Tub and Shower

Our main bathroom was in dire need of some updating when we moved in. The first things we did to it were to paint the pepto pink walls a nice shade of blue and replace the light fixture. Then I painted the vanity dark brown (instead of an orange-y oak color). The next project we decided to tackle in the bathroom was the tub area. Again, I don't have a ton of before pictures of this area. Basically, it consisted of a dark almond colored tub with stained once-white tiles. Most of the fixtures in the tub were gold except for the drain and overflow cover thing that were silver. The grout was coming out from between the tiles and the tub had some water stains that I couldn't get out. Basically, It did not look good.

Here's what the old fixtures looked like. You can also see how stained the once-white grout had become.


We started the tub demolition by removing all of the old tile. We just used chisels and hammers to get it all off. Honestly, this part of the process was very easy since most of the tiles were loose anyways.

Once we'd removed the tiles and the cement board, it was time to adjust the plumbing. Matt is 6'3". The old shower head was at under 6' on the wall (Maybe 5'9"). Poor Matt had to crouch down to wash his hair. Since we were adjusting some of the plumbing anyways, we used this opportunity to raise the showerhead to a Matt-sized 7'. Here is the updated plumbing.

After removing the old cement board around the tub, we were ready to glaze. I LOVE how it turned out. Here's Matt about to start the second coat of glaze:

The whole process was so easy and made a HUGE difference. We used Rustoleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit. It can be found here. At just over twenty bucks, this was a great option for us that turned out so much better than expected. Here is the tub after three coats of glaze.

After the tub was glazed, we put up the new cement board. In hindsight, I might have put this up prior to glazing the tub (we wanted to make sure that the lips of the tub, what the cement board covers, was also glazed). I might have even waited to glaze until we were finished tiling (but before we grouted). We dropped a few tiles or trowels while we were tiling and had a few little areas of glaze to touch up later on.


Matt then put in our new (Satin Nickle) drain and overflow cap thing. I'm so excited to get rid of my two-toned bathroom and have all of my fixtures match! Ignore the dust from putting in the new cement board, please...


OK, I know it's not technically a part of the tub and shower as this post is called, but during our shower renovation, we took a little break to put in our new dual flush toilet and I just couldn't wait to show it off. I am seriously in love with it! We went with the Glacier Bay Elongated Dual Flush High Efficiency found here. We got it at Home Depot on sale for an affordable $118. The price has since gone up to $158, but that's still cheaper than most dual flushes on the market. We love it and had no problems installing it. I plan to do a whole post on it eventually, but I couldn't resist a sneak peek.


Alright, onto the tub surround. We actually bought a wet saw (for crazy cheap off of Craigslist) for this project, knowing we would be using it in the future for all our tiling needs. At first, I was a little afraid of using this one. It's very loud, and very wet and unlike any tool I've used before. But, once I'd practiced on several tiles, I felt like a pro. I love how it works and it has been super easy to use.

As neither Matt or I had tiled before, I decided to take a free class on tiling offered at Home Depot. Information on the course can be found here. I highly recommend this class for a beginner. The tile experts at Home Depot taught me how to apply quickset, lay tile, and grout. They answered all of my crazy questions and were great with letting me get some hands on experience before doing it on my walls. We chose 6" Travertine tiles with a 1/8" grout line for our bathroom. While browsing at Tile Outlet, I saw these tiles and just fell in love. They fit perfectly into this bathroom and I couldn't be happier with our choice. Once we started tiling we were so impressed with how it started looking. Here are the first three rows applied. As we are using such small tile, we stop every two rows to level the top of the tiles and move them around as we need to.

We finished the back wall of the tub in one day and moved onto the side walls. Here is the back wall all finished (well, minus the grout). I just love this tile.

Once we got into a rhythm, the tiling really started going quickly. Here is the back wall completely finished and the start of the shorter side wall.

