscoting. 

 We chalked lined the wall at 4.5 ft, and I painted the bottom half of the wall up to that point with white paint. This is when I say cheap paint isn’t worth it.  It took me 4 coats to cover up that pink putty color with the cheap white paint, while the gray Benjamin Moore took 1, with a few touch ups. I would have gladly paid an extra $20 to save myself 3 extra nights of painting. Plus I would have had more left over of future projects. 

It is very important to work from the top down with wainscoting. Patrick didn’t believe me at first, but really, I promise, it works!! We decided to do a 3.5inch wide board on the top as the horizontal top piece. I painted them before I put them up with a few coats, since I was still using the cheap white paint. We put the bottom of the boards along the chalk line and used a level to make sure that they were strait. We put a string of wood glue on the back, and then used a nail gun with finishing nails to secure the boards, usually one every 10 inches or so. We cut the boards at opposing 45 degree angles so that the seams would be less noticeable, and caulked them with white paintable caulk, and then sanded them down. We used paintable nail filler to fill the nail holes, and sanded the holes down.  Unfortunately I don't have any during pictures of this.

We cut a piece of 2x4 to 12 inches to use for spacing.  We cut 1 ½ inch wide MGD boards to 4 ft lengths.  I pre-painted those as well. We started a few inches out from the corner behind the door, and measure around the room to make sure that our vertical pieces wouldn’t hit anything like toilet paper holders, or plumbing coming out of the wall. We adjusted to make sure we wouldn’t hit anything. This takes some playing with, and some math.

We butted the bottom of the board up against the top piece that we had nailed in place, and we made sure it was straight by using a speed square. We secured it with brad nails and glue like we did on the top pieces. We used the 12 inch spacer piece, and the speed square to line up all of the vertical pieces all the way around the room.  We have a weird corner that sticks out by the shower, so we put one on each side of the corner, so it was double thick. We also put one that the very end of the wall because it would have looked weird otherwise.

Once all of those were in we used 6 inch MGM board along the bottom.  We butted those up against the top vertical pieces, and used a level, and a speed square to make sure that they were straight. No walls in our house are straight, so that was why it was so important to work from the top down. The amount of gap between the floor and 6 inch bottom piece varies. We used a 1 inch piece of board as a final piece along the bottom, but we let it sit closer to the floor. It makes the variations look less noticeable. 

Once everything was done we filed all of the nail holes and seems with the paintable caulking and, waiting for them to dry, and sanded them down.  Patrick caulked along all of the boards, and then we painted the whole thing with another layer of paint.

Wainscoting and Tile

 Two weeks later our toilet arrived, and I saw shards of porcelain on my porch. The tank and bowl came in different boxes. The bowl was shattered. We loaded both into the car and took them back to Home Depot. We had to take both pieces to them to ship back , because they can’t track the pieces seperatly. We surrendered the intact tank, got a 10% discount, and waited another two weeks for our toilet.  This time we had it shipped to the store so that if they broke it, it was on them. We went to pick it up, and sure enough, this time it was a broken tank.  At this point we were ticked, but we wanted that specific toilet.  So once again, we reordered it, this time with an additional 5% off, and a gift card for our trouble. We finally got the toilet and it was beautiful.  We went to install it and realized that our gorgeous new wainscoting stuck out too far to allow the toilet to fit down over the whole properly. Again, learning curve! We ended up having to pull out a few boards and reposition them, which peeled up a  lot of paint with it, despite my best efforts to razor blade along it. More and more layers of that crappy paint to go to cover it up.

Toilet is Finally In!

 Next came the heater vent. We didn’t think we would be able to find a cool vintage vent, we looked at the salvage stores, plus they were expensive.  Instead we cut out the vent piece so we had basically a metal picture frame.  We got some radiator screen from Home Depot, and cut a piece to fit the whole.  That stuff isn't the cheapest, it comes in a 3x3 Sheet for about $23, but I have another project in mind for the rest of it. We superglued it in place.  Then we hit the whole thing with Nickel Metalic Spray Paint.  

  

Bathroom Vent

 
Finally we had the light fixture. There was already one in place (see beginning pictures). I had Patrick take it down, and I removed the glass shades. I sanded it down with a fine grit paper to rough up the finish. I wiped off the dust, and then sprayed it with a few boats of Krylon Bahama Breeze Spray paint.  I added some Edison bulbs and we were go to go! 

Painted Light with Our Future Vanity

We were almost done, but we were down to the piece that started all of this, the vanity. I had been looking for vanities through this whole process, but I hadn’t found what I wanted for the right price.  I did pick up a Kohler sink for $10 from someone on craigslist. It came out of their powder room and was in great shape. Finally, one of my moms fellow antique mall space owners found exactly what I was looking for at Goodwill.  My mom rushed down there and got it for me. It was $95. We had gotten the faucet already, it’s kind of a pump style. Patrick rarely gets really excited about things like faucets, so while it was more than I wanted to spend, we went for it. We traced the sink onto brown packing paper. We measured in about an inch from that line and made a ring the same shape, but one inch inside of that. We taped the paper in place, and used a jig saw to cut out the piece. We got lucky that the sink fit first try, we cut out less thinking we could always cut more if needed. Next Patrick sanded down the top of the vanity with a fine grit sand paper. 

Yes, That is a Storm Trooper on His Shirt

Bathroom Vanity and with Sink

We then had to cut the hole for the faucet, we figured out where it went, and Patrick cut another whole. Patrick then stained the top to match the sides, and then added he added a few coats of Minwax Helmsman clear satin urethane over it. Once that was all dry we used clear caulking on the bottom lip of the sink to glue it in place, then caulked around it again.  We got it into the bathroom, and Patrick plumbed it back in. Patrick then cut the drawers to fit around the pipes, and put in boards around the cut outs to keep our stuff from falling down through the wholes.

 

Finished Vanity, and a Cat

Finished Product, Yes Those are Tags on the Towels...Told you I'm Bad at Taking Them Off!

Our Last Project was a door from a Salvage Store.  That was our rule, you finish a room, it gets a new door. I found reproduction crystal knob, skeleton key door knobs on Amazon for around $25. They look great! Patrick took off the loose paint, and we added a new coat of the left over white paint. 

The bathroom was finished off with some towels and rugs from TJ Maxx, it pains my soul to see how much normal stores charge for them. The shower curtain from Target for $20.00. The colors are actually much softer in person.

Uff da!  What started as a light painting project turned into a full make over.  We want to pull the tub and shower liner eventually, tile up the walls, and the rest of the floor under the tub, and put in a claw foot. That is a beast for a more ambitious day.  For now I need to lay low and let Patrick recover. :)