The Bathroom Gets a New Layout

I'm so excited to say that the bathroom is coming right along- relatively speaking it's probably one of our quickest projects to date. I'm especially thankful for such a hard working husband and helpful father in law who have kept this project moving. I think Nathan's speed and dedication is due to the fact that he probably doesn't want to witness his preggo wife have another emotional Jessie Spano "There's No Time... There's Never Any Time" breakdown. I've only had 2 during the bath reno so far but hoping I'm in the clear.
 

 
 
Before I get to the good stuff like tile and grout and paint (Yes that is the GOOD stuff), I've got to get down to the bread and butter of the project. To truly appreciate it, you have to know all that has been involved. The bathroom isn't just a facelift- it's a full tear out and switcheroo of everything. The old layout did not utilize the space well at all. The bathroom is actually quite large- especially for a house this old- so we are lucky to be able to work with a lot of real estate.
 
Below is a simple plan of what the bathroom was like before.
 

BEFORE

 
 
As you can see, half of the bathroom wasn't even utilized. Granted- we did take out the claw foot tub which took up a lot of the room, but we were left with a toilet practically sitting on top of the sink (You could seriously wash your hands while on the toilet. I swear I never did that though... not to say others haven't....), a vanity that wasn't able to be fully utilized or accessed due to the placement of the toilet, and a small shower stall in the corner. If I had to guess what the original layout was back in the day, I would assume that the toilet was where the shower stall is and the vanity and claw foot tub were where they are shown above. At some point the previous owners wanted a shower stall in addition to their tub, and just moved the toilet to the only place available- right smack in front of the vanity.
 

 



 
My vision for the new plan was pretty straight forward from the beginning. The main goal was to get rid of the nasty shower stall and install a tub/shower combo for kiddos, resell value, and practicality. We thought about simpler options like keeping the vanity where it was and going back to the original 1920s layout, but it just made sense (although maybe a little more work) to put the new tub where the old vanity was, move the toilet to the old shower stall area, and place a new vanity where the claw foot tub used to be. Had we put a new tub where the old claw foot used to sit, we would have probably had to build out a wall to enclose it and it would have made the bathroom feel very closed in. You also would have entered the room and be straight smack in front of a new wall... and I didn't like the thought of that. So, extending the original wall on the opposite side just made sense.  Now is the point that you are probably confused. If so, just look at the new layout below.
 

AFTER

 
Hope the new layout above is clearer than my rambling. We feel like it's a much better use of the space and it just feels right when you walk into the bath. It's a little tight between the tub and the vanity, but it's actually not out of the ordinary of a normal bathroom- I think we are just used to such an open room that it's a bit of a shock for us to have a normal layout. One thing that we are adding which I'm really excited about is the closed storage- aka linen closet- behind the toilet. We currently don't have a linen closet- just the hall closet that is already filled to the brim with random things- so it was really necessary for us to add in some storage.
 
Another thing we did was board up the window. I know I know! I would never normally take a window out of a room BUT we had good reason. The window would have cut directly into the new tub area and made everything look completely unbalanced. It could have worked, but we would have had a ghetto shower rod up against a window (that could never open) and then we would have half of a window in our shower. MOST OF ALL, the window is literally 4 feet away from our neighbor's house- which means it's 4 feet away from our neighbor's window. Needless to say, our blinds were never open when the window was there- in fact sometimes I forgot we even had a window in our bathroom. It was never used and even if it was the natural light was minimal since the house next door pretty much blocked any semblance of sunlight.  Operation 'board up that window' was a no brainer and  neither of us are regretting the choice at all.
 
Below's pic shows the window before demo. I guess I was really bad about taking "During the Reno" pics since this is the only one I could find before it was drywalled over.
 

After our Demo (which you can read here), the guys reworked all of the plumbing- which is pretty impressive if you ask me (Sorry no pics of that...) The basement ceiling is now a maze of new white piping- it's pretty awesome. Nathan also ran electrical to the wall that will be housing the new vanity.
  

 

We also extended the wall out so we could enclose the new tub (where the vanity used to sit)... which then led us to laying concrete board on the floor... 
 

