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Our House...in the Middle of the Woods - Main Bathroom

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This is our main bathroom from our home's listing 4 years ago.  First two things I did was take out the rugs and the curtains.  Painted the walls grey and lived with it for awhile.  But I never did like the vanity - too big for the space (length & depth)

Then we updated to this curtain as my 4 year old is this bathroom's main user.  During the 3 additional year, the yellow tile started cracking around the edges.  One day while shopping at our local Habitat Store, we picked up a sink that was a cute small sink.  What I didn't know then, was how hard it would be to find a vanity for said sink!

 

Then one day, on my local Facebook page, someone was giving away this desk.  I thought I'd give it a try and see if I could make it a vanity.  Y'all, I picked this up in June and finished it in March.  There were many moments throughout the process, when I almost gave up and just bought one.


After being gifted 2.5 boxes of tile from my local Buy Nothing Group (do you have one of those where you live?  You should check it out!), I felt confident we could move forward with replacing the floor and vanity.  Also, on the recommendation of a realtor friend, I decided to paint the walls a color that complemented the shower tile.  When we pulled out the vanity, we found this cool wallpaper behind it.



I decided to take up the tile one Sunday afternoon.  Assumed it would be a couple hour project and then we'd be ready to move forward.  It wasn't.  It was at this point that I realized that 99% of the DIYers I follow don't do big projects 😆  When I took up the tile I expected plywood.  I found...a soft concrete/mortar.  It was about a knuckle deep. (first project pivot)  At this point I paused and called in 3 people to quote taking the floor down to the drywall (all 3 would be more than the entire project cost...which makes me feel like my time is definitely worth $$!)  At this point we assumed it was a mud bath, which is common in mid-century homes.  My Mother-in-law watched a bunch of videos and convinced my father-in-law and I that we could take it up.  It should have been the mortar with some metal supports in it.



Um, it wasn't.  After testing a small part with my father-in-law, I went directly to Home Depot and rented a hammer drill...but I had to buy the chisel. It didn't take us long to get the top layer off exposing CONCRETE. (second project pivot)  This was so frustrating at this point.  I just wanted to lay tile and get back in!

We knew with the Schluter system that we had decided to use, the floor didn't have to perfectly flat.  So we forged ahead simply leveling a few spots.


This was a dry fit of the tile over the Schluter system.  This was how many full tiles would fit.


Finally!  Tile & grout are done.




But then, when we went to put the toilet back in we realized we had a problem (pivot 3, for just the floor portion).  The overall floor is 1/4-1/2" lower than the previously floor, the flange was higher than that.  And that's when we realized that the flange was too high in our existing toilet!  Not a huge deal, but when we first moved in we had to replace our sewer line - which means that two different plumbers removed and reseated this toilet...I had wondered why the last plumber had used an extra large wax ring :-/  This stumped us for awhile - we realized it right as COVID-19 was showing up in the US.  We called our (new) plumber and then decided we didn't want to have anyone in our home for awhile.  I figured out what I needed and (literally) ran into Home Depot on March 7th directly to the aisle I needed and grabbed the supplies.  And then, when I got home, realized I got a new flange for a 4" pipe and ours is a 3" pipe.  We patiently (ish) waiting for the correct size to be sent to our home and then finished the repair.



Putting in the vanity was a breeze and I love how it turned out!
      

                             

And here she is in all her glory.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out....and have decided that the other bathroom that was remodeled/built at the same time is no longer on our reno list :-D


Cost Breakdown

Floor (Tile, mortar, Grout, baseboards) $368 
Tool Rental for floor $57.81
Vanity (paint, nail filler, sink drain) $50 
Sink $25 
Wall Paint $36
Light Fixture $5 at Habitat
Light Globes $10  
Rug $15
Total for project: $566.79


Wall Paint: Behr Castle Beige
Vanity Paint: PPG Caribbean Splash


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