WHAT I LEARNED FROM OUR 1950’s BATHROOM RENOVATION
In February, our house underwent its biggest renovation yet.
We not only updated our 1950's black-and-white tiled bathroom, but we bumped our bathroom out by 2 feet into our son's bedroom.
We knew we wanted to eventually redo our bathroom, and had it on the long list of home renovations, but it wasn't until we noticed mold growing behind our bath fitter shower, that we realized the bathroom renovation had to be moved to the top of the list.
So, that's where we started reaching out to contractors within the area and I began working on a bathroom design collage.
This was the style and vibe I was going for.
No, I didn't work with an interior designer. Believe it or not, I put together this collage all on my own.
After I figured out exactly what I wanted, I worked with the contractor and started ordering things from Home Depot.
And thennnnnn *drum roll*..... the renovation officially began!
The guys started by knocking out our current wall and framing out the new wall by 2 feet to extend our bathroom a bit.
Luckily, the mold/drywall damage had not spread, so they were able to rip out what was affected and had a plan to replace with brand new green board to prevent mold in the future.
As you can see in the image below, they built a new wall by framing out the wall to fit our new medicine cabinets and moved the plumbing for both the toilet rough-in and double vanity.
Once that was complete, they ordered and secured our new Kohler tub from Home Depot. And then, from there, drywall/green board installation began!
Then this is where the real fun started. Tile installation.
I knew I wanted white subway tile with dark grout to match the style and vibe from the picture above. And the contractor added a personal touch by adding a built-in shelf within the shower itself.
The shelves are made of marble from a nearby marble distributor in the area and also matches the marble floor transition strip leading into our bathroom from the hallway.
Next, the floor tile installation began. For this, I chose porcelain tile from Home Depot with the same dark grout as the shower. However, if I were to do it again, I would get floor tile from a trusted tile store.
Home Depot did not mark their boxes correctly the floor tile was slightly off after it was installed. See image below.
Don't worry, though, Home Depot paid to have the tile re-installed by my contractor and provided us brand new floor tile for free, due to the inconvenience!
A week later, the correct tile was installed and was ready for the vanity and toilet to be installed...
After another few days, our contractor touched up on paint (I ended up going with Nebulous White by Sherwin Williams), installed the toilet, the double vanity with faucets, the vanity light and our medicine cabinets.
And from there, our bathroom renovation was complete!
BEFORE
AFTER
Here's what I learned throughout this renovation.
If the contractor gives you the option to order things through them, do it. I ordered things directly through Home Depot and/or Amazon, so if it showed up damaged or was missing a part, it was on me to return/reorder the item.
If you're doing a double vanity or double sink, make room to install a towel ring on either side of the sink. It's annoying to have to walk my wet hands over to the our one towel ring on the other side of the sink.
The shower faucet we ordered only had one option for water pressure. Tyler and I both like different water pressure features, especially when bathing our dog. We later bought this shower head that fits our current shower faucet. It's been great so far!
Older homes are going to bring mishaps. It's just how it works. There were a few things that popped up throughout the renovation that needed to be addressed. I highly recommend you budget an extra 5% and set that aside for things that you may need to address throughout. Luckily, we did just that! It took care of the extra plumbing concerns they had when moving the plumbing into the new wall.
Well, there you have it! That was our bathroom renovation.
This project wasn't entirely a DIY project, but I did pick out all of the fixtures and bring the project to life! (Not to mention came up with the idea to extend the bathroom.)
The whole renovation took 4.5 weeks and ended up being complete mid-February, even with a few mishaps!
