House Renovation - Bathrooms Before And After

I think today I’ll do a bathroom tour.  Our house has five, FIVE, bathrooms.  And before you go thinking how luxurious my life must be, I have to remind you that all FIVE bathrooms need to be cleaned.  That’s 7 sinks, 5 toilets, 3 tubs, 4 showers, and all that tile flooring with the associated GROUT that my children have free rein to pee in, on, and around, as well as dropping and spitting toothpaste, mouthwash, boogers, and other worse things.  I despise cleaning tile flooring.  That is, I despise cleaning grout. But only slightly less, I detest scrubbing bathtubs and showers.  Toilets I don’t mind.  I know that seems weird.  But it’s the grout, the mildew in the corners of the grout, the unreachable spots in the tubs and showers that give me fits.  But enough about this sordid aspect of the topic.  Suffice it to say that cleaning five bathrooms blows.  Now...let’s move on to the transformations!

Bathroom 1:  I’ll start with the basement bath because it was so shockingly horrible before, and so lovely now.  We nick-named it “The StarTrek bathroom” when we bought the house because of the weird rounded shower enclosure and nooks.  It reminded us of something from the original 1960’s Star Trek TV show set.  

But we tore out every speck of that bathroom.  It has now made a successful leap into the 21^st century. And I give Big Daddy full credit for this one.  He picked out everything himself, from the tiles to the layout to the furnishings.  He wanted a spa feel since this is the guest bath, being closest to the guest bathroom.  And it turned out absolutely stunning, I think. 

Here, for dramatic effect, is the before and after shot...

 What do you think?

Tile!!

I hate grout.  Hate it with a burning passion.  If you've ever had tile, you'll know that grout is a complete nightmare.  It is always dirty, so hard to clean, rough, stained, traps dust and spills.....I'm not even close to being a germ-o-phobe, but the thought of what is down in those cracks gives me the heebie-jeebies.  And then there's how it looks.  Even though I steam clean (AKA sterilize) my floor regularly, nothing seems to make it look better.  I've tried everything!  Bleach, Lemi-Shine, even scrubbing it with Comet and a toothbrush.  But it still always looks grimy and stained.   Tile is also cold.  And really hard underfoot.  So when we bought Little Pink House III and began renovations, I was pretty determined not to have any tile in it.  But, the alternatives were wood (not good in wet areas like bathrooms) and laminate flooring (ew!).  So I decided to take another look into the tile option.

The upside of tile is that it can be really beautiful.  So the appearance of the tile itself wasn't an issue.  But that grout!  So when I went to tile stores, I asked around:  What products were there that could make tile more user friendly?  Less rough?  Less prone to staining?  Easier to clean?   I got several answers.  The first was, make your tile joints a lot smaller.  Back in the day, people used these giant  1/4" grout joints.  But for almost all tile, you can get away with 1/8" or sometimes even 1/16".  Done!  Then, as for grout products, I was told:  1) Epoxy.  This is a combination of grout and epoxy.  It has a more smooth plastic feel.  It doesn't stain at all so it stays looking nice and it's easy to clean.  BUT it was a nightmare to work with, I was told.  And at almost $200 a bucket, doing 5 bathrooms, a laundry room, and a mud room was out of the question.  2) Polyurethane grout.  Same idea.  Made of polymers mixed with grout.  Smooth, stain free.  But about half the price.  Still, at $100 a bucket I was looking at a fortune just for grout.  3) Finally, on the advice of a very knowledgeable tile guy at my tile store, we found that mixing the sealant in WITH the grout, and some other special additive, made the grout really even in color without the usual staining caused by sealing it, and it responds way better to cleaning.  I had my doubts.  I still do.  I still think I may end up tearing my hair out over this amount of tile I just put in.  But he seemed pretty sure I'd like the result so....I went tile shopping.

For the master bathroom tile, Big Daddy and I chose a cream colored, shiny modern tile. 13x35, so pretty big slabs.  It has a sort of bamboo-ish stripe pattern to it.  I love it!  It will go on the bottom half of the shower and the tub skirt.


We paired that with 3x6 sea glass subway tile for the top half of the shower, the tub backsplash and the vanity backsplash, 1x1" sea glass mosaic tile for the shower floor, and Big Daddy chose a dark brown slightly linen striped 12x24" for the floor.

 

The tile in the master bath is all finished.  Do you want a sneak peak??  (The walls are still not painted and the floor is dusty, so obviously it'll look better than this when it's all finished and clean.)

