Okay. Full disclosure: This post update has been done for a while. I thought I was going to do something else with it, but it didn’t happen, so now I just want to get it out of the que and pretend like I’m on top of updating our blog. So bear with the story telling that sounds like it’s from months ago. Because it is.
This, along with the kitchen, have been done for a while. Well, mostly done. Some things were our faults but others are the fault of the contractor/designers. What’s our fault? We did the painting, and there was touch up and baseboard/window frame painting to do and we just never got around to it. Winter is so debilitating. The fault of not us is some random things that don’t hinder usage: the panel on the vanity needs to be fixed and a cover needs to be put on the vent outside. See? Nothing at all that should prevent us from presenting the finished product. But there it is. The main issue was really getting that painting done and then finding the time to both clean AND take pictures. Another factor, we’ve discovered, is doing the cleaning and the taking of pictures when the sun is out.
Not unlike the other areas of our house, we didn’t change the layout; we just worked with what we have. Unlike the kitchen and half bath, we did tear out the walls and subfloors and ceiling so electrical and plumbing could be looked at and any mold could be revealed (there wasn’t much/any, thank goodness). Another major reason for doing that was to make sure we got a fan in that actually vented to the outside, rather than the attic. The original ceiling light was a fan/heating lamp/light combo, which was really unnecessary and, as hinted at, vented to the attic (which is one of the reasons there was mold up there before we moved in).
These pictures were taken before we moved in, and even before we had the house cleaned -but it really wasn’t that much better once those things happened. As a matter of fact, these pictures don’t show where the tile was coming up or the lovely pink tinge to the caulk around the tub. Ick.
I actually wanted white subway tiles because, again, smallness and brightness, but James was willing to go with subway tiles only as long as they weren’t white, so we compromised on the gray. Anyway. It’s not too different, just cleaner and not falling apart, which are both good things.
As with the other bits of the reno, the major thing we wanted was either more storage or more efficient storage. This is a small house -I’m sure a realtor would call it ‘cozy’ -and the type of storage that was put in here just make it all seem so much tighter. Like that cabinet above the toilet, put there because they didn’t want to or couldn’t put in a medicine cabinet. I used to have a magazine holder on the floor, but our floor now has, in addition to a trash can, a poo scraper and a rinsing pitcher for le bebe, so that was out of the question. But I I still wanted something above the toilet, so we got a glass shelf and the magazine rack. Because we were always going to have magazines, but now they aren’t sitting on top of the toilet. Another good thing about taking down the walls was that they were able to frame it out so we could get a recessed medicine cabinet in there. Huzzah!
So one space efficiency thing that one doesn’t necessarily think of is the plumbing under the sink. I don’t really remember everything about how it once was, but I do remember that i couldn’t fit nearly as many things under there as I can now. The pipes just went everywhere, it seemed like, or at least went in just the PERFECT place to render the undersink space pretty much useless.
At some point we’ll replace the window. Well, at some point I want to, anyway. I don’t even know how to describe its ick. It’s mostly metal, but it has what I thought was a wood bottom surface. No. When I went to clean it, it turns out it’s some sort of Styrofoam. What? I’m assuming it’s relatively weatherproof, but it’s definitely not perfect, and when I lifted it the one time I tried to clean it, it was sitting in a bit of water and there was a drainage hole or two to the outside. Oddly enough, our bathroom is relatively warm in the winter so we can close the vent, but still, all that’s between us and the outside as far as that window is concerned is a piece of Styrofoam. Ew.
The last thing we did to the bathroom -as we did for the rest of the house -was repaint the door. The or some previous owner kept their dog in the bathroom so there’s a lot of scratch/chew marks, so we puttied those as best we could, and that plus the fresh coat PLUS the newly spray painted door knobs make it look good as new.