Bathroom Reno Update

It's been a while and I owe you all an update on the state on my bathroom. Quite a lot of drama and progress transpired since last I wrote, and at the time I couldn't face writing it all down. First, I finished the floor by grouting the tiles with white grout and then sealing the whole floor with a spray-on sealant that you wipe off. I was so pleased to have it done and looking good.

My next hurdle was the baseboards. Though not as difficult as crown molding, it was a sufficient pain in my butt. I bought slightly taller than average, 4" pre-primed molding from Home Depot and cut it on my mitre saw. I'll admit that I messed up my corner angles a bit and had to go back for a second piece. The long pieces look good, but I have a bit of an issue with the shortest wall right by the shower. The wall isn't flat and the corner is protected by a metal piece that sticks out further than the rest of the wall so that when I put my molding up against it, there's almost half an inch gap at the other end. Not good. Still working on a solution for that one. But the rest is up and repainted in a shiny white.

After the moldings went up, it became painfully obvious how bad the toilet's water shutoff valve was looking. It was all gross and had green corrosion on it, so I thought it would be a generally simple thing to replace. I thought wrong. I went to the store, but a new shutoff valve and returned determined to swap them out. That's when the trouble started. Apparently the old valve had two nuts, but I didn't see the one farther forward since it was covered in green stuff. I got out my biggest wrench and began to twist it counter-clockwise, but it never really came off. It just seemed to twirl forever, and eventually the whole valve started a slow leak that became a much faster leak Sunday morning when I tried to fix it again. This was bad. I knew I was out of my depth and called a plumber around 9AM. The second plumbing company I called had someone available the same day, but he didn't arrive til after 7PM. I was catching water in a tupperware all this time and had turned off the water to the whole house to try to slow the leak, which it mostly did. The emergency plumber fixed the whole thing in about 5 minutes, charged over $200 dollars, and convinced me that I'm in the wrong line of work. By then the carpet all around the bathroom had started to feel wet and I mopped it with towels for more time than I care to remember. He said it had been leaking behind the wall too, which really concerned us, but so far so good on the mold issue.

At this point, George revoked my amateur plumbing license, and insisted we call a real plumber to install the toilet and vanity. This might not have been necessary if I didn't buy that crazy toilet online that I was initially so pleased with. It is pretty and very modern, but it turns out that EAGO is some Chinese brand and the toilet needed to be attached to the ground via some large bolts that would have done a number on my new floor. The plumber said he had never seen anything like it in 15 years on the job. Great. George made the executive decision to buy a toilet from the plumber (he carries stuff like that around in his truck, apparently) so the installation could proceed. Several hours, several plumbing and carpentry tasks, and a doubled budget later, the vanity and toilet were in and the whole thing was working. At last.
Here they are:

Here's more of a closeup on the vanity. It's a cherry finish with two doors in a furniture style. I wanted an enclosed model to store guest linens and TP where the cats couldn't get to them. I also reused a faucet that was in my bathroom upstairs when we bought the house. It was the basis for using chrome instead of nickel throughout. 

I hadn't posted a shot of the new chrome light fixture yet, and it's putting out a lot more light from the new eco bulbs than the old fixture. I also installed it and wired it myself on my first try, which makes me very happy. The medicine cabinet was the only element that stayed, mostly because it's such a pain to get rid of, and it was in good shape.

After the major elements went in, I put up a double towel bar to make use of a small space, a new hand towel holder, a toilet paper holder, a glass shelf, and a robe hook on the back of the door. I got all of these matching elements in chrome finish at HomeGoods for a very good price, so at least I saved some money somewhere. I also grabbed some new towels at Bed Bath & Beyond in a white and grey scheme and some bath accessories in white and chrome from HomeGoods again.

My last projects will be some art for the walls, making that last little piece of molding work, and replacing 2 shower tiles that I had to cut down to allow for the taller baseboards. I also bought some fabric to make my own shower curtain, but I'm sort of liking the silver one I had in there before. Not sure where I will come down on that decision. So, we're about 97% done at this point, and I'm pretty happy with it overall. I'll do 1 more post when I've got it at 100%, but let's take a quick look at where we came from, shall we?

The tulip tiles. The tiny toilet. The off-purple grey walls. The floating prison sink. The hollywood lighting. The horror. So now it's clean and fresh and hopefully classic.