Pippa's bathroom upstairs got a retro look with black and white hex tile.  I need to pick out a fun, whimsical towel/shower curtain design that won't be too busy for this polka dot look.  Any ideas?

Daphne and Beck's bathroom got a very modern 24x24" beige linen tile.  It was on sale for $2/square foot! And because it was such a deal, we splurged and bought this absolutely gorgeous aqua hex tile for the backsplash.

 






The upstairs laundry I chose black and white checkered 12x12" tile just like in my laundry currently.  Only it turns out that the one I bought is SUPER smooth and shiny.  I'm a little afraid of the cleaning prospects. Just see how dusty it is now!  However, since no one else ever does laundry but me, once the construction is over and the floor is carpeted, it will probably stay a lot cleaner.



The main floor powder room and mud room both got a really cool grey 12x24 inch tile with a glossy stripe pattern in it.   It has a little bit of brown tones in the stripes, which will go well with the brown hardwood floors just outside the mudroom and powder room.



And then on a whim we decided to tile the entire back wall of the powder room with a gorgeous lantern patterned tile.   It will be so amazing when the lights are in and the shiny red vanity is installed!

The only room remaining untouched is the basement bath.  Big Daddy chose a wood-look tile called Eclipse Olive. It looks like this...

And the general look of the room we're trying to achieve is this.  Very spa-like.  (Only minus all the fancy shower heads and steam thingies.  This is a GUEST bath not an actual spa!  Sheesh.)

Unfortunately, we've fun out of money to finish this bathroom so it'll have to wait until some future date when money shows up again.  Probably 2019.

The fireplaces, also, will have to wait. They had these horrible faux marble and faux granite surrounds, both mauve!  So those got ripped out and will be replaced with a lovely herringbone pattern, maybe like this (but probably not limestone = EXPENSIVE!)  Someday....




Of course, the kitchen backspash will be tile too.  I'm pretty set on a penny tile or an oval penny tile.  But since the kitchen doesn't exist yet (supposedly its going in on Thursday), I just haven't gotten my brain that far.  I'll update on that later.


Anyway, that, my friends, is how tile came back into my life.  I will report back later on whether the measures we took to make my life less plagued by grout were successful or not!

Choosing Paint (AKA How a Decorator Saved My Sanity)

It's done!  ALL the paint colors are picked out!  (Oh wait. I haven't figured out the master bath.  But I'm leaning towards white. That room's got a lot going on in there already.)  But anyway, I'm rejoicing because after months of stressing out to the point of hives over what colors to paint all the rooms in the house, it's finally all decided.  I did end up having to hire a designer to figure it out.  This was due to a little incident where, after weeks of planning colors for the basement to go with our milk chocolate brown sectional, making 3 trips to the paint store to get more samples and more paint rollers, painting 7 different swatches on several walls to observe the effects of light on each color, and eventually mixing 2 colors to get the exact perfect shade of pistachio green, Big Daddy came to look at the color I'd picked and announced that not only did he hate the pistachio green, he also hated that milk chocolate brown couch.

Commence tearing out of hair.

Followed by some heated discussions about color, furniture, who's watched more hours of HGTV, and whether the couch might seem a fun place to sleep for the next 2 months.  But then we realized this might all be solved if a professional became involved.

Enter the decorator.  She was referred to us by friends.  I had seen her work, scouted her pinterest page, and felt fairly sure there was a chance she could find just the right colors to save our marriage.  But still...picking paint colors is HARD.  And it took a lot of faith to put these choices in her hands.  But I think we have it done.  The winners are:

Kitchen/mud room .  A lovely shade of subtle blue-ish aqua -  Copen Blue (Sherwin-Williams)

Pantry and Main Floor Mini-Laundry.  A pale creamy yellow - Open Window (Kwal)

The rest of the main floor (living, dining, powder room, office, master, master closet).  A warm beigy grey - Siberia. (Kwal)   (I know, "Siberia" just sounds warm and inviting, right?)


Then there's the basement.  This is where my previous favorites "Refreshing Tea" (Behr) and "Soothing Lime"  (Olympus?) got mixed to make the perfect pistachio.  Which got nixed.  So our designer came up with her own idea:

Willow Herb. (Behr)  It's hard to explain, but it's a sort of pale golden green.  Very neutral, but fun.


