From Bathroom Gaah to Bathroom Glam

When we moved into our house, well to be honest, even before we moved into our house, I began to scheme on how I would remodel each room of the house.  The second time we visited the house, before we bought it, I brought my measuring tape to measure rooms so I could draw up floor plans.

Once we moved in, I tried to slowly ease my way into changing things.  Pulling down wallpaper, painting walls, some new furniture and a couple new pieces of art.  And then suddenly, my impatience kicked in and randomly one day I started pulling down the ugly fluorescent light cover that spanned the entire ceiling of the hall bath.  Thus, the bathroom model began.

I have to say that planning out a remodel, thinking about colors and how I want things to look and actually undertaking a remodel are two completely different things.  My dad helped out with electrical and plumbing, but other than that, I did the demo, tiling and painting myself. 

I pretty much gave myself a crash course in remodeling.  Did you know that using a non-powered tile cutter can result in a person going back to the store multiple times to buy at least three more boxes of ceramic tile than what was actually needed to tile the shower surround? Or that prepping a shower surround for tile by putting the mastic on the walls can be one BIG mess?  Putting thick, wet material on a vertical wall equals a large amount everywhere else.  Goodbye one pair of jeans, a mound of rags, probably 20 pounds of broken tile, weeks and weeks of Saturday's, a pair of sunglasses, a water pitcher and a plastic spoon.... But, oh the things I learned.  And now my next undertaking will be some much easier, I hope.

Here are some before shots:

When taking pictures, I forgot to take one of the awful fluorescent ceiling cover.  This is the only picture were you can see a bit of it in the upper left hand corner.

I appreciated my dad's help in this whole project.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done this remodel on my own (or for so cheap) without his help!

And...the end product!

I got the floor tile from Tile for Less.  http://tileforless.com/

 All other tile, plumbing fixtures, cabinet hardware, accessories, lighting and paint came from Lowes.  www.lowes.com

To save money, I had the tub refinished versus buying a whole new tub.  I used Advanced Refinishing LLC and I have been so happy with the outcome.  http://www.advancedrefinishingllc.com/

For the walls I used Valspar "Ironwood" and for the cabinet, Valspar "Journey".

And there you have it, my new love.