 

And installing the new tub! It's in- it's really in! (and yes these are the worst iPhone pics ever)

 

 

 

 

Drywall was then installed.... Josh was a huge help with this part- he can do it with his eyes closed!

 

This is where the toilet and closed storage are going.

 

Future vanity wall

 

 
And then concrete board was installed around the tub....

 

 

 

 

 

And that's where I will leave you- Plumbing, electrical, tub install, drywall, concrete board... This post sums up about a week and a half of very hard work. I guess I could have spread it out, but just getting a blog post up is work enough.  The fun stuff (for me anyway) will be coming up in the next bathroom post- stay tuned!  

 

-Tricia 

The Bathroom Meets its Demise: The Demo

Well… I mentioned last week that we are officially insane. The reason? We decided to tear out our entire bathroom. Yes- a husband who's transitioning jobs and a hormonal wife that is 7 months pregnant. We couldn't have chosen better timing. We keep asking ourselves why didn't we do this sooner, but if we've learned anything from these home renovations it's that no schedule of ours makes any sense. We really just work best with deadlines looming.... and by deadline I mean the baby's arrival. 

 

Now, I'm not technically doing any of the manual labor- other than offering bottles of water to Nathan and doing the occasional Lowes run- but I'm there in the midst of the madness and waiting patiently during each step.  Nathan has been working around the clock and has had some major help from his dad who stayed with us the past two weeks and of course we've had the assistance of our handy friends who have really helped move the process along.

 

Apparently no blog post of mine is complete without an embarrassing before picture of what I've lived in the last (almost) 2 years. Here's what the glorious college bathroom looked like before demo. If you remember- I had a brief moment when I thought we could live with it with just a few updates, but then my sanity came back and I officially refused to bring a baby into this world and bring he or she home to this bathroom.

 

Check it out...

 

 

 

A claw foot tub used to sit where the laundry hamper now sits...

 

 

Our lone shower stall...

 

 

 

 

 

Yep... the hamper hid the gash in the wall... where the claw foot tub used to be.

 

 

 

I'm no longer phased by these before pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

In all seriousness- the bath had to be done at some point. It didn't even have a tub- just a lone shower stall. Tubs are completely necessary for babies and kids… and resell value which is always in the back of our minds. We have a shower stall, toilet, and sink in our basement that we have been using, but it's all out in the open and not technically what you would call a 2nd bath... The openness has caused us to start affectionately calling it the "prison bath" (Thanks Sandy!) It works though so I'm not complaining!

 

I don't have pictures of the bathroom from a few years ago, but for decades it had a claw foot tub. People think we may have been insane to get rid of it, but it was so old and cracked that it wasn't worth fixing. Past homeowners had tried to repair it for years, but it was never really fixed. I also don't think I would have gotten in it if you paid me. I sound like a bathroom snob but it was just filthy. Out it went (leaving a giant gash in the wall) but I certainly haven't looked back.

 

We started demo 2 weeks ago... Thankfully we rented a dumpster which barely fit in our driveway as you can see below.

 

 
The product of a full day's work. Good riddance!

 
Below is a before and after of the demo of the vanity wall. It was crazy to see the different color paints that have been used in the past. The yellow/green screams 70s to me! Very interesting to find where the old medicine cabinet used to be.

 

 

 

 Exterior wall (Fan is in the window which we ended up boarding up).

 

 

After they pulled up the tile they found some ancient linoleum. I couldn't even tell how old it was but all I know was that it was nasty!

 

 
Big guy tacking the wall after tearing out the shower stall.

 

 

 
He will HATE this picture :)

 

Shower wall down to the studs!

 

 

 

And finally a welcome sight- a hole for our new toilet!

 

 
And that's all I have from our demo! Next post I'll talk about our new floor plan for the bathroom and the progress we have made. Thankfully it's going pretty quickly and I think I'm only a week or so away from no longer having to use the prison bath. In the meantime, I'll stare at the photo below and be thankful that I'll never have to set eyes on this bathroom again... it really was worse than it looks- I swear!

 

 

 

 

-Tricia