Upstairs things get more colorful.  Pippa's room will be pink.  "Canuck" to be exact. (Kwal)  It's a soft ballet pink.

Daphne's room, which is getting a vinyl raindrop treatment of coral, grey, aqua, and turquoise will get white walls underneath.  "Mistaya" is it's name.  (Kwal)

Beck's room, which will be nautical themed, will get a pale grey-ish blue called "Sea Fog"  (Kwal)

The hallways and laundry room will be "Siberia" grey.  For now.  I want to put an accent color in the reading nook and eventually some kind of fun wall treatment (maybe a stencil, or some stripes) in the laundry room. But that's enough for now.  Six colors, plus white.  Not too much, right??

The new/replacement baseboards, crown molding, and door frames are already going up and have received their first coat of paint in some of the rooms.  We decided to replace the existing rosettes and plinths, which had a Victorian bullseye design, with perfectly plain ones to modernize the trim a little bit.  I bet you don't know what a rosette or a plinth is.  Well neither did I.   But now I do so, here you go!

So those are the little changes in the house this week.  And although they may seem small, once the paint starts going up, this house is going to begin a LOT different.  I'm so excited!


Next stop....tile!

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Perplexed By Pattern

IT'S STENCIL TIME!

I wish I had a bunch of awesome updates to tell you about.  But the remodel has stalled out over the last 3 weeks.  No one seems to know why.  It started with bad weather that prevented the crew from digging the footings for the family room expansion, and then turned into a 2 1/2 week long vacation to Bora Bora from all I can guess.  At any rate, no one has worked for a while until yesterday when magically they all showed up again and started working!

In the meantime, I've been doing some behind-the-scenes browsing and shopping.  Although Big Daddy doesn't like to make any decisions he doesn't see as absolutely crucial until the exact moment they are needed, I prefer to actually plan ahead.  I fancy that what color of bedding we choose for the new king sized bed might, say, impact the color of walls we pick.  So I've been preemptively scouting out bedding.

I've also been considering wall stencils.  We have a small laundry on the main floor and a pantry, both off the kitchen, that I thought I would do a wall stencil on. They'll both have a lot of wall space covered by food/shelving/washer & dryer, so I figured something kind of busy wouldn't be too overwhelming there.

I'm in love with pattern right now, and it's taking every fiber of my self control not to want to put pattern EVERYWHERE.  But I'm forcing myself to be limited to drapes, throw pillows, and these few wall stencils. So here are the ones I'm considering.  The walls will be done in pale yellow with white stenciling, so nothing too overpowering...

Please, tell me what you think!!

So....any thoughts?   

Small Big Changes!

So the house renovation continues.  We're about 2 months into it now, and you can really see the house starting to come together.  Almost all the drywall is now complete.  Most of the structural changes we've made are done.  The only BIG thing that yet remains is the expansion of the family room.  Other than that, they're down to sanding the walls, getting bids to replace the trim work that got ruined during the demolition/reconstruction and getting ready to put that trim up.

So, here are the recent changes that are (though small) exciting to me:

1) Our master bedroom doorway.  So to add to the ridiculous grandness of the 16' ceilings that are just SO not our style, the doorway was a double door.  I think if I were living in the Sound Of Music mansion and I wanted to throw open double doors dramatically every time I entered, they might be nice.  But in reality, I want my bedroom to be a peaceful, quiet retreat from the house.  So one, very solid, very thick door was all I wanted.  (Plus, making it smaller gave more room for the transition area between the upstairs stairs and the basement stairs, just outside our bedroom.)  Voila...



2) The old shelves have been entirely removed from the once-pantry and the electricity and water hookups have been added to make it a small main-floor laundry. 

3) The once minuscule laundry area has been moved, the walls patched up, and it is now ready to become our awesome mudroom.  I think aside from the master closet, I'm more excited about this room than any other.  None of my homes have had a mud room, and I am so thrilled of the prospect of having an organized place to keep all my kids' coats, hats, gloves, shoes, backpacks, lunchboxes, papers, and other miscellaneous buttloads of crap.

I know the picture on the right doesn't look like much. but picture 3 gorgeous white lockers and a wooden bench.  It'll be stunning once they're in!

4) This strange curved basement wall, a remnant of the former Falcon Crest stairway, had to stay because it was load bearing.  Well, now it's beautifully drywalled and sanded and is begging for some awesome wall treatment to make it a focal point in this otherwise long, rectangular basement.