After tiling was completed, we moved onto grout. Sadly, I was too busy working to take any pictures (don't worry, I'll take plenty during our next tile project). After grout was in and dry, Matt applied Silicone to any corners where two walls met or where the walls met the tub (the below picture was taken before the silicone was completely cleaned up). The new fixtures were installed, the shower curtain was hung, and we were shower ready:

Lighting

All of the electrical in the house was a mess when we got in there. Luckily, my grandpa (Papa) is an electrician (as well as 3 of my uncles). He has been instrumental in getting our electricity running like it should. My dad was an electrician too, and, dare I say, I'm not too shabby with basic electrical projects (changing outlets, etc).

The light fixtures in the house were dated when we moved in. A lot of very 1970s style. We're working on replacing all of the fixtures in the house. So far, we have replaced the light fixtures in the kitchen, the two main bathrooms in the house, the hallway, the front porch and next to the side door. We also completely removed the ceiling light fixture from the front room. Sadly, I didn't get really great before pictures of all of the fixtures before they were removed. But almost all of them had pink and brown flowers painted on off-white or frosted glass. I am in no way joking. Most of our new light fixtures were purchased off of eBay for half the price of Home Depot or Lowe's. Our outdoor fixtures are from Menards. I did a lot of shopping around for our fixtures and I am so glad I did. We were literally able to save hundreds by looking around for the best deals on what we loved.

This was the light fixture in the front room. No brown flowers on this fixture, but there are the gold swirls on the fan blades. Another few things to note about this fixture: The base is too wide for the beam and hangs off about two inches on each side; the electrical cord actually runs up the beam, to the wall, to the floor, down the floor to another wall, and up that wall to an outlet that is controlled by a switch on the other side of the room.

This was the kitchen light fixture. You can see some of the flower/paint work on this one. This was a fan (with brown blades with gold swirl paint on them). We had removed the fan blades to get to the popcorn ceilings a little easier.

New kitchen light fixture. I love this fan. Beautiful light, reversible fan blades. Gorgeous! It's so much more my style.

This was the light fixture in the pink bathroom (now a beautiful shade of blue!). You can't tell from this picture, but there are brown and pink flowers painted on the off-white glass of the fixtures. The fixtures hung from a rusted gold chain (which matched the silver faucets beautifully), and gold ceiling hooks.

Matt hard at work putting up the new fixture in the now blue-ish bathroom:


Papa putting up the new fixture in the little bathroom. I don't have a before picture of this fixture, but it was a gold and off-white glass two-armed wall sconce. Only one of the arms worked. The other would blow the bulb out as soon as you screwed it in and turned it on. We went through probably 5 bulbs before we just changed it out.

The picture is a little crooked, but you get the idea. This fixture fits the bathroom a lot more in both size and style. Thanks, Papa!

My sewing room makeover has been a wonderful experience. Again, I plan to do a whole post on just this room, but the light fixture was such a huge improvement that I decided to put it in this post too. This is the before picture. Lots of gold swirls on the fan and lots of flowers on the light.

And here's the updated fixture (ignore the patching on the white wall, we were mid-painting when the fixture got here):

Our hallway had one of the plain white globe lights that were all over our house when we moved in. I found this light fixture at Lowe's and knew it was for us. The light the it gives off is perfect for our little hallway. Here is the old light fixture (after we scraped the popcorn ceiling but before the dry wall went up. It looks like a different house!).

And the new and improved one:

Our old outdoor light fixture on the side of the house. UGLY. And it didn't give off much light.

Matt putting up the new light fixture. The electrical behind the old fixture needed a lot of help. Our beautiful new fixture automatically turns on at dusk and turns off at dawn. It also dims when no one is around and is motion activated to get brighter when someone or something walks by it or a car pulls into the driveway. We loved it so much, we bought a second one for the front of the house.

