room-by-room: bathroom #2

This picture looks familiar, yes that's bathroom #2, the header picture for bathroom #1 (I had best of intentions of putting both bathrooms in one post, darn power outages). So, here we go!


The original bathroom was not terrible, it just needed a little facelift. The tub (pictured below) is one of the only original things left in the house.

bathroom before

 

tub before

 This bathroom had both a tub and a shower, separate from each other. Since we have 3 (young) boys, and already have a stand alone shower downstairs, we decided to eliminate this bathroom's shower, plumb the tub area for a showerhead, cap the shower area's plumbing and turn it into a much needed closet... yes, this house lacks closet space, it's made for us to get creative! Follow that?

Under construction

old shower, new closet

vanity area left, closet right

The vanity... we were going to try to salvage it, maybe add a coat of paint and make it like new. Well, it was pretty nasty, so we went on to plan B - buy one... until we realized how much they were, seriously Ryan should go into the bathroom vanity making business, they're so expensive, at least the ones we found from the Big Box store by us. Time to get creative - yes! I had to really convince Ryan of this idea, actually I had a little help from his mom, which helps a lot! And this is what transpired:

We bought this table from an auction for $10 I think. (the auction was at The Coop, before Ryan's parent's owned it). We've been storing it in the barn for about 6 years now, just waiting for that special use. Well, we found it!

Don't worry guys, you can use your power tools, us girls like to use hand tools. Thankfully, the table was pretty easy to separate and cut through with a hand-saw.

I used our hardwood floor sealer on the top of the vanity, and painted the underside and legs. This table has beautiful detailing, I think the paint really brings it out.

Ryan sees the vision and is on board, and power tools come out :) Legs are chopped off to correct height. One half of the table is used for the bottom, the other side for the top. A whole is cut out to fit our semi-raised sink, the vanity is mounted to the wall, sink and faucet placed, plumbing is hooked up, and we have an amazing one-of-a-kind vanity!

 

 The mirror is replaced and we bought a medicine cabinet to the left (because if I'm going to be honest, the real hesitation with this vanity is there is no place to hide or store stuff, which is a legitimate concern... BUT we have a very large storage space now right next to it) and so the medicine cabinet adds that extra bit, too. There's also a little built-in area we will add shelving too. The vanity will store our towels, always looking nice rolled-up and pretty - wishful thinking?

 

The closet area. Maybe one day will be cutely organized.

Subway tiled shower-surround, wrap around curtain, and still need to paint some areas :)

We decided to put slate flooring in with no grout lines. We love it! Since slate is a natural stone, the tiles vary in thickness, so it doesn't create an even surface. I hardly notice it anymore, but it's not for someone who's looking for a perfectly even floor. I sealed the slate with 4 coats of a concrete sealer, just to be on the safe-side there's no water seeping through.

I love it's bright and cheery-ness! We have a few small things to do in our bathrooms, but it feels so good to be this far along, and the little things might take us a while to get to :)