Hall Bath {Post #1}

Our hall bathroom used to be absolutely hideous. Here's a before photo taken in Feb 2007. This was about the nicest that it ever looked. That day I had done a major cleaning and sprucing up and I was incredibly proud of how nice it looked. Sad, I know.

More photos taken right before remodeling:

As if you can't tell most of this from the photos, here are some of the particular items this room had stacked against it:

• wood grain toilet seat
• dark depressing wallpaper (hiding a mysterious 4" diameter lump next to the medicine cabinet)
• faux parkay wood floor (actually it was linoleum and it was rolling up around the edges, especially behind the toilet)
• rust stained bathtub and sink
• no shower head
• toilet that would plug virtually constantly
• water leak under the sink - we permanently kept a bucket under there to catch water
• no vent or overhead lighting
• yellowed, rusty metal medicine cabinet
• a GFI outlet that was wired incorrectly and would only work when the only light in the room was turned off (so forget using a blow dryer or curling iron or anything when it was dark outside)
• and how could i forget? a hollow core door whose insides were falling out the bottom...it would not lock and could only be opened by lifting on the bottom of the door and pulling. My friend Camille once got stuck inside and I had to walk her thru how to get out from out in the hallway...

In May 2009 we decided to makeover this bathroom (thankfully, right?). I believe we had planned to remove the wallpaper (easier said than done!), paint the walls, tile the floor, install a new medicine cabinet and vanity light and paint the sink cabinet (and fix any leaks, etc.). We just wanted to give the room a quick cosmetic update.

I went on a trip to visit my sister in Colorado and David had his brother Patrick come visit for a long weekend to help with the project. We had budgeted $800. Those of you who have ever remodeled anything are probably laughing out loud right about now...right?

While at my sister's house I called Dave a few times and he wouldn't really tell me much about his progress with the bathroom. I figured he just wanted to surprise me.

So I came home to this:

Yes, that's a toilet, sink and bathtub on the front porch. Redneck, huh?

And this is what the bathroom looked like when I went inside:

You could say I was "surprised."

In case you don't know me, I am not a big spender. Definitely a penny pincher. So when Dave & Patrick started telling me about the course of events that led to this room being totally gutted, I literally broke into a sweat. I was sick to my stomach.

In all reality, I think they made wise decisions as they gutted the room. I just had no idea when I left for Colorado that I would return to this. When they began tearing out the masonite bathtub surround I guess they found that water had been leaking thru bad caulk joints and the drywall behind it was wet. We did not want to tile over wet drywall so out came the walls. Then they figured once we had the walls out we might as well replace the tub since it was horribly rust stained and we didn't know if we could get it re-coated or not. And the bathtub drain was leaking and it would be easier to fix with the tub out anyways. And while we had the walls and tub out we could also plumb in a shower head and then tile all the way up so we'd have a shower and not just a tub in there. They also found that the cabinet under the sink was pretty wet (despite our temporary bucket solution, go figure!) so they decided we better just get a new vanity and sink too.

That evening they drug me against my will to Lowe's where we purchased a new bathtub, toilet, sink, faucets, insulation, plumbing supplies, tools, tiles for the shower surround, tiles for the floor, new vanity lights, a ceiling fan/light, etc, etc. It cost around $2,500. Over three times our budget.

And that was the beginning of the reality of the remodeling process...we had no clue how to finish drywall, tile or plumb or wire anything but we were about to find out!

And I sure was thankful we had a second bathroom because it was definitely going to take more than 1 weekend to wrap up this project.

Check back soon for the rest of the story on the Hall Bath Renovation...