This has been such a long-awaited post. We've been investing {our time, money, blood, sweat + tears} into our master bathroom remodel for the past 4 months, and I wanted to finally document it on the blog since I am starting to see the finish line in sight. We're not quite there yet, but we can see it. And, like an excited child on Christmas morning, I can't wait to jump the gun and show you our progress so far.
I would like to preface this post by stating that my husband and I are first-time homeowners and semi-DIY'ers. Meaning: we want to be hardcore DIY'ers, but some of our projects don't turn out exactly as we've envisioned, leading us to pick up the phone and call in a professional. Sometimes. And sometimes, things work out. We are learning our limitations.
A bathroom remodel in general contains many different aspects in one project. There's the demo, the plumbing, the framing, the drywall, the electrical, the insulation, the tiling, the painting, and in our case, the subfloor replacement - the thing that really started it all. Yes, back in October last year, Matt was doing a simple "re-caulk the shower" job in our master bathroom, and ended up finding a small leak that had been slowly eating away the wood subfloor underneath our shower and soaking tub. At the minimum, we knew we needed to replace our shower and subfloor, but we weren't even sure if we wanted an outdated soaking tub anymore. Everything in our bathroom was screaming, "circa 1996!", so, we did what anyone in our situation would do - we took to Facebook and asked our friends to weigh in on their thoughts of shower + tub vs. one giant shower. One thing led to another, and we quickly ended up in the middle of a full-blown remodel. Funny how that happens...
Now, I have to give ourselves some major credit on this project. Not everything we've attempted to do in the past has worked out well for us, but we really haven't hit too many major bumps in the road with this one {fingers crossed - it's not over yet}. We're starting to learn when we need to call in the pros vs. when we can do things ourselves. And we're starting to learn the easier ways of doing things vs. the more complicated ways {which there are many of them}. And so far, it's saved us a ton of money.
So, today I'm sharing a few shots of our demo + shower-making journey with you. Enjoy!
Yes, that is me with a sledge-hammer, tearing it up. Watch out, everyone!
I loved the demo phase, because it felt like we were making a ton of progress so quickly. I was coming off of our garage project that moved at a snail's pace {a post for another day}, so this was a welcome change.
After removing all of the {very, very heavy} pieces of our old shower and tub, we removed our damaged subfloor and replaced it with a new plywood sheet. I can't believe we replaced our own subfloor. In our own house. I feel like such a grown-up.
Next step was opening up our ceiling, running electrical, installing our new exhaust fan {a bigger shower needs a bigger fan, right?}, new can lights and plumbing {our new rain shower head}! Close it all up with insulation and some new sheet rock on the ceiling, and we're almost ready for the pros to take over this project. And props to Matt who crawled through our attic with a roll of fiberglass batting to insulate our new ceiling - serious props. Not fun, people, not fun.
On to the framing. To be completely honest, I didn't realize that we were responsible for the framing at all. Matt was the one who met with Jon, our shower + tile guy, originally, and he must have told him that we would be able to do that ourselves. I didn't find this out until I was emailing back and forth with Jon about the project and he mentioned us being in charge of the framing... surprise! So, we figured out how to build our own shower bench, curb + wall niches, which turned out to be a great thing, because the control freak side of me was able to make them exactly the sizes and put them in exactly the locations that I wanted them. And we saved money. And we learned something new. Win, win, win.
And finally it was time for the shower pan to be made! After the fiberglass was installed, they filled it with water and let it sit for a couple of days to make sure it didn't leak {a little nerve racking}. It ended up not leaking {yay}, and we moved on to tile installation! We went with this light gray porcelain wall tile that we found on clearance at multiple Home Depots for only $1.27/sq. ft.! And we went with this charcoal gray glass tile for the shower floor. And yes, we had a team of awesome hipsters installing it for us - this is Austin after all.
And that's all I'm showing for now! You're going to have to wait until the big reveal to see how it all turned out;) Keep an eye out for part II of this little installment where I show you how we tile our bathroom floor. Thanks for reading!
