Bathroom Renovation...... finally

My husband made the announcement .....he is willing to start the bathroom renovation and do the work himself instead of hiring a contractor!

Imagine my surprise, after 7 years!

To be fair, we have tackled some major projects over the years, including the kitchen. Since we mostly "pay as we go" and do the work mostly ourselves, we could not do it all at once (this house has been quite a project). We have saved the bathroom for almost last.

Our original plan, which we'll call "Plan A", was to reconfigure the entire room, but to hire someone for this monumental task. Lately we've been discussing the practicality of keeping things simple and doing only a cosmetic upgrade. This alone will be quite a job.

It's a really tiny and really ugly room. Honestly, at first glance, you might think it should be condemned. It's that bad. However still maybe not as bad as our kitchen was.

So, now for the "Before Pictures" which are really important, albeit very embarrassing, to get an idea just how bad it really is (or was, once we can show off the finished room):




Please, before that thought, "jeez, she could at least clean it! it would look better...?" pops into your little head, allow me to explain! I have attempted everything short of sandblasting this disaster to try and remove the mold. The problem is, the moron who redid this used plastic (fake) tile board - that stuff that just looks like tile but comes in big sheets! It was installed all the way around the room, and then the person had the bright idea to install it in the tub surround! Maybe they ought to have considered whether this stuff was rated to handle the constant wet conditions of a shower/bath? as the surface coating of plastic cracked, it revealed the fiberous backing, and trapped moisture causing it to expand and mold. The more I cleaned it, the more it removed the plastic and gradually has gotten worse. OH JOY.

Additional mold is growing underneath the very sloppy gloppy caulking job they did around the trim. Nothing short of removing the caulk & trim will get it off, hence we were "saving it" until we ripped it all out. It's so disgusting I can barely stand to bathe in there!

Aside from it's hideousness, the tub does not have a level rim or any shelves, so there is absolutely no place to set shampoo bottles or soap. If you attempt to set anything on the rim, it is not level so most things end up slipping and falling off. We use one of those dumb flimsy unattractive shower caddy things.

The next source of utter embarrassment (the entire room is awful, but these are the WORST areas) is an original metal cabinet - the only storage we have for the entire bathroom, pictured below. Obviously, someone attempted to refinish it, but just never quite got the job done. I am thankful it's BEHIND the bathroom door, but this is also a problem because the doors from the cabinet are in the way of the bathroom door constantly. When I first saw it, I did not want to even use it! I realized I had no choice so I scrubbed and bleached and lined every shelf surface with heavy contact paper. You can imagine how ready I am to rid our home of this catastrophe.

Other fun and funky things about our bathroom - one is the door handle. It's one of those cute glass door knobs, but it's stripped, so after attempting to fix it several times we gave up and left it for when we "renovate the bathroom". We know not to close the door tight, and try to warn guests. In the event of emergencies we would keep one end of the door handle in the bathroom cabinet, but after having to walk a number of trapped guests through the process of finding the door handle to release them from our bathroom prison, we decided to keep it dangling in the door, and sometimes it falls out.

Other issues:

The only ventilation is the old fashioned way....open the window.

If the bathroom door is left or pushed open (which is usually is due to the above mentioned door handle issue, people walking outside down the street can see directly in through our living room window and into the bathroom with a perfect view of anyone using the toilet! Always fun when my sister's dog visits and feels she must investigate each and every time someone uses the toilet, and pushes the door wide open! Hi neighbors!

Of course, we are now scrapping Plan A for Plan B so we will not be moving the toilet afterall, which means this will continue to be a problem (but at least the door will finally be fixed!)

Just as an FYI if you are interested - "Plan A" was going to be to reconfigure the entire room. First we planned to knock out a closet in the dining room which would give us a good extra 9 or so square feet in the bathroom. We planned to then move the toilet to this more private area (where the closet was), which would have prevented neighbors from inadvertently viewing toilet users. We also were going to move the tub to the far wall below the window, and replace it with a clawfoot tub.

See how complicated all that was? Our new plan "Plan B" really is so much easier. I am, however, really sad about scrapping the clawfoot tub idea. Maybe in our next house....or our next life....sigh. I suppose we just can't have EVERYTHING.

But it does mean we can now afford some nicer upgrades .....heh heh heh