Remodel 101 Part 3 - Bathroom

You know how I said the kitchen remodel wasn't very exciting?  Well, the bathroom remodel was definitely exciting, or something resembling exciting.  I've grown to love remodeling bathrooms, but it was not so much of a love, or even a love-hate relationship.  You'll see why.  No complete before pictures here either, but you'll get the idea.

Problem #1: Painted tile.

What?  Yes, that's right.  They painted the original ceramic tile, a rust color circa 1956, with ordinary beige interior paint. Also original was the bathroom vanity, as I am sure you can see.

And yes, they painted the wall tile, too.

The toilet had at least been replaced since then, so we kept it. The previous owner installed ceramic floor tile, so I'm sure they replaced the toilet at that point. 

 This thing absolutely had to go.  There was nothing for it. And here starts the exciting part.  I don't really like plumbing. I have only ever done fixture plumbing, basically no rough plumbing. There are so many things not to like.  Obviously the mess from past water damage is high on the list.  The musty smell helps some, you know. And then all the tight spaces below knee level. That really saves your knees and back.

This is what it looked like after I removed the vanity and surrounding tile. I had a fair amount of clean-up to do before I could install the new vanity. This was a long weekend.  I wasn't very familiar with the parts I needed, so I probably took 4 or 5 trips to Home Depot in the course of 2 days.

Here are a few shots of the finished project.  You'll notice a pattern with the further use of green.  You can only see part of the new vanity here. Some new bath hardware in the new towel rod and ring.

I installed white bead-board and some trim over the previously tiled area. I was pretty pleased with the end-result.  The room just felt cleaner.

There were a number of smaller projects, but we were not very good at capturing pictures, so I'll describe a few.  

New paint throughout the house, with a few back-and-forth attempts with darker and lighter paint in the living room.  This ultimately led to a two-tone room.

This was some of Laura's work.  She used some stencils to paint on an Americana border.  I think it turned out well.

The rest of the house got some neutral colors.

The next project was pretty fun, and very pleasing.  The doors were original, plain, hollow wood panel doors.  They were terribly outdated, had several coats of paint on them, brass knobs, chipped.  You get the point.

I replaced all of the closet and entry doors through the house with 6 panel, moulded doors.

Remodel 101 Part 2 - Kitchen

Back to remodeling.  We did a couple more projects in our first house, remodeling the kitchen and the bathroom.  Yes, a single bathroom.  Not sure how we survived that.  We moved into this house and they had two of our favorite decor items: wallpaper and borders.  Yes, I'm being sarcastic.  Unfortunately we don't have any good "before" pictures, only during and after. 

 Here is a nice shot after it was peeled from one wall.

This wall was half wallpaper, with a border above the green paint. Thanks to Laura's hard work and persistence, the pugnacious paper was peeled from our walls.

We primed the walls so we had a clean slate to start from.

At this point in our lives, Laura was still into ivy patterns, so we went with a green that coordinated well with it.

Then I added a chair rail around part of the room. We also replace the old linoleum with some nicer vinyl tile.  I was still not adventurous enough to attempt laying actual floor tile. 

We added some color on wood panels above the kitchen cabinets as well.

Not a terribly exciting remodel here, but it was a big improvement and brightened up a rather dull-looking room.