Take Photo

Bathroom Makeover Week! The Weekend!

The Guiding Bathroom continues...

Yep!  I am alive.  Barely.  A bit exhausted.  A bit overwhelmed.  A bit confused.  And totally in love.  I have been feeling all of those things over the past week as we decided to take on a quick bathroom overhaul.  Today is our deadline friends.  The day.  And I can tell you, I am styling it all pretty, right about... NOW!

Can you believe it?  I can't either.  It's been a long and crazy road, and as much as I wanted to be blog happy this weekend... I couldn't.  Physically couldn't touch my computer.  Between the bathroom and spending time with the kids and family yesterday, I decided that blogging could wait.  Otherwise we may not have made it to the finish line.  Yep, it was that close.

You can follow along on all of the bathroom shenanigans thus far: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four.

This post could easily turn into eighteen days worth of writing.  Sure feels like we squeezed eighteen days of love into this bathroom.  When I last left you on Friday, we hadn't finished the floors yet.  Or set the toilet.  Or swapped out the counter.  Sheesh. 


What we had done however, is paint the walls, paint the vanity, remove the base trim, have our sconces installed and start the flooring {shown above}.

Friday night the flooring was wrapped up.  It looked as lovely as we had hoped, it really added a warmness to the room that was lacking previously.  Full photo coming in a moment.

Once the floor was in, it was time to trim!  Finally.  I was waiting for this moment from the second we pulled off of the original trim.  Something about trim makes me giddy inside.  It really adds that special finished touch.  So this moment was HUGE.


For the trim, we selected this white composite molding, as again, we used it in our lower level and love it.  It is nicely finished, easy to clean, is waterproof and resistant to mold and mildew.  In such a tiny space, it was worth the small cost upgrade to purchase good, prefinished trim.  

To cut the trim, the Mr. used his miter box for his angles, the trim is super lightweight and simple to cut.  So simple, that although we didn't have a coping saw, he just used a utility knife for his corners {very very very carefully!}.


Here he is putting the trim into place.


Does that give you happy tingles also?  Squeal!  So exciting!

He attached all of the exterior trim with his brad nailer and air compressor.  He later followed up with white caulk in all of the holes and along the edges.

  
One of the things that confused me when we were putting this floor in, was how it would hit the edge of the shower, and prevent the water from seeping below.

Google gave us the answer.  I owe Google my first born.

First, start out with your heavy duty construction adhesive.


Carefully line along the edge of the shower {or tub}.


Next, attach a piece of the composite quarter round trim.  Of course, we measured and cut it down prior to spreading the adhesive.


The adhesive basically acts as the nails for the molding, since you can't actually nail into the shower base.

Next, the white silicone caulk.  It is important to look for waterproof and bath on the tube. 


Bryan spread this on the top and bottom of the small piece of quarter round molding.


Now, we have a nice, water tight seal!  Yahoo!!  Our guests can shower without worry, and the floor was officially done. 

Saturday was our unexpected day off from the bathroom.  We had some things come up, such is life, so every last finishing touch would have to wait until Sunday.  I was sweating bullets.  Biting my nails.  Thinking all day about the bathroom.  What girl wants to spend an entire Saturday thinking about a bathroom?  Not cool.

Sunday started with giggles.  It was time to finally set the toilet.  First time toilet setters right here.


We have heard that figuring out the wax ring and getting the toilet set in the right spot is the trickiest, hardest part of this whole bathroom update.  So, we were nervous going into this.  We giggle when we are nervous.

We followed the directions and again, Googled around a bit, and learned how to attach the new wax ring.  Once it was set, it was a lot of, "Is it going to leak?  Is it right?  What now?".

After reading online a bit, we learned that if it wasn't right, we would know.  It would leak slowly from under the toilet base.  So, we have been flushing and keeping an eye on it, and so far, no leaks!  Oh yeah baby!  We set our first toilet.  We may have done The Shuffle. 

One the toilet was in, we said, why stop there?  Let's swap the vanity top also!

Our last vanity was gray formica with a set in white sink.  It was twelve years dated and dirty and ready to head to the ReStore.  I missed this part of the bath update {sorry friends}, but I did select the new vanity top.  It was this one, and it is a simple, classic white solid surface option.


I wanted a way to hang towels and accessories on the wall near the sink.  I had originally splurged on two beautiful knobs from Anthro, which were the perfect way to bring in the devine coral color.  When we went to install them on the white cabinets on the shower wall, they A: Didn't look right and B: Didn't fit.  I may have turned into a two year old, kicking and screaming on the floor.  Those knobs were my everything for this bathroom.  I needed to find a way to make them work.  The color was just too ooh la la lovely to be left out.

I asked the hubby if I could use them as hooks instead.  He thought for a moment, and had one of those glorious light bulb moments. 


He used his Dremel to shorten the bolt and inserted it into a drywall anchor.  From there, he screwed them into the wall.  And now I had my pretty coral color.


They will make way more sense in the outcome of this space, once the room is all together, but it was a stroke of genius by my hubby and I couldn't be more excited we were able to work them into the makeover.  Tantrum over.

In the photo above, you can also see that the hubby swapped out our cream color switch and outlet with nice pretty white ones.  Little things make all of the difference.

By this time, the kiddos were already in bed and I went out to the garage to work on one last little project I had up my sleeves. 

We found two small corbels {at our Home Depot store during one of the 2,148 trips we made there over the last week}, and paired them with this less-than-four dollar shelf from Michael's. 


I found this wood stain in our utility room and went to town giving the wood pieces some ebony goodness.


While the wood was drying, my love also hung the towel hooks on the bathroom wall.  We went with two of these hooks instead of a towel bar because I find hooks are easier to manage and they are often times less expensive than those fancy towel bars.  Plus, I was initially going to use them to hang purses in my dressing room, and hadn't installed them yet, so we already had them on hand.  I like them better in the new bathroom anyway.  And yes, we are hook fanatics in this house.


Once the stain was dry, the corbels were first hung on the wall as instructed {anchored in}.  Then, the small shelf was placed on top and air-nailed into the corbels.


Once I gave the wall a quick wash, we were left with this lovely little display shelf!


Because the coral knobs didn't work, I went to my hardware bin {yes, I have one of those}, and found some dangle pulls which received a quick coat of gold sharpie pen {just like in my studio}.


This installation process was seriously such a rush.  It was the moment that had been building all week.  I was like a shaken pop bottle, just waiting to explode with delight!  We now had floors, trim, a toilet, a vanity top, a running faucet, hooks, knobs, more hooks and a DIY shelf!


Oh, and for the blue vanity, I went with these lovely laides here.  You can't go wrong with $.79 cabinet pulls.


I found a small amount of random method to all of this madness, which totally worked for me and I totally love.  The acrylic on the dangle pulls pairs with the acrylic on the towel hooks.  The gold on the dangle pulls pairs with the gold on the base cabinet pulls.  It's like a triangle of random, yet totally working goodness.  This room is a mix and match of paint colors, wood tones and metal finishes and I couldn't be more smitten with the outcome and overall feeling it all provides.  It feels really chic and sophisticated.  Ready to see how it looked really really really late Sunday night?


Although it is looking a little blah, all of the finishes are so so lovely.  And you know me.  This room is getting splashed with color.  Remember the inspiration curtain?


Yeah, such a game changer.  And I can't wait to reveal it all together!  Until tomorrow friends!


Psssst!  I have been asked how we manage our budget for projects like this... stay tuned, I will be sharing that in an upcoming post as well.