I would like to preface this post by stating that my husband and I are first-time homeowners and semi-DIY'ers. Meaning: we want to be hardcore DIY'ers, but some of our projects don't turn out exactly as we've envisioned, leading us to pick up the phone and call in a professional. Sometimes. And sometimes, things work out. We are learning our limitations.
A bathroom remodel in general contains many different aspects in one project. There's the demo, the plumbing, the framing, the drywall, the electrical, the insulation, the tiling, the painting, and in our case, the subfloor replacement - the thing that really started it all. Yes, back in October last year, Matt was doing a simple "re-caulk the shower" job in our master bathroom, and ended up finding a small leak that had been slowly eating away the wood subfloor underneath our shower and soaking tub. At the minimum, we knew we needed to replace our shower and subfloor, but we weren't even sure if we wanted an outdated soaking tub anymore. Everything in our bathroom was screaming, "circa 1996!", so, we did what anyone in our situation would do - we took to Facebook and asked our friends to weigh in on their thoughts of shower + tub vs. one giant shower. One thing led to another, and we quickly ended up in the middle of a full-blown remodel. Funny how that happens...
Now, I have to give ourselves some major credit on this project. Not everything we've attempted to do in the past has worked out well for us, but we really haven't hit too many major bumps in the road with this one {fingers crossed - it's not over yet}. We're starting to learn when we need to call in the pros vs. when we can do things ourselves. And we're starting to learn the easier ways of doing things vs. the more complicated ways {which there are many of them}. And so far, it's saved us a ton of money.
So, today I'm sharing a few shots of our demo + shower-making journey with you. Enjoy!
Yes, that is me with a sledge-hammer, tearing it up. Watch out, everyone!
I loved the demo phase, because it felt like we were making a ton of progress so quickly. I was coming off of our garage project that moved at a snail's pace {a post for another day}, so this was a welcome change.
After removing all of the {very, very heavy} pieces of our old shower and tub, we removed our damaged subfloor and replaced it with a new plywood sheet. I can't believe we replaced our own subfloor. In our own house. I feel like such a grown-up.
Next step was opening up our ceiling, running electrical, installing our new exhaust fan {a bigger shower needs a bigger fan, right?}, new can lights and plumbing {our new rain shower head}! Close it all up with insulation and some new sheet rock on the ceiling, and we're almost ready for the pros to take over this project. And props to Matt who crawled through our attic with a roll of fiberglass batting to insulate our new ceiling - serious props. Not fun, people, not fun.
On to the framing. To be completely honest, I didn't realize that we were responsible for the framing at all. Matt was the one who met with Jon, our shower + tile guy, originally, and he must have told him that we would be able to do that ourselves. I didn't find this out until I was emailing back and forth with Jon about the project and he mentioned us being in charge of the framing... surprise! So, we figured out how to build our own shower bench, curb + wall niches, which turned out to be a great thing, because the control freak side of me was able to make them exactly the sizes and put them in exactly the locations that I wanted them. And we saved money. And we learned something new. Win, win, win.
And finally it was time for the shower pan to be made! After the fiberglass was installed, they filled it with water and let it sit for a couple of days to make sure it didn't leak {a little nerve racking}. It ended up not leaking {yay}, and we moved on to tile installation! We went with this light gray porcelain wall tile that we found on clearance at multiple Home Depots for only $1.27/sq. ft.! And we went with this charcoal gray glass tile for the shower floor. And yes, we had a team of awesome hipsters installing it for us - this is Austin after all.
And that's all I'm showing for now! You're going to have to wait until the big reveal to see how it all turned out;) Keep an eye out for part II of this little installment where I show you how we tile our bathroom floor. Thanks for reading!
Lots of time and hard work has paid off...your bathroom turned out gorgeous:)
ReplyDeleteA safety tub is a bathtub that fills and drains after you’ve entered and sat down. Unlike a normal bathtub, the safety tub has tall walls and a swinging door. www.parishbathrooms.co.uk
ReplyDelete