Royal Flush

Okay, while it's perhaps not fit for royalty, we are very happy with our downstairs bathroom remodel. After much trial and tribulation, heartache and hairpulling, we have a working, attractive bathroom again. There are still several little details on the punch list to complete, but given how we roll, they may go unfinished for years!

Bathroom before:

I had tried to freshen the bath up a bit right after buying the house, but it was still an eyesore (that shower curtain is hiding an abundance of ugliness):

And now, for the big reveal!

From the mudroom entrance (the door you see straight ahead is off the guest bedroom, so this bath is like a Jack and Jill of sorts):

Vanity nook (mudroom doorway to the left, linen closet on the right):

Window wall:

Shower view:

Shampoo shelf (I'm OCD enough to want matching, pretty bottles, but frugal enough that these stay until used up!):

Here are the details:

Shower tile: American Olean Monte Carlo 1x2 glass mosaic with Polyblend Oyster Bay non-sanded grout
Tub: Bootz Maui enameled steel extra deep soaking tub
Faucets: Price Pfister brushed nickel; shower is Marielle, vanity is Amherst
Toilet: Danze Orrington
Vanity: St. Paul Madeline 36" chestnut
Flooring: Style Selections 12x24 White Travertine with Blue Hawk Saddle Gray grout

I'm not convinced the shower curtain is the right one. I'm still planning on sewing a custom creation, but this little TJMaxx find fills the spot for the time being. I also am hunting for a better plant stand. Sadly, we couldn't center the toilet under the window because of crazy old house plumbing, so the live plant deceives the eye as well as clears the air! But it deserves a nicer perch, when I can find the right one. You'll notice I also haven't shown any light fixtures. I'm really debating whether to go transitional/contemporary, blingy, or vintage basic with the overhead light and vanity sconce, so the old ones are still in place.

And if anyone knows where to purchase the skinniest trash can imaginable, please let me know. I have just a few inches to the left of the vanity and would love to squeeze in a slim waste receptacle. Otherwise, I'll probably look for a small door mounted version for inside the cabinet.

All in all, it's still only a bathroom. Just a simple tub/shower combo, toilet, and sink. The pictures are pretty, but the real dramatic difference is the function. We have new PEX pipes that won't freeze or corrode. Our water doesn't run red. Our hot water flows quickly and forcefully from the taps. Our toilet flushes the first time very time. Our tub isn't leaking into the wall. Our floor is level and clean. Our sink doesn't cause backaches to use. So if you'd like to come to inspect and appreciate the form and function in person, we're ready for houseguests anytime!

P.S. A big shout out to Christina from Little Victorian for the photo tips! It made a big difference in getting nice shots of all our hard work ;-)

Color Catastrophe

I just about had a heart attack while grouting the shower tile Sunday. I had spend hours selecting the perfect grout color, because it can make or break the tile. You can see how very different the sample mosaic looks with various grout colors.

In the end, I had to special order the non-sanded grout and matching caulk in the color I chose. Shipping took longer than expected and held up the rest of the bathroom, but I felt it was worth it. Until the moment Jeff brought me the freshly mixed grout and I began to apply it. Panic! It looked like baby poo! And that is not an exaggeration (or a phrase I use often; we usually prefer more elegant words like stool or feces or bowel movement, but in that moment, it was most definitely baby poo)!

I frequently see subtleties and nuances in color that Jeff doesn't, but even he agreed it looked pretty awful. This iPhone photo doesn't begin to capture the terrible color, and we were in no mood for pictures anyhow.

Now, I know from research that wet grout always looks much darker than dry. I know that people often initially dislike the grouted look after seeing tile bare for so long. I knew I had to let the grout dry and cure and then adjust to the new look before forming an honest opinion. And I held it together simply because I had no other choice. The grout had to go on that day; I didn't have time to pick out another color; I couldn't return the special order; and I couldn't very easily wipe all that fresh baby poo out of the joints even if I wanted to. But it was killing me that my hard fought tile job was being ruined by poopy grout! It made the blue-green tile look washed out, the taupe tile look purple, and the travertine look blah. I can't emphasize enough how terrible it was!

