My bathroom renovation: Before and after. Many, many pics.
My bathroom in my 1925 Center-hallway Colonial Revival was horrifically unattractive. At some time period in the 1970s, someone else put cheesey-looking 4" ceramic tile on top of (gasp) the original 1920s white 1" hexagonal tile.
Sometime in the 1970s, someone on hallucinogenic drugs put up wallpaper with black and red psychedelic butterflies. True story. As if that weren't enough (and it was) they put up extra-crappy 4" beige tile as wainscoting, using some low-rent constructive adhesive, and some of these tiles were laid on TOP OF the black and red psychedelic butterflies.
The substrate (where the wall tiles were placed) was a mess, so no two tiles are level with one another.
And then...
In 2005, the people who were going to "flip" the house put some 12" faux stone floor tile atop the 4" ceramic tiles on the flooring. So now our radiator is slowing disappearing into a chronology of cheap floor tiles through the decades.
My goal was to restore the 1920s look. The good news was, as we started tearing into walls, we found a hole for the old medicine chest and even old wiring for the porcelain sconces, so the restoration part went pretty well. We hired a lot of people, including boiler repairmen (to do the radiator repair), plumbers, electricians, plasterers and a carpenter to do the wainscoting. I did the demolition, the painting and the clean-up. ;)
The flooring is sheet vinyl, sold at a linoleum store in Hollywood. I checked the entire country and that was the only place I could find that sold it.
The sheet vinyl really does look like real tile. In fact, it's so realistic that THREE construction guys were fooled by it, thinking it was real tile. We had a professional floor guy do the installation and he did a beautiful job. Before he could install it, he had to apply THREE coats of floor leveler to clean up the mess we found hidden under those two layers of floor tile.
And we had to set the toilet up on a marble slab because the old flange was 1" too high after all those other floors were removed. We had two plumbers give estimates on replacing the flange and both said it would require tearing up the concrete floor in the bath *and* the kitchen ceiling. One of the reasons the radiator repair was so expensive was because an old elbow - buried underneath the radiator - had started leaking. To our surprise, we found six solid inches of concrete beneath the old tile floor. I'd expected three or four. Six was insane. And just tearing open one little hole for that radiator elbow cracked the kitchen ceiling below.
I started this in mid-January. The project took a little time. :)
First, the before photos (awash in Beige):
Radiator is slowly disappearing under many layers of tile.
The floor was a horrible mess. I'd hoped to save the old 1920s hex tile, but it had been torn up and replaced with concrete.
Messy.
Electrical goes in.
New floor and new bathroom:
Radiator returns after being removed, sandblasted and powder coated.
Wainscoting goes in.
Paint job complete!
A shiny new pedestal sink (Kohler's Memoirs) will be installed as soon as I get the special order faucets in.
Comments (26)
trinitytx
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Finished Bathroom Pics (two bathrooms!)--very pic heavy
Comments (41)Wooo!!! Cat, I am stuck at home because of the snow storm so wandered around here not looking at anything in particular and came upon your thread. I totally agree with you on the shower curtain choice. Regardless of whether I have the money to spare or not, keeping those suckers clean is a nuisance over time. We have a glass shower door that was installed back in 2003 and I can't tell you how much I hate cleaning it. Not that the door is all that dirty, but a shower curtain is way easier, and you can change the look/style whenever you feel like it. Can't do that with a pricey shower door. Anyway, everything looks lovely as usual, including the "prom" dress :-) Love, love those circular tiles, and the floor tiles that look like fabric. Gorgeous. What colour is that again? It looks greyish on my monitor....See MoreHappy Dance! Bathroom Finished! many pics
Comments (16)enduring: thanks --- the bedroom and bathroom walls are painted same color (as is newly created suite area between them) and this goes a very long way toward harmonious feel. Antique headboard is about same the finish as the bathroom vanity and this helps too. I did the best I could to make the original bathroom attractive, but it was a losing battle. I did not post the photos of mold, cracked tile, rusty hinges, broken tiles and fixtures, and the hated hollow core door. The room never felt clean no matter what I did. Ugh, it just wore me down. Towel bars on door were my only option as I wanted to eliminate clutter on walls. Original idea was to mount towel bar on half-wall, but the resulting clutter and narrowed walkway weren't worth it. Since the bathroom door is closed during showering anyway, it isn't a big deal for me to reach over to the door for my towel. DH takes his towel from door and hangs on shower door towel bar for easier access. Normally the bathmat hangs on shower door towel bar. This process is still not ingrained in our "muscle memory" but we are trying. We mounted the hand towel ring on the wall of the toilet nook, so to dry hands at the sink, I make a half turn behind me to reach hand towel --- or take the towel over to counter and rehang it after drying. Again, hiding towel ring there cuts out clutter. It would make more sense to hang towel ring on a tower beside sink, but I worried about the water droplets hitting the wood tower and making a mess over time. If the vanity were painted instead of stained, this probably would not have been an issue. See the tiny details that must be considered from the very beginning stages of planning?!?! We have two grab bars (Moen) in the shower. GC blocked the studs during build-out to accommodate these bars. Jury still out on whether we could have gotten by with handheld shower head only. During the weeks we were without a shower door (fabricator cut the door too tall; what frustration!), I carefully showered with handheld and grew to love it. Full-time though? I am not sure. Possibly so. Good luck with your plans....See MoreDIY bathroom reno finally complete! Before and after pics
Comments (43)Just one side note, it was mostly DIY- all of the plumbing and tub installation was done by a plumber. And the plaster walls were resurfaced by a professional. They were pretty bad after removing the tile. And my husband wanted plaster not Sheetrock....See MoreBefore & After: my new bathroom
Comments (29)Kristi, I hope you're still checking back here. I'm very interested in your tile. Is it more beige-ish, or gray-ish, or both? It's hard to tell from your photos. I'd like to do something similar in my smallish master bath. Would you say it's light in color? I'm afraid of making the bathroom too dark. Also, I really love the way you placed the tiles. It seems to be a herringbone pattern - am I right? I live in New Jersey, and I can't seem to find a store that carries Sarana tiles, but I'll keep looking....See Morejoan_mn
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rosemarytOriginal Author