Over the holiday break, we started getting serious about our house renovations. We bought the house knowing that for many things, we could wait. We wanted to paint, and get things unpacked, organized, and settled before we tackled the things that we knew we wanted to change. Just to put it in perspective, this property was for many years a rental property. When work was needed, the owners went with the least expensive option for everything. The couple who owned it before us did quite a bit of work- new wiring, new fences, new flooring, remodel of the master bath, and so on. However, they did not get to everything, as is often the case with a home in progress. This left us with a few rooms that needed to be remodeled entirely, and some things we just want to make ours, so to speak.
To kickoff our projects, we built a small wall along the left side of our driveway. We planted azaleas, and Jay put in a drip hose for irrigation. It looks very nice now that we have two walls on each side of the driveway. The entire project took one weekend, and was very satisfying. We were ready to tackle the next project, which was going to be a little bigger....the complete gutting of the hall bathroom.
Some of you may remember our previous home in Massachusetts. That house needed a lot of TLC...especially the bathroom. However, I think we managed to take it from a dim, water damaged, out of date hole to a bright, updated, solid new bath. Well, the good news is that our current bathroom was in no where near as bad a shape as the bath in Massachusetts. For instance, the lights worked on a daily basis, I never fell through a wall, and it didn't smell of pee constantly. However, it was not in great shape. The tub and shower surround were plastic, and old, with pink showing through where the plastic had worn thin. The vanity appeared new, but didn't work in the space for us. The linoleum, while not a bad choice, was so dirty I couldn't get it clean, the wainscoting was water damaged, and the walls and ceiling needed paint. All the fixtures needed to be updated. We also decided to turn the door into a pocket door to save floor space (the bathroom is very small). Here's our plan:
- Remove the old wainscoting, vanity, and tub
- Change the door to a pocket door with a kit
- This will mean some shifting of the plumbing and electrical (nothing Jay can't handle)
- Paint walls and ceiling
- Install new tub
- Tile the tub surround and floor
- Install new wainscoting and trim
- Put in a pedestal sink
- Install new light fixture, tub, and sink fixtures
Luckily, our new home has two bathrooms, so we don't have to get the work done in a single week. We made a great start this weekend, performing all the demo work, installing the pocket door, painting the ceiling, and moving the electrical and plumbing. We will next install the new tub, repair/replace the sheetrock where needed, and prepare the surfaces for tiling. Below are some of the before pictures, and a photo of the pocket door installation.
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| Jay is excited to get started being handy. He's removing the old vanity here. It will be replaced with a pedestal sink. |
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| The tub was old and patched, and so stained I could never get it cleaned. Same for the floor. It's a cheap plastic tub, and we are replacing it with a steel tub. |
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| You can see the tracks for the pocket door here; Jay has now installed the door, moved the electrical, and finished the plumbing. |