And then it dried. And then it cured. And then it was lovely. What a relief! Just another saga in the DIY adventures of Jeff and Sarah.

It's One Thing AND Another

They are wrong (whoever the ubiqitous "they" are). "They" say, if it's not one thing, it's another. I'm here to attest that it is both one thing AND the other. When it comes to tiling, anyhow!

Jeff and I are exhausted. We feel like we have been tiling for days. I forget now whose brilliant idea it was to do a tiled shower and install it all ourselves (okay, so maybe fatigue causes amnesia, because I'm pretty sure Jeff could tell you who dreamt up the plan). This was definitely a labor of love; it couldn't be anything like the labor of childbirth because I hear that pain fades and you're ready to do it all over again. I'm pretty sure my tiling days are over. In Scarlet O'Sarah style (as Jeff calls me when I get dramatic and plaintive):

I shall never lay tile again!

Well, except for the bathroom floor. Because I still have that to go. And then, of course, the mudroom needs matching tile, so I'll have to do that one day. But after that, no more tiling ever! I hope. So, maybe just no more tiny glass mosaic tile showers with lots of fiddly cuts, itty bitty pieces, tricky obstacles, and special expensive thinset.

This innocent, naive smile is the face of a woman who completed the long back wall of the shower in a day and is sure she can wrap up the two small walls in just another day.

See this niche? The one we spent hours laying out, measuring, and framing so the tiling would be easy? Well, I can't imagine how long it would have taken if we had just decided to wing it, because this niche (and flanking sides) took almost two hours to tile! You're probably starting to realize that we did not, in fact, complete the rest of the shower very quickly. I won't divulge our pathetically slow pace, but suffice it to say that between Jeff and my professional billing rates, we are well on our way to a multi-thousand dollar shower surround!

That's just a teaser photo, because I have yet to grout the tile. But I will say that the shower looks really great (if you don't stand too close!) and we're quite pleased with the last minute tile switcheroo.

Wet Feet

Not cold feet, as in backing out of something, but wet feet, as in changing horses mid stream!

After spending hours planning around the one inch mosaic tile I selected for the shower surround (and I mean hours!), we have scrapped that plan. Not because it wouldn't work eventually, but because inspiration struck while in the Lowes tile aisle!

To give you an idea of the magnitude of this change, I had better back up. To minimize tile cuts, we had measured and plotted every inch of the shower layout to perfection with the original tile I purchased in mind. We designed and built the shampoo niche to within an eighth of an inch specification so the tile patterns would fall just right. And then I had to go and fall in love with a different tile just one day before install!

I've mentioned some of the issues we had with the first tile. But we were moving forward pretty well and had everything on hand to start the job. I only ran to Lowes to pick up the flooring before the holidays. I will be forever grateful that the staff was stocking the tile department and had boxes and pallets all over the aisles. I grabbed what I needed, but had to detour down another aisle just to get out. And that's when I saw it! Lovely mosaic tile on clearance. Only $2.99 a square foot, in a 1x2 mini brick pattern, with mixed glass and travertine, picking up my bathroom colors AND the flooring tile I had just grabbed.

I stopped. I stared. I wavered, desperately sure that changing tile now would mess everything up. Why, we had just spent hours building the shower around a different size tile and mosaic sheet dimension! We couldn't change now, could we? Even though the new tile was cheaper? And prettier? And matched the flooring perfectly? What would Jeff say?!

I won't say it was a sign, but the store had exactly the right number of boxes I needed; no more, no less. And all in the same dye lot! I knew I could always bring the tile back, so I loaded those puppies up. All the way home, I wondered what Jeff would think. But I needn't have worried. When I got home and explained why I had 80 square feet of shower tile in the car when I went out for 50 square feet of flooring, he calmly listened to all the pros and cons, helped me carry in some samples of each tile to compare, and weighed in with his decision that...
He, too, liked the new option better!

So, the layout might not be perfect. There will be more cutting and fewer factory finished edges, since we didn't build with this tile in mind. But I will look at that shower and always know that sometimes, just sometimes, spontaneity and impulsiveness work together for an inspired design!

Our practice piece, after experimenting how to cut all those staggered edges!