Half bath is mostly done!

These pictures are a little old by now, but the half bath that we added is mostly done. The only finishing touch waiting to be done is adding a few shelves to the wall above the toilet where we can put our sand collection. Other than that, it's a working bathroom!

Progress Downstairs and Bathroom Inspiration

It's been a busy week around our house with drywall going in and plumbing getting connected.

The former hall closet now looks like this:

The closet entrance was around the corner to the right before, but we moved it to make the space work better for a half bath that could use our old toilet and pedestal sink from the original first-floor bathroom. Moving these walls around slightly meant patching the wood floors and moving a return air vent too.

The narrow space to the right used to be the entrance to the original bathroom. The entrance has been moved to our bedroom and now this little alcove is getting a built-in storage unit for coats, the Swiffer, etc. (we measured the drawer for it to exactly be the height the hold excess rolls of paper towels :) ).

Here's another shot of the narrow little space where the built-in will go. It's actually two feet wide but looks much narrower here.

The mosaic tile for the half bath has been laid (but not grouted). We're thinking we'll go with a dark grout so dirt blends right in! Turns out you can get mosaic tile at all price points...we went with the stock white tile from Lowes. They also have those cute little black-and-white alternating patterns, which are adorable - and twice as much as solid white!

 

For design ideas for the half bath, people always say to be bold in these small, confined areas because it's not necessary for them to coordinate with the rest of a home. In that spirit, we're considering painting the walls somewhere in the salmon / terra cotta /orangish-pink realm to coordinate with a picture I've had a long time without even realizing it was about a place in Indiana! The bathroom seems to be the perfect home for our sand collection as well.

And here's the inspiration/design board for the master bath. As we were looking at fixtures and finishes, I realized I had an old wooden boat - a Chris-Craft boat - in mind when I was putting things together. You really can't beat the mahogany and brass (which is totally coming back in!) combination for classic, sleek, and timeless. Also, other parts of the house are pretty feminine, so this is definitely a manly bathroom! That being said, I think it still needs an accent color... :).

Looking forward to seeing more of this come to life next week!

Practically done!

The countertop, sink, and faucet went in last Friday which meant we had a functioning bathroom back!

 

 

Over the weekend, we finished the touch-up painting and hung hardware and curtains. 

 

 

Here's a pretty good before and after comparison:

 

 

Master bath project begins

We are down to one toilet, one shower that's accessible, and two kitchen sinks. Sometimes we think living through the bathroom renovations is harder than the kitchen since we can always go out to eat, but we can't very easily go out to...well, you know.

While the upstairs bath waits on a countertop, our foreman moved on to the downstairs work of converting a hall closet into a half bath and connecting the full bath to our bedroom so we'll have a true master set-up.

This is the hall closet before we bought the house. We're moving the entrance to the half bath to the wall to the left.

And here's the first floor bathroom before we moved in also. It was charming in its own way but not functional enough for two people, and as the only bathroom on the first floor, company shared this bathroom with us too.

So, here's what the area looks like now. All the walls of the hall closet are gone and the wall between the bathroom and bedroom was opened up too to provide access for new plumbing and electrical...

...but that also revealed some duct work that's in our way as well as a large pipe that drains from the upstairs bath. Looks like the idea of a recessed medicine cabinet in this wall is a no-go. This picture also shows where the toilet and pedestal sink used to be. Don't worry - that cute pedestal sink (and the less cute but free toilet) will be reused in the half bath we are adding.

This alcove used to be a linen closet in the bathroom, and now it's becoming a toilet alcove.

Progress the last few days hasn't been very photo-worthy (some new plumbing, old subfloor coming out, etc.), but hopefully by the end of the week we will be able to "see" the progress more!

Just a few more pictures of the progress

We've made a lot of progress with the bathrooms in the last week or so. Here's a few photos of how things are coming.

 

Here's the tile upstairs before it was grouted.

 

 

 


And then the vanity got reset and measured for the countertop, the toilet got reset, walls, ceiling, and trim were painted, the tile got grouted, and the light fixture went in. Here's how it looks now, while it waits on the countertop.

Hopefully we'll have a countertop and sink soon!

And the renovations start again!

Things are beginning to thaw out here in the Midwest - though snow is in the forecast for tomorrow - and so hibernating season is over. That means it's time for the projects to pick up again! Next on the (long but slowly shrinking) list is the bathrooms. We're starting with the upstairs bathroom, which really just needs new floors, countertops, lighting, a sink, and faucet.

Here's the inspiration colors and styles:

I've never painted a room purple, so we're about to enter uncharted waters...I also usually don't go for the brushed nickel look, but I really liked it with the grey porcelain floors and "arctic pearl" quartzite countertop.

BUT, here's how the bathroom started out looking a few weeks ago:

Did you notice the dangling light bulb? :) Time for that to go!!!

And here's how it looks now, after the contractor was here for one day:

We're re-using the vanity since it was in good shape. It's in the tub for the moment while two layers of linoleum are removed and the new tile is laid. It has two coats of paint so far...and it's going to need at least one more. That's what weekends are for!

We've also been scraping wallpaper from the hallway outside the bathroom since December. That's finally done and we're in the process of painting the hall way too.

Here's a few shots of the progress:

I think this hallway is perfect for another stenciling project, but it's going to take some convincing before Craig is on board. :)

The thing about a combined living-dining room...

...is you can switch them whenever you want!

We had our dining room next to our kitchen (which seemed to make sense) and our living room at the other end of the room. We really don't use the dining table very often, so that space was just making the walk from the kitchen to the TV longer (and what engineer could live with that?!?).

So the old layout got flipped 180 degrees and here's how it looks now (with wide angle):

This was the old living area...

And now it's the new dining area:

And the new living area (adjacent to the kitchen) used to be the dining room, as you can tell from the chandelier, which will be replaced with another schoolhouse light to tie it to the kitchen, which has two.