Emma's Bathroom Renovation

While I would have been thrilled to renovate a bathroom that I actually use, before renovating one that I've never used, it seems our house had other plans for us. If you don't own an old house, you may be unaware that old houses are bossy and we were helpless to argue with a water leak that had her sharing our bathroom.

This was a total gut job. We took it to the studs and the floor joists. It was a complete loss. Here's a little before and after for you!

Before:

After:

What you can't see in the before picture above is the wood box built around a pipe sticking out into the room near the ceiling. It never ceases to amaze us the jack-assery, as we like to call it, we find around here. I was so proud of the great framing job my guy did so that we could drywall it.

Before:

After:

During:

After:

The beauty of a complete gut job is that you have a blank slate and from the ashes of that hot mess, a beautiful, fresh new bathroom was born.

We made a few changes shortly after moving in, taking down that wall cabinet, switching out the hardware, light fixture, vanity, faucet and mirror. By the way, that mirror has been in my family for as long as I can remember and hung in my great grandmother's bedroom when I was little and then hung in my bedroom when I was a teenager. Em was adamant that it not be replaced so it just got a fresh coat of paint.

This bathroom is a tiny 6x7 feet which somehow feels much larger now than it did before. It's actually a tough space to photograph and there are no windows so the only natural light comes from a window in the bedroom.

With such a neutral backdrop, I had fun introducing some color and personality into the space and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to school starting back so I can sneak in here and pretend it's mine. I'm not kidding you when I say that it's the best bathroom in the house. Emma couldn't be happier with her new space. She even got new, towels, toiletries and organizing bins. I have lost track of the number of times she has told us that she loves it and has thanked us for doing this for her. While we didn't use top of the line finishes like we plan to do in our own bathroom renovation, we tried to use good materials that feel appropriate to the age of the house (c. 1900) and that we hoped would be timeless.

This project, like every other project in this house, took way longer and cost more than we thought it would. When will we learn? So far we have done every project in this house ourselves. I think chances are good that we aren't tackling the two remaining bathrooms or the kitchen. It's not as easy as they make it look on HGTV folks. Also, for the record, let me make it clear that almost every time I say we in this post I really mean he. Aside from the drywall, my sweet man did everything. He demo'd, framed, replaced the subfloor, did the plumbing and electrical, installed the shower, toilet and vanity, did all the trim work and probably a dozen other things I can't think of. I was only responsible for design choices, clean up and painting. Well, I was also responsible for tiling but after a major tile fail, we hired that out too. I really, really wanted to be able to do it. I watched a ton of videos, read how to articles, did two dry runs but it turns out that I'm a much better baker than tiler. That's okay. I can't be good at everything and I'm starting to learn to acknowledge my limits.

I'm so proud of my guy and all of his hard work. I love that we have spent the last 5 years working together to make this house our perfect home, and with each new completed project, I fall a little more in love.
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