Bathroom remodel has begun!