Paint

Once the drywallers were finished with the walls and ceilings, we were ready for paint. We basically took an entire weekend and painted the five main rooms of the house (kitchen, front room, bathroom #1, bathroom #2, master bedroom). We used Sherwin Williams' Duration paint for basically our entire house. It's awesome because it is low-VOC and low odor. Making it not only better for the environment, but a hell of a lot more pleasant to actually use. Plus, you can scrub it clean if something spills on it. Trim and doors are done in a semi-gloss finish and walls and ceilings are an satin finish.

Here's Matt's mom taping off the kitchen ceiling. We chose to leave the two wood panelled walls in the kitchen rather than dry-walling over them. At this stage, we are planning an entire kitchen remodel in the not-too-distant future. So, the only thing we painted in here on our first go-around was the ceiling (we painted this so we could install the new light fixtures). The ceiling in the kitchen is painted Sherwin Williams' Modest White (we loved this color so much, you'll see it again and again in our house).

Our bedroom was the first room we painted (we wanted to be able to get our furniture in there STAT). Here's what our bedroom looked like before we got our hands on it:

All of the trim was painted Sherwin Williams' Pure White. The top portion of the walls is painted Sherwin Williams' Sporty Blue. The bottom portion of the walls and the ceiling are Sherwin Williams' Modest White. Here's my mom fixing some of the little areas where the paint seeped under the tape.

After the bedroom and kitchen ceiling, we moved onto the front room. We used an extension ladder to get all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. We primed all of the drywall and the small bit of wood that we'd chosen to leave on the walls. Drywalled walls are painted Sherwin Williams' Grayish. Woodpanelled walls are painted Sherwin Williams' Functional Gray.


Priming the wood panelled walls took forever, but it was totally worth it (a special thanks to our friends Mike and Nick for the help). I love how this little nook looks.


This is the front room painted after all of that priming. I love the slight contrast between the wood walls and thr drywalled walls. Radiator, closet doors and, eventually trim, are Sherwin Williams' Pure White. This picture was taken prior to the trim being put up. That'll be another post.


The largest bathroom in the house (and the one Matt and I use the most) was Pepto pink when we moved in. I'll be honest, it was hard to be in there for more than a minute or so when we first moved in.

This bathroom has been painted Sherwin Williams' Tidewater. The ceiling is Modest White. The closet doors, trim and the vanity are Sherwin Williams' Turkish Coffee. You can see a little of the Turkish Coffee on the mirrors.

My sewing room is quickly becoming one of my favorite rooms in the house.  Before I got my hands on it, it was all white with, you guessed it, wood panelling!  Here's the before (and my fantastic father-in-law helping us get ready to remove the popcorn from the ceilings!): 

We painted the walls Sherwin William's Essential Gray in an Eggshell finish.  The trim and wood wall were primed and painted with Sherwin William's Pure White in Gloss.  The first picture is my little photo montage to some of the costumes I recently finished (a little more on how that came together soon), but in the picture you can see the wall color and the trim.  The second picture is actually the same corner of the room that we saw in the before picture above.  It shows the wood wall halfway through painting (hence the splotches in the upper corner where I realized I still had a little spackling to clean up).  This picture was taken before the ceiling was painted, but it still gives a good idea of the wall colors.

Floors

As I've mentioned before, the previous owners of our house were not interested in maintenance or updating the house before selling it (and they wondered why it was on the market for almost 2 years!). The carpets were bad. Very bad. Expecially down the hall and around the fireplace. Because we were covering the overwhelming wood panelling in both of these areas, we thought that hardwood floors would be a nice addition. As I mentioned in my last post, this is one of the few projects that Matt and I did not do ourselves. A family friend of Matt's parents knew a professional who could buy and completely install the hardwood floors for cheaper than the materials alone would cost us. Though we were up to the challenge of flooring, it made more sense to us to hire this guy since he came highly recommended and was cheap.

We chose a Red Oak for the floor. Our flooring guy recommended it when we told him that we were interested in a durable floor that had a lot of detail. The floor is stained Sherwim Williams' Burnished Walnut. It is a beautiful color and the grain of the wood really makes this floor impressive.

