Before and After #10: Guest Bathroom

 

We have a new bathroom!

 

BEFORE

 

The old room had such a weird, narrow, crowded layout it was almost impossible to photograph.

 

Remember this giant linen cabinet?

 

AFTER 

  

 

We kicked off the guest bathroom renovation project by replacing the entire sewage line that runs underneath the house, connecting the sinks, toilets, and showers in the kitchen and both bathrooms to the city sewage line in the street. It was a big and expensive project but definitely worthwhile.

 

Replacing the line also made it easier to change the plumbing layout of the room. The old layout was hugely inefficient; the new layout feels so much more spacious it's as if the size of the room doubled.

After deciding on a new floor plan, the first step was entirely demolishing the old bathroom, which Dev and Naresh tackled together during one of his (extremely helpful) visits.

 



A glimpse of daylight from beneath the bathroom floor boards

We got rid of everything, from the toilet and shower to the walls and floor.  As you may remember, both bathrooms were originally carpeted. Once we tore out the carpet in this room, we found that the floor underneath was a mixture of linoleum and pressboard, all slightly damp, so decided to tear out the subfloor, too, just to get a fresh start and avoid any issues with mold or mildew down the road.



Then we moved all the water lines so that we could change the location of the toilet, shower, and sink.  We replaced the stall shower with a full (extra-long) bathtub.  This also had the side effect of upgrading the room from a "3/4" to a "full" bathroom, which will come in handy if we ever sell the house someday.

 

 

Dev was in charge of picking out the tub, the toilet, and all the faucets and other plumbing fixtures.  I never realized there was so much variance in something as simple as a toilet, but now I know there is! Plus we wanted to repeat certain angles, lines, shapes, and colors throughout the room so we considered everything very carefully.

I spent months looking online before finding a sink and vanity that had everything I wanted: small, elegant, made out of real wood, with elevated feet.  I love this vanity, especially the caning on the front of the cabinet doors, the bun feet, and of course, the marble.

After the plumbing, Dev went to work rewiring the bathroom for new lights and switches (with help from our friend James), as well as adding a fan and extra insulation.

Then, drywall. Followed by adding beadboard around the bathroom perimeter and new crown and base trim throughout.  And paint, of course: we used "Seattle," the same gray color we used in the guest room.

We hired a professional tile installer to install the small hexagonal marble tiles on the floor and the marble subway tile on the wall behind the tub.

We tore out the absurdly oversized built-in linen cabinet and replaced it with some open chrome shelves above the toilet and a small medicine cabinet.

We also pulled out the old light fixtures and replaced them with a new sconce over the sink and this amazing antique chandelier that Suzan and I found while on a scouting trip to her favorite antique and consignment stores in Dallas.  It's French, about a hundred years old, and absolutely gorgeous and unique.  And the warm purple and gold tones add some color to the cool, subdued white, black, and gray color scheme in the rest of the room.

Then came the fun and easy part: accessories, linens, decorations, and plants.

Photograph hidden in the medicine cabinet

And now it's done*! Thank you so much to Suzan and Naresh for everything!  And if I ever miss the old damp blue carpeting and synthetic beige sink, I can still find them in the master bathroom.

* Well, pretty much done.  An observant viewer will notice there's still no toilet seat.  I'm going to buy one tomorrow morning, but I was too excited about taking photographs to wait.