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Bathroom Makeover Week! Day Three!

And these are the Days of Our Bathroom Lives.....

OK, so that wouldn't make the best soap opera title.  But that is what it is here at our abode.  Bathroom crazy town.  You can catch up on Day One here and Day Two here.

First, I totally adore and appreciate all of the virtual support over the mirror drama.  You sweet friends are seriously the best.  Gah, I am a lucky blogger.  And it totally was sad for me, but these things also happen to me enough that I can't let it get me down or impact the end result of the project.  I love love love to problem solve, so I am OK that it happened, am fairly sure I can work the mirror in somewhere else around our home, and if not, I will just have to either keep it in the family or sell it on Craigslist.  Those that are DIY crazed, probably understand that you win some, you lose some.

In fact, it was an excuse to get out of the house for a moment and check out other options.  And in the end, I am REALLY happy that it all went down the way it did.  I think the new mirror I found will be even better.   As I mentioned, my first stop was going to be HomeGoods.  Reason being, I wanted something a bit unique with the same ease as going to a Home Depot or Target.  There are probably many higher end stores within 50 minutes driving distance, or even stores that are complete gems for unique items and deals, however, I am on a budget and timeline so I went where I knew I would have oodles of options to select from.


After looking and digging, I continued to come back to the taller white mirror on the lower shelf.


I loved the height, that it was narrow enough we could put a light on either side and it had a small amount of detail, it wasn't too simple or too ornate.  I did notice that there were a few scuffs in the paint, and the glass wasn't tightly affixed to the frame.  This is the time when you have some negotiating power.  Being the fact that we have some minor DIY skills, I knew we could either touch up or paint the frame and we could also re-affix the mirror.  And after checking with a sales associate, they brought the price of the mirror down from $40 to $25.


I figured I would have good luck at HomeGoods, but I was also nervous for the fact that I might not find something there and would be sent on a wild goose chase all over the Twin Cities.  Wahoo for finding one at the first stop, something that rarely happens when in a DIY pinch.  I would say I won this round.

After another quick stop at Home Depot, I snagged the final items we needed to move forward with the project, such as our sconce junction boxes, a white outlet and two white switches and a few tools to get the floor going.

Speaking of flooring, after dinner and a game of Left, Right, Center with the kids {who else loves that game?}, I put the little guys to bed and the hubby got started on the floor.  He even took a few of the photos.  What a guy!  And speaking of photos, please remember that we are installing these items late at night with no natural light and only a table lamp.  My white balance was so messed up, so I really apologize.  I will be sure to mention when there are photos that show the truest colors.  Remember, I am not going for pin worthy here, I am going for "Let's get this bathroom done without any horror stories" worthy.

Let's quickly chat about the floors.  As I mentioned, we went with the same flooring we installed throughout our entire lower level.  It is the TrafficMaster Allure Ultra in Cinnamon Oak, which is stocked at our local Home Depot.  It is rubber, so it is great for areas with moisture, it also has gotten great reviews for bathrooms.  We wanted something that we could install ourselves, that would look pretty and that wouldn't cost a fortune.  Since we are already so familiar with this flooring, it didn't take long to decide it was the perfect fit for us.

All of the trim in the bathroom had already been removed, and this flooring can be installed right over the top of our previous laminate.  Score.

Here are the tools we used for this project:


There was an unfamiliar obstacle right off of the bat.  We had plumbing coming up from the floor that we needed to work around.  So Bryan found a bit for his drill approximately the same size as the plumbing, measured the distance from the plumbing to the wall, and measured and marked the same distance on the flooring.  Using the drill bit, he drilled right through the rubber floor.

{Bryan temporarily removed the rag from the floor drain to ensure that it did not get lost down inside while working over it - it is important to keep it stuffed when you are done working over this area.}

Once the hole was drilled, in order to slide the flooring around the piping, he used a tin snips to cut a single line from the hole to the edge of the flooring.

{true color}

The flooring floats, so no glue or nails, it is just a snap together flooring that can be cut with a utility knife.  Once it was the correct length, Bryan just bent the board to navigate it around the pipe.





The toilet drain was the next obstacle to navigate around.  However, the process was similar.  Only this time, he used a scrap piece of paper {shameless Etsy shop printable product placement}, and traced around it with a pencil and then cut it out.


From there, he used the same template to trace the cutout onto the flooring.


And used his Dremel to carefully cut out the circle.


Nice and pretty!


Same step was repeated for the next piece as well.

The flooring was going in fairly quickly.  A lot of measuring twice....


Cutting once.  To cut the flooring, he would just score it with the utility knife from the front and the back until it would separate with a nice clean edge.



The next step is to click the flooring into place.  To do so, it just wiggles and clicks in, and then with a scrap piece of flooring, Bryan used a pry bar to pull and tap it in nice and tight.  The scrap piece ensures the pry bar doesn't compromise the snap and lock system of the flooring already installed.


He also used his Dremel to cut around the vent.



He was over halfway done and through his first box of flooring, and decided to call it a night.  I offered to sing and tell jokes and be the comedy act that I am, if he would just stay up and finish it.... for some reason that idea wasn't appealing enough.  He went to bed.

SO pretty already!  It is absolutely incredible the difference it is making in the room.  I am drooling over the thought of the pretty white trim going in next.  It is going to be the show stopper game changer that brings it all together. 

OH!  And I installed the cabinet doors!  Before I went on my little shopping trip, I second coated the cabinets and vanity with paint.  And now it is ooh la la lovely!

{true color}

But before I put the doors on, can you guess what I did inside behind them?


Cleaned out the project clutter... and snagged a roll of shelf liner!


For anyone who works with this stuff, it can be grounds for foul language and feet stomping.  But I have found that if you peel a little back and stick it where you want it, and then slowly keep pulling the backing as you go, smoothing along the way.... it really isn't so bad!  


I had to do some pattern matching and patching pieces in around the tubing in the back of the cabinet, but when it was all said and done, no swears were spit out and it looked lovely!  And the utility knife was my new bff.


Just a nice and happy little surprise behind the cabinet doors.  It's the little things that will make this entire quickie bathroom, feel just that much more personal.  {I found the shelf liner on Amazon here}

So end of day three!  No limbs have been lost and no rushing to the ER, no fights have been had and drama even stayed away.  The mirror was a huge find and we made progress!  Although, it does seem that our list grows longer each day, even with all we are accomplishing!  Four days left to bring this bathroom home!