Here's my brother helping us remove the last remnants of the carpet that was down the hallway and in the front room. We seriously could not have bought this house without knowing our families would be very willing to help us renovate. They are wonderful.
Installed, sanded, and stained hardwood. This picture was taken the day before the polyurethane went on.
Our very first step onto our new floors. They literally took my breath away when I first saw them after the polyurethane was put on.

Drywall

Though Matt and I are big believers in learning how to do a project and completing it yourself, there are some projects that are a little over our heads. In addition to the roof, we hired professionals to complete the drywall and the new floors. When we bought our house, half of the walls were covered in dark wood panelling. We tossed around a lot of ideas for how to deal with all of this panelling (removing it, painting it, etc). Ultimately, we decided that the best way for us to deal with the panelling was just to cover most of it up. We hired a team of drywallers to come in and cover over half of the wood-panelled walls with 1/4 inch drywall. While they were drywalling over the wood, they also skimcoated the ceilings that had recently been de-popcorned. The skimcoating was more to give us an even surface to paint and to clean up any mistakes that had happened while we were removing the popcorn (a couple of nicks here and there).

The wood panelling made our house dark. Like a cave. Here's what the hallway looked like before we covered up the wood panelling:

And here's the after. This is after the popcorn was removed and the drywall was put up, but before the new floors went in.

Here's our before show of the living room. So dark! This was taken on our final walk-thru before we closed, so not only is the wood no longer there, the flooring has been replaced and the skylights were added. The room is so light and friendly now.
Here's the after of the drywall in the front room. We chose to leave the ceiling and beams natural wood (Matt's family owned lumbar companies, he loves the look).

New Doorway (or "The Hole")

The layout of the house was a little strange when we first bought it. The rooms were all very cut off from each other and the flow of the house was pretty choppy. Matt and I decided to open up a wall from the front room to the kitchen (these are two of the largest rooms in the house, they are next to each other, and yet have no entryway between the two). As this was a load-bearing wall, Matt and his dad had to take extra care to make sure their new supports would hold the weight. Here's the before, during and after pictures of the new doorway. I love how it looks! Most people can't even tell that we added it. It looks like it was always there.

Now I'll talk about how they did it. First, Matt and his father removed all of the wood panelling from both sides of the wall and brought the wall down to the studs.
Once the wall was brought down to studs, they built a temporary wall to support the kitchen ceiling while they took the studs out and put in new supports.
The supports were a double cripple support, which means they built a 6 inch beam using two 2x6s with a piece of MDF sandwiched in between. This beam would eventually become the header for the doorway. Supporting the beam on either side were two 2x4s cut to the appropriate height. The temporary wall was put in. The studs were removed. The top beam was put in first once the studs were removed. Then they supported the beam on both ends by wedging the 2x4s into the space left in the wall.
Once the supports were installed, the temporary wall was removed and the doorway was complete. It brightens up our room so much. And I couldn't be happier with it.

Fireplace

Our fireplace was constructed with what is called 'stuffed grout.' Basically when they layed the brick for the fireplace, they loaded it with grout, and when the next brick was placed on, the grout oozes out in-between the bricks. It looks like this:

We didn't love the look of it and all I could think of when I looked at it was what a dust trap it would be, so Matt used a dremmel-like grinding tool and removed all of the extra grout. He did this project in a weekend and it made a huge difference in our front room. Just like the popcorn ceilings though, this project was a huge mess and covered everything in a fine layer of dust. This was fine by us though as the wood panelled walls of the front room would soon eaither be covered by drywall or painted. And we planned on replacing the floor. Literally, everything was covered in dust:


Here's a close-up of the brick after Matt was done removing all of that extra grout. I think it is such a huge improvement.


And here's the finished product mid-cleanup.


And our first roaring fire in the fireplace.