I don’t watch a lot of TV — probably only about an hour per week. I recently signed up for HBO Now just so I could watch Lemonade, and I’m slowly making my way through the 6th season of Girls, but that’s about it.
However, when I travel for work and stay in a hotel, I binge watch HGTV like a crazy person. It doesn’t help that these days, networks are all about playing 4-8 episodes of the same show in a row, so I find myself up until 2am watching re-runs of Fixer Upper until I’m dazed and bleary-eyed. I can’t help it. I LOVE a good before-and-after. The more tragic the better.
When I bought my house, my cottage bathroom looked more or less like a dilapidated prison cell. The “walls” were made of flimsy water damaged panels, the floor was rotted through, and the window was corroded. Most infuriatingly, the toilet was oriented the wrong way, so when I sat on it my knees would bump the sink pipes. What crazy person thought that this was a good idea?!
Somehow I managed to tolerate (and use!) this mess of a bathroom for an entire year. There were times when tried to convince myself that it wasn’t so bad. “Maybe I’ll keep this little sink…maybe the tile around the tub can be refreshed without replacing it…maybe I don’t mind the fact that I can prop my feet up on the tub when I’m on the toilet.” But then one day I was just like, “I hate everything. Everything out, out, out!” So I dragged all of my bedroom furniture into my living room and just camped out there for the next 2 weeks while chaos ensued.
First thing first… demolition. I got rid of everything but the tub. I hired a guy to help me with the demo, plumbing, and electrical. I never would have been able to handle a renovation like this myself.
The bathroom is tiny (only 5 feet wide) so I wanted to keep it as open and airy as possible. I initially envisioned a bold black and white tile floor like this. I even bought the tile a year in advance and hoarded it in my shed in anticipation for the big reno. When it finally came time to put the new floor down, I had second thoughts. I was concerned that the high contrast would be too jarring. I kind of wanted the flooring to flow form the bedroom into the bathroom. The floor in my cottage is laminate which is not recommended for wet areas, so I scoured a few local tile shops to see if I could find a porcelain tile to match. I got pretty lucky. The 2nd place I checked was called Tile Depot and despite its ho-hum name, it was actually tile heaven. Beautiful showroom, nice sales people, good prices.
My new found tile helped me solidify my vision for the space. My handyman I worked 8-10 hours/day for 2 weeks on this tiny bathroom. Not gonna lie, it was hard!
After the new sub floor went in, we put in new drywall. The room was feeling a little plain, so I did what any Fixer Upper viewer would do — I installed shiplap (or rather, fake shiplap made of luan strips.) I realize shiplap is kind of trendy right now, but I DO live in a cottage, so it felt like the appropriate thing to do. I’m so glad I painted the slats first, because even though the gaps are only as thick as a nickel, you can definitely see them at eye level.
By the time the ship lap was done, I was feeling pretty confident and decided to tackle the tile floor myself. You’d think that a small 5′ x 5′ floor would be no sweat to tile, but let me tell ya…tiling a small bathroom is HARD. There was barely any room to move in there which made every step of the process so frustrating. I was also using a ton of mortar so that my porcelain tile would be perfectly level with the laminate floor in the adjacent room. Apparently mortar is SUPER heavy and really tiring to mix even with a drill and mixing attachment. Who knew?!
The tiling never really got easier. It was frustrating till the bitter end. I was definitely relieved when I made it around the toilet hole, though.
How many cuts does it take to cut a circle in the shape of a toilet flange out of tile? Only about 35. Unless your first tile snaps, then you’d need 70. :(
Grouted and sealed! Honestly the floor was a huge pain and while I was doing it, I kept saying that I wouldn’t tile a floor myself again.
My favorite project to do in any renovation is trim/moulding. It’s always a good sign when you’re ready to put the trim on. That basically means you’re almost done!
Just when I thought I was ready to put on the last piece of trim, I realized that because my overall floor is a little slanted (and always has been) my simple baseboard looked super crooked. I wound up having to buy a larger piece of lumber and cutting it at an angle to compensate for the slant. Ugh.
This was also my first attempt at installing subway tile in a real interior (as opposed to on a set.) The subway tiles are small and light enough that they’re relatively easy to install. I just did all the math first, then tiled in sections starting from the bottom. The best part about subway tile is that you don’t have to use any spacers. They are designed to have a 1/16″ gap between each tile. I would definitely consider doing subway tile again by myself in the future, because it’s on a wall as opposed to the floor.
So the bathroom is done now! I’ve lived with it for a couple months now, and I couldn’t be happier. This is my first time having my very own brand new bathroom, and it makes me feel kind of fancy, even though it’s not a fancy bathroom at all.
Sources:
sink and vanity: IKEA YDDINGEN/LILLANGEN
sink faucet: Amazon Derengge
mirror: IKEA GRUNDTAL
small metal shelf: Container Store Simple Ledge Shelf
toilet: Home Depot American Standard
wall hanging: Heather Levine Ceramics
shower/tub hardware: Amazon Kingston Brass
subway tile: Home Depot Rittenhouse
floor tile: Tile Depot Rosemead
Really well done Jen! Stunning! :*