The Bathroom "Reveal"

Finally, finally our bathroom is done!  Well, it's been done for some time now, but sharing the "after pictures" hasn't been top of mind lately!

When we bought our house, the previous owner had done some updating to the bathroom--new vanity, medicine cabinet and bathtub...What he left behind, though, was a hideous Mallard Duck border, outdated flooring and awful Hollywood lighting above the vanity.  We knew we could live with the bathroom the way it was for a while, but at some point, we'd change a few things.

One thing that DID change right away was the wallpaper border.  I found a shower curtain that didn't make the flooring look AS BAD, so I then found a border to match the shower curtain.  It would have to work for the time being!

And it stayed that way for about 2.5 years.  The hideous flooring continued to hold up and we just couldn't justify tearing it out and replacing it...

But then, one day, Justin melted the floor :-)  He turned the steam mop on, forgot about it and came back later to discover it had melted the vinyl tile...Fortunately, the spot was SMACK DAB in the middle of the bathroom floor!  He was worried I was going to freak out when I realized what he did but why would I be upset???  I finally had an excuse to replace the flooring!

With that, I bought a new shower curtain, stripped down the border and repainted the walls.  And then started the search for new tile.  Who knew I could be SO picky?!  I wanted something affordable that future buyers would appreciate--but that we would also enjoy for the time being.

While the hunt for new flooring continued, our bathroom looked like this.  Pretty. Darn. Bare. And Blah.  Complete with the melted tile. It was this way from September of 2012 until late August of 2013...nearly a whole year!

I eventually found the tile I had been looking for--the coloring was perfect, the shape was what I wanted and the price was exactly what we were willing to pay.  It was time to call my contractor buddy in and have him get to work!

With a baby on the way, we knew our budget would only allow us to "freshen" the space.  I wanted to swap the vanity for a pedestal sink and replace the medicine cabinet with a nice, pretty framed mirror...but both of those cost money!  And as Justin pointed out, we'd lose a LOT of storage doing that.  True to the small bungalows of the 1920's, our house only has one bathroom--and one thing that made us get over that hesitation when we were house hunting was the amount of storage the bathroom offered.  Knowing this won't be our forever home, we had to think like potential buyers and I decided it was best to keep all the storage we could!

With that, the vanity and medicine cabinet stayed...we decided to replace just the flooring, throw some beadboard on the walls and get rid of the gawd-awful Hollywood strip lighting above the medicine cabinet.  No home improvement project is ever "cheap," but at least these few modifications would keep us on budget while updating the space!

Like I said, we called our contractor friend and put ourselves on his schedule.  And of course, once you start any project, things go from ugly, to worse, before they look better!

Our dining room became the "storage room" for everything that came out of the bathroom!

The bathroom had always had an awkward but smooth piece of paneling on the walls--thus, the reason for the border.  And this is what it looked like when the paneling was removed!

Nice, bright techno-colors!  lol

When the medicine cabinet came down, the Mallard ducks reappeared!  There is NO getting away from them!

End of Day 1--the major stuff was done.  Next up was grouting the tile and doing all the trim work.

Close-up of the tile, prior to grouting...not the hexagon tile I had always dreamed of, but at least it's something that will wear well and future buyers should appreciate! 

Day 2--the work is DONE!  And Justin still can't stand straight up to look in the mirror!  Ha!  Someday, we'll build a house just his size!

I eventually bought a few knick-knacks for the bathroom and it's feeling more cozy than it ever did!  The new clock actually works and keeps me on schedule in the morning...and we hung a curtain in place of the wood blinds.  Who knew that dust, wood blinds and hairspray do NOT go together?!  lol...The curtain is fairly long, but we found that even though we kept with the obscure glass in the bottom sash of the new window, our neighbors could TOTALLY see our top-halves...good bye valances, hello nice long curtain!

But my favorite part???  Kissing the Hollywood strip lighting good-bye!  I no longer feel like I need my big blush brush, can-can outfit and feathers!  But I do appreciate having a nice, brighter space that we were able to update on a baby-friendly budget!