Ok I am just going to be straight up, I am not a contractor, a carpenter, or even someone who remotely remodel's homes for a living; I simply have ambition to tackle any home project. The way I go about huge projects (and I can assure you this isn't always the smartest moto) is try and tackle it yourself and if you screw it up, then call the in the professionals! Again, probably not the best way of going about projects, but I know what my limits are (i.e. electrical, plumbing, concrete laying etc.) and I won't attempt anything that would harm myself or make matters worse.
So in 2018 I bought my first house on my own; I can't even break it down how awesome that felt to accomplish this on my own! This house was perfect for my family and I, except the main bathroom was hideous. My kids and I are all tall and this bathroom was clearly created for individuals 5 feet and shorter. This is a situation when you have a daughter who is 6'2"; the vanity went up to her mid thigh.. seriously, we both looked at each other and were like "um.. yea this isn't gonna work".
Do you see that tile behind the toilet? I know you can't really tell in this picture, but that tile had a hint of brown in it, the bath tub area is a bright white tile. So yes, this tile just irritated me; it had to go!
So I took everything out all the way to the studs. The reason why I did this was to just start over and put in new dry wall. That floor was the worst part about this whole redo; the flooring was a peel and stick linoleum tiles and the glue was ridiculous to get off. I scrapped that floor for days trying to get ever morsel off so I would have a level floor. I knew I wanted to lay down a tile floor, but I wasn't sure what I wanted the finished bathroom to look like. This is where my imagination came into play.
Yes this was my sketch! My dad looked at me like I was crazy; he was not excited about my plan at all! So the image I had in my head was to tile behind the mirror up the wall and fill in the bottom half of the walls with wainscoting. I did this for two reasons: 1) I am not a drywaller; to make those seams on that wall perfect was something I'm not familiar with. All I know is the seams have to be close where it's bolted to the studs, then taped off, then puttied, then smoothed out. Sounds easy right? Ha ha ha.. yea, to me it's like trying to tint your car windows yourself; you'd see the lines where I got pissed! And I don't want evidence on my walls! 2) I think wainscoting looks nice in bathrooms. Those are my reason's and I am sticking to it!
If you've never put in a concrete sub flooring, you're in for a real treat! Make sure your drill is powerful, you've got good knee pads, and lots of water to keep hydrated as you plug in like 500 screws in floor. Good times... sigh.
You can see my drywall skills here; this is obviously before it's taped off. If you don't have the Dremel multi tool, you need to get on it! Seriously, that tool is badass! It cuts drywall like butter. I was able to make some amazing cuts like around that window ledge.
Always pre-lay out your tiles before gluing them down. This is what I did so I know exactly what cuts to make. That white lid is the hole in the floor where the toilet goes; I am super proud of myself for cutting that out like a champ! If you've read my profile you'd know I am a stained glass artist and I love doing mosaics. I have many tools when it comes to creating art, so my tile saw was pretty handy for this project!
Not the best camera quality, but you get the idea of what is going on here! I tiled the wall behind the mirror to the ceiling and added a molding strip on the sides to frame it in. One tip I would recommend it to tile the whole thing. You can kinda tell in this picture, but my tile work slowly became crooked, I am not happy about it, but then again, didn't realize this until the mirror was installed. Ugh..
This is basically the finished product! I painted a fresh coat of white paint on the wainscoting (which you can clearly see that I needed to do). If you did notice the bolts on the drawers of the vanity, well there's a story on that too. Yes, I am diming out all my flaws. I bought the top separate from the bottom. The bottom vanity part is from IKEA; I will NEVER buy a vanity from IKEA again. Don't get me wrong, I love that store, but when you are making an improvement in your home you want products that are sturdy and built right. This vanity was a pain in the ass to keep together! I bought the vanity top separate because I didn't want a double sink, and that's all that came with this vanity, so I only purchased the bottom half. Lets be serious, there's 3 females living in my home and we need the space. So when purchasing two separate items that were not meant to be together, well I created a situation. I will be replacing this vanity soon and plan on dropping the $1200 for the one I really want that comes in one whole piece.
This whole renovation took me two months to complete; but again, I was mainly doing this by myself. My dad was my hero through this whole process and quite frankly, I couldn't of done this without him. Between the laughs, the heavy lifting, beer breaks, the cussing.. yea, he was my rock! You're better off having a rock assisting you as well!
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