i thought it would be good to have a separate thread for my journey through my remodel, for those who are interested :)

this is my first house, and i'm not exactly young anymore, so i have a lot of those "when i get my first house, i'll be sure to..." that i am trying to fulfill. so far so good, but it's a dragged out process since I am relying on a good friend to help me with things that I am too scared or not strong enough to attempt myself (like the first round of plumbing, creating new walls, etc.)

the master bath actually used to be a closet when the house was first built 10 years ago. the floorplan offered the master bath as an option, but this one was not done by the builder. it wasn't a bad job - just obvious partly by the materials being different, and partly because of how it differed from the same house on the next street over that did have it done by the builder.

my main problem with it was the size of the shower - inside it was only about 29" square. i could deal with that short term, but that's way too small for me to deal with every day.

on the other side of the bathroom wall was a laundry area that also had the access to the garage from inside the house {{gwi:1502257}}

i decided that a larger master bath was more important to me than a washer/dryer on the main floor, especially since it's a ranch, so we moved the washer & dryer to the unfinished side of the basement about a month ago.

then i started tearing things out (after my friend made sure we were not dealing with structural walls) and now we are down to the studs & ready to rebuild. {{gwi:1502258}} -- one correction - the vanity will only be 30" wide, not 36

i know the trend these days is natural stone, etc., but i wanted a "shiny" bathroom so i went with it - i figure i plan to stay there for 10 years, so i should make the bathroom i want even if it flies a bit in the face of trends today.

i have decided on:

maax living tub 66x36 with air jets (& free chromatherapy thrown in there), white

30" vanity, likely this one only a 30" version

42"x42" kerdi tile shower -

interceramic IC Brites ultrawhite 4x4 wall tiles with a few IC Shimmer Nightfall glass tiles thrown in

matte 2x2 white tiles for the floor - not IC but they match well

chrome moen monticello trim

moen rain showerhead

a "Better Bench" small size for a foot rest in the shower

panasonic whisper fan that fits the 3" duct we have (feeds into a 4" after a short run)

QMark heat lamp

plan to do 2x2 similar tiles on the tub deck & 3' up the wall around the tub, and 8" or 12" white floor tile over ditra

still figuring out the vanity top, medicine cabinet/mirror, shelves in the shower, locating the heating vent, and the shower enclosure (will likely add bracing now and go with a curtain until i am sold on cheap shower doors or save up enough for a nice one)

here are some pics as we get started

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this is where the shower will go

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moving clockwise, this is where the vanity will be

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again clockwise, this is where the tub will be (see flue vent inside wall) -- also see the thin metal studs we'll use for the wall framing the shower, since there is so little space there given the width of the interior garage door. we are also using these metal studs in some of the soffit framing, which we had to do in order to avoid trying to match the stippling in the existing ceiling that of course didn't exist where the walls used to be.

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and last one, full circle... this is the front door & the interior garage door

off to bed in hopes of a productive day tomorrow! :)

lisa