5) The kid nook.  They made this under-stair waste of space a spot I think my kids will love to nest in.  Now I just need some genius ideas for what kind of mural to put in it.



6) The master shower is now 1 1/2 feet bigger and has a bench in it.  You know, for shaving.  Legs.  (And I'm not talking about me!)



7) The loft!  It's finally there, lights installed, switches above and below put in, drywalled.  I love it!



8) The new family room is completely walled in, drywalled, and the old trim removed.  You almost can't tell it used to be open to the living room.




9) We have a tub!  There was a really nice (broken) jetted garden tub in the corner of the master bath.  But in order to take the one-sink-in-the-closet and revert to a double vanity IN the master bath, we had to get rid of the corner tub.  Instead we got an extra deep soaker tub.  I'm a little worried about it being anti-climactic. No jets, nothing fancy.  Might not even fit both of us in it at once.  But the only way we would have been able to make that tub bigger was to rob space from the master closet.  And Big Daddy and I both agreed we'd much rather have a bigger closet than a bigger bathroom.

10) And finally, the corners.  "The corners?" you say, "What on earth do corners have to do with anything?" Well, as it turns out, they do a lot for the overall look of a house.  And this house was a mish-mash of rounded and squared corners.  When my drywaller called and asked me if he wanted me to put in rounded corners or squared corners, I said, "Just match it to whatever is there."  'You better come over here," he said.  So I went over.  And darned if every single room wasn't made up of both rounded and squared corners, with no rhyme or reason.  I bet you've never even noticed the corners in your house.  And neither had I.  (When I went home, the house we're in now turned out to have neither!  They were angled, like a square with the corner cut off.  Faceted, like a diamond, or part of a stop sign.  Go figure!)  Anyway, we made the call to remove all the rounded, 1990's corners and replace them all with squared and put in all squared new ones to match.  So now we have all matching corners, and much more modern too.  Oh the little things you never even imagined you'd have to make decisions about!

Next up...busting out the wall to the family room and expanding it.  Then....paint?  Tile?  Who knows?!

Getting To Know You, Part 5 - The Master Bedroom

The Little Pink Houses III remodel is coming along nicely.  There is a bit more framing and drywalling to do, but that phase is nearly complete.  So I thought I'd take a moment and acquaint you with the master bedroom (master closet and bath to follow).

Of course one of the most important rooms in the house to the lady of the house is the master suite. If I'm honest, it pales in comparison to my interest in the kitchen remodel.  But I am kind of excited about my closet.  And now I have a reason to be kind of excited about the master bedroom itself -- Big Daddy has decided to give the go ahead on putting in a loft!

The master bedroom is a strange room in this house.  It's two stories tall.  It is the same height as the vaulted living room.  WHY??? Who knows!  Why anyone would need that much height in their bedroom is beyond me.  And because it's not an overly large bedroom, the height makes it feel kind of like you'd be putting a bed in an elevator shaft.  I think they thought it would be like (use a British accent for this), "Observe my elegant master bedroom which closely resembles the knave of a cathedral and gives the impression of the chambers of a grand Parisian palace."   But instead, like I said, elevator shaft. 

Fortunately, my creative and visionary husband noticed a gap between the lower and upper sets of windows in this tall room.  And he suggested we put in a loft.  Chop the room right in half between those windows and put in a 8' deep loft.  We could put a love seat and our TV up there and have our own private lounge in the master bedroom.  I thought it a brilliant plan, but, um, let's just say I also thought it was a pie-in-the-sky plan.  Like, "Ya, right.  That's never going to happen.  With all the money we have to spend on the house who can justify putting in a loft???"   Never say never.   That pie-in-the-sky idea has turned into a loft-in-the-bedroom idea!

Behold....the loft!!!

I'm fairly sure that this might end up being my favorite spot in the whole house.  It will certainly be the biggest "wow" element of this house if it turns out anything like what we have envisioned.  Our vision is somewhere around this (although not in the kitchen, obviously):

So, ya.  That'll be sweet.

As for the rest of the room, it'll still have the height, which will keep it from feeling closed in. There are plenty of windows to keep it bright.   It's got these 3 doors to the backyard at the other end of the room...


