Master Bathroom OVERHAUL

After years of saving and planning and dreaming and loathing our old bathroom, we finally got our master bathroom renovated! We did most of the design work ourselves (by looking at Houzz, shopping tile stores, asking for opinions, etc), and our contractor, Robbie, did the work. He brought in electricians and plumbers to do those jobs, but he did everything else himself. We loved working with him on the boys' bedroom and then again with our bathroom. It took about 5 weeks to complete the job and while there were a few small glitches along the way (things arriving broken, bad paint choice, etc), we are very happy with how things went.

BEFORE:
It was the original vanity and layout which we didn't like, the lights felt interrogation-like when getting ready, there wasn't much storage, and we hated the floor/shower tile. Plus, the floor tile didn't look good with the granite someone had installed along the way. (Not sure why they ever thought that was a good idea.) Plus, the walls had cracks and the tile was coming off the wall. It was pretty bad. It is our master bathroom, but we shower Georgia Mae in our shower, and the boys used our bathroom and so it's often all 5 of us in there at once and it didn't work out well.

looking in from the bedroom

There were two rooms, essentially.

small shower, gross tile, central drain

one sink, wasted space vanity

DURING:
We took it down to the studs and built it back up again. (This is why it took 5 weeks. Some people have expressed shock at the length of time it took. Just the demo took a week!) I'll spare you all umpteen pictures of the process, but it was messy and complicated and long-awaited!

AFTER:

The new stuff in our bathroom includes: a custom vanity, two sinks instead of one, an extra outlet installed, soffit removed, room opened up to be one big space, closet door swings into the closet instead of into the bathroom, a pocket door separates the bedroom and bathroom, the shower is 8 inches wider and sunken, the shower drain is no longer centrally-located under your feet, new shower hardware that includes a shower wand in addition to the showerhead, a pony-wall giving the toilet a little privacy, two medicine cabinets giving lots of storage, new overhead LED lights (including one in the shower where there wasn't one before) and wall-mounted vanity lights, a new fan that also plays music, and new hardware--robe hooks, towel bar, toilet paper holder, etc. Some of the things were my "babies" and some of the things are Seth's "babies". We did well picking out each of our things we cared a lot about and they never overlapped, which was great. Robbie built the custom vanity from scratch, based on a sketches Seth made. He's like a genius with wood--makes drawings come to life!

THE DETAILS:

shower shelf (lots of storage!!)

shower is a step-down now and 8 inches wider
I also have a foot shelf now!

4x16 white subway tile from DalTile, a nod to the era of the house

Carrara Marble from Stonetex

Pottery Barn

both medicine cabinets from Robern
I love all the storage!

3x6 gray subway tiles from DalTile

faucets and shower hardware from Home Depot.com

fancy light switches from Home Depot--dimmable and memory
They keep track of where you last left it and return to that when you turn it back on.
Also, they fade to off when you hit the switch.
The switch on the right is the music-playing fan.

gray penny round from Floor & Decor (feels so good on your feet!)

Restoration Hardware

Restoration Hardware

One of the snags along the way was a poorly tinted paint. We had started with the sea foam color you see in the swatch. And thinking it was too light, we took what was left and asked them to tint it dark to the one left of the sea foam (2123-50), but when painted on the wall, it was very much Baby Blue which was not what we wanted. So we bought another gallon that started out as the 2123-50, and paid to have Robbie re-paint the whole bathroom. Also: the 2123-40 swatch on the left is the vanity color. All paint is from Benjamin Moore. We used the Advance line on the vanity (and Robbie said it was the best paint he's ever used) and regular paint on the walls.

showing the poorly-tinted paint

The front room and dining room were a disaster, holding all the contents of our closet, since we couldn't get in it during construction.

He tossed the debris out the bathroom window!

the first sink arrived in a million pieces

the first medicine cabinet arrived shattered

We LOVE our new bathroom. We were thrilled with Robbie's quality of work, flexibility of timing and patience with our boys, ability to work with us thinking outside the box (we realize it's not a typical bathroom), and his price. If you live in DFW and want his number, let us know!