Thursday, October 21, 2010

Colorado house progress- part 2

Remember this?

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We thought we were done with complete bathroom overhauls for a while, that is until we realized that the tile in our master bathroom shower was about to fall off the wall and needed to be ripped off and completely redone.  We already knew that we wanted to entirely rip out that bathroom, but thought we’d wait a year or so because there were some other projects that were higher priority.  Once we knew the shower had to be redone, we decided there was no point in redoing it unless we did the whole bathroom at the same time, because we couldn’t do it the way we wanted to unless we changed a lot of other things in there too.  I didn’t want to pay to have it redone it in a way that we weren’t really happy with, only to know we’d have to rip it all out whenever we decided to do the rest of the bathroom.  So, the master bathroom moved to the top of our list.

I forgot to take a before picture, so the only one I have is from the listing pictures when we bought the house:

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Unfortunately, this picture doesn’t show the other side of the bathroom, which had a very small shower with a hideous shower enclosure with a brass frame.  I know that from this picture, you can’t tell that the bathroom really needs a ton of work.  This picture makes it all look pretty inoffensive, right?  Well, if you could have seen it up close before it was all demolished, you would have noticed that the countertops and cabinets were original to the house and had all been painted over—yes, even the countertops and sinks were covered in paint!  The paint was chipping off in lots of places and the drawers all struggled a little when you tried to open them.  The sinks were shaped like shells (just like the one that is still in the girls’ bathroom).  The shower floor was disgusting—it looked like a locker room shower floor and had a huge crack in it as well.

Getting the old tub, countertops, and shower pan out of the house was quite a chore.  The tub and countertops/sinks were made out of a cultured marble that is ridiculously heavy and the shower pan was a solid slab of CONCRETE!  We had to enlist the help of four strong guys from church and Patrick’s mom who was here visiting us during the demo-- lucky her, right?  When they carried the tub down the stairs, they estimated that it weighed over 400 pounds!  Then when they carried out the shower pan (picture below), they said it was even heavier than the tub!

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I learned a lot from the master bathroom project in our Charlotte house (thankfully, no longer OUR house since we closed on it last week).  I liked a lot of the choices that I made in that bathroom, so I chose the exact same style of countertops, sinks, sink faucets, and cabinets that I used there.  I realized that I chose too light of a tile on the floor in that bathroom (wasn’t thinking about how annoying that would be when Patrick and I BOTH have such dark hair), so I went with a light gray tile on the floor for this bathroom but stuck with the off-white in the shower.  So here are some pictures of the bathroom mid-project.  The floors have been laid, but the rest is still a total construction zone:

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Our soaking tub was delivered last week and currently it is sitting in our bedroom.  Thankfully they make tubs out of fiberglass now, which means they are SO much lighter than they used to be.  I love the new tub I picked out.  It is crazy deep and it is long enough that I can completely extend my legs—something we’ve never had in any of the tubs in all the previous places we’ve lived.  (I even had Patrick sit in it and he doesn’t have to bend his legs to sit in it either!)  Even though I’ve never been much of a bath-taker, I just might have to become one!

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Until it gets installed, it is serving some alternate purposes--

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and a play space for the girls and their friends!  (Usually tons of pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals are involved as well.)

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I have everything all picked out now except for the new lighting above the mirror.  I am most excited about the new shower.  We designed it so that the tiled deck of the tub will extend into the shower to make a little bench in there.  Shaving won’t be such a chore anymore!

Can’t wait to show you the finished product.  In the meantime, here’s a little preview of the tile I picked out for the backsplash:

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6 comments:

jan said...

I am so pumped sbout all your choices. I think the floor looks fabulous and so happy you love the tub. You will be my bathroom consultant if ever we do a remodel. Can't wait to see the finished product. love you

Dana said...

Sounds very exciting! I can't wait to redo our bathrooms. Don't forget to make sure your shower seat is angled slightly into the shower so it doesn't collect water and make tons of nasty hard water stains.

Erin said...

I LOVE penny tile!!! I can't wait to see it finished!

Oh, and do you guys always do demolition while wearing church clothes? :)

Tracy said...

You always do a great job with home projects! It almost makes me feel ready to tackle our bathrooms..ugh. Looking forward to the after pictures, not to mention a new home tour!

merathon said...

erin-- very funny! the reason all the guys are dressed up is that patrick had just gotten home from work and the other guys came straight from a temple trip!

tracy-- i'll do a home tour for everyone when i buy my camera!

Megs said...

Looks great. Props to Grandma Jan for being in the mix there with the boys. Can't wait to see it all finished.