SMALL BATHROOM RENOVATION
- Drew S
- Mar 2, 2017
- 4 min read
Spoiler – It turned out AMAZING!
The smallest bathroom in our house is located in the original master bedroom. Although we weren’t staying in that bedroom when we moved in, we wanted a fun DIY project and something on the smaller side, since this was our first time renovating anything in the house. Smaller was better.
The whole project took about a month and a half from tear down to finishing touches. As with any renovation or larger scale project, we ran into snags. Looking back, some of them were pretty interesting. We began tearing things out. Nathan sledge-hammered; I scooped rubble into buckets and dumped it in the driveway. You would think taking a sledge hammer to a any room would be fun, but the house was so old, we had to break through several inches of tile, ‘mud’ and mesh wire. A tornado couldn’t take that room out. Demo took several days and wore us both out. Having full-time jobs and coming home to a project like this one was exhausting (mostly for the husband).
So where did we dump the contents of the bathroom, you ask? In our driveway, of course. Dumpsters are pretty expensive when you move into the month range. The good news is, the pile was behind the house, so no one could see it from the street. After the bathroom was cleared, husband got to work on structural repairs. Turns out, the bathroom wasn’t square, had sagging in the floor and had much wasted space behind the original framing. Sounds bad, but considering how tiny that walk-in shower was, this was welcome news. We could reframe the shower and make it much roomier. He got to work on repairing old 2x4s that had rotted while I pulled out screws from the floor and framed walls. Then he got to the fun part: the sagging floor. This is just about the craziest part of the project. We had to take out the old floor boards – creating a hole that went under the house to the bedrock – and take a two-ton jack to lift the entire bathroom. I know it’s a fun story for my husband to tell, but I sat and nervously listened to the whole house crack under it’s pressure.
{Pictured above: Standing in the bathroom hole. Repairing the old floor. Me, unhappy with the mess in the guest room.}
It seems like it took forever to get the structure and the boring stuff done. I just wanted to paint and decorate! Once it was framed up, Nathan created the shower pan. After that, came wiring and plumbing.
{Pictured above: Mixing the shower floor. Shower pan and new bench seat. Shower insert. Copper replaced with pex. The second guest room was a mess. The staging area.}
Now that the hard stuff was done, I was happy I was able to finally contribute. Nathan got to work on putting up concrete board and closing in the shower area. I followed behind and was the designated caulk guru. My first time with a caulk gun turned out well! There were a few other steps I know I’m missing but drywall went up pretty quickly after.
I am not a fan of mudding and sanding drywall. This is a job best done with practice. We did not have practice. Looking back, we did alright. The imperfections in the walls are something no one would really notice unless they were looking for it! Okay, here’s where we get to the good part and I got to have some fun. Husband works for an industrial distributor for bath, kitchen, appliance and lighting products (and tons more). So, the toilet and pedestal sink came from his company. All of the tile came from The Tile Shop in Cool Springs, TN. For a classy look, we decided to go with Meram Blanc Polished Marble Subway Tile – 3 X 6 IN, that lined the bottom half of the shower. For the upper half and the ceiling of the shower, I chose a pricier option: Snow Glass Amalfi Glass Mosaic Tile – 2 X 4 IN. Although glass subway tile looks AMAZING in any room, I would go with larger glass subway tile. It took hours to put up the sheets, even in a smaller space. We chose the smaller tile because it was less expensive and we didn’t want it to be the same size as the marble subway. We didn’t want the two tiles butting up against each other, so we decided to add a marble pencil trim: Oyster Pol Somerset Marble Wall Tile. The floor tile in the shower was also marble, but we switched up the look: Tempesta Neve Polished Palatine 13 X 13 IN. To tie everything off, we bought a gray floor tile for the rest of the bathroom that matched the grays in the marble: Fronda Marengo Faux Wood Floor Tile – 8 X 24 IN. My husband, being the amazing negotiator he is, talked down the prices quite a bit due to how much we spent in The Tile Shop. The associates were great to work with and we’ll definitly be heading back for the next bathroom reno. Take a look at the tile work below!
The gorgeous light fixture above the sink came from my husband’s company. The paint color is called Ottertail by Behr. I chose this color to warm the room up a bit from the marbles and grays. It was the other color in the marble, though it’s hard to see in the photos. The glass shelves came from Lowes. They are no longer in stock, click here to see similar shelves. The mirror is called The Audrey Mirror from Ballard Designs. The apple wall art is from Target. And here is the finished product!
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