Someday we hope to put a hot tub back there.  Our last house, Little Pink House II (the rental) had a hot tub off the master and we super dug it.  We didn't think we would, but we ended up using it a lot.  So with a secluded spot right off the bedroom, it's the perfect spot for our future Jacuzzi!   But that's a pie-in-the-sky idea.  (And by "pie-in-the-sky," what I really hope I mean is "hot-tub-in-my-backyard.")   I think I better put Big Daddy in charge of more decisions!

As for colors, décor, and such....I have ZERO idea.  We plan on converting from a queen bed back to a king (we downsized at Little Pink House I so we could both have bedside tables in that small room), and that means new bedding.  And, really, bedding is the basis of all design decisions in a bedroom.  And, of course, Big Daddy does NOT want to talk about bedding while there is a loft to frame and drywall, a kitchen to put in, a spiral stairway to design, possibly a family room to expand, and a thousand other "major" decisions.  Let alone the fact that there are paint colors that need to be decided in the next two weeks, and flooring that needs to be chosen, and wood stain to be decided.  Somehow bedding seems so unimportant and faraway.  But, really, it's all tied together.  The wall paint, the bedding, the loft design....so, I say let's go bedding shopping!  Who's in??

Getting To Know You Part 4 - Upstairs

Since the house renovation is unlikely to look much different for the next two weeks (as the cabinets are still under construction and we have temporarily run out of money), I thought I'd take a minute to introduce you to the 2nd floor.

It was my wish when we built our dream house to have all 3 kids and us on the 2nd floor.  My main reasoning for that is that in every house we've lived in, the master bedroom has been on the main and the kids have been on another floor (upstairs here and our 1st house, basement at our last house).  That means I'm always trekking up or down stairs in the middle of the night when my kids are sick, scared, thirsty, or in need of a good spanking.  Just kidding.  But seriously, I've never liked not being near my kids.  But worse, I've always HATED having my bedroom be in the middle of Grand Central Station.  Kids running through it playing tag, the TV noise/kitchen noise/playing tag noise/beating each other noise always permeating the walls and taking over my room.  And the kids' stuff always migrating to my bedroom.  I just wanted a peaceful retreat, away from the hustle and bustle. 

So when we found Little Pink House III, and the master was on the main with 4 bedrooms upstairs, and a big lofted space above the living room, I saw my chance:  I wanted to cover over the lofted area to make a 5th bedroom, convert the largest bedroom into the master (with its huge bay windows looking out on the valley), turn the smallest bedroom on the other side of the Jack-and-Jill bathroom into our master closet, and then all of us would finally be upstairs!

But it was not to be.  The cost of such a renovation was prohibitive considering everything else we had to do.  Plus, what to do with the main floor master suite?  What would we make that into??  And EVERYONE from our builder to our architect to my husband and most of my friends assured me that someday I REALLY will be glad to have my room far away from my kids' rooms. 

Instead, we decided to take the smallest of the 4 upstairs bedrooms and convert it to an upstairs laundry...


So this is the current plan.  Beck and Daphne will get the two bedrooms on the south that have a Jack-and-Jill bathroom.

Beck's room...


Jack-and-Jill bath...


Daphne's room...



 Pippa will get the huge bay window bedroom by virtue of the fact that it is the quietest room and she still naps...


Her Jack-and-Jill bath will become just a Jill bath, and the Jack half, which adjoins to the new laundry room, will be closed off with a big laundry sink. 

Someday we may need to reconfigure.  I'm sure at some point the two girls will probably want to be together.  Or maybe Daphne will want a room off to herself.  In which case we'll do a little switcheroo-ing.  But for now, that's how the layout seems to work best.

Added to those rooms, there's also a little loft area at the top of the stairs.  I think I'll make it a reading nook--two nice comfy arm chairs, a book case, a side table and lamp...I think it'll be a great place to read stories before bed.  (As long as the kids don't decide to climb up the bookcase and swan dive off the balcony into the living room below.  Oh the nightmares I have thinking about that!!!)

Well, that's the upstairs.  It's the area of the house that's probably getting the least change.  Mostly cosmetic, except for the change from 4th bedroom to laundry room.  As soon as we have money, we can probably already start to re-carpet and paint it.  We do want to renovate both upstairs bathrooms at some point as they are VERY 80's and the sinks/toilets/tubs are decrepit.  But the vanities, sinks, and tubs at least are functional, so they'll probably be last on the list to be changed.

Here is the floor plan, both before and after the minor change to the laundry room (and with the new stairs skillfully added on with some mad Picassa skills by yours truly)...

Next time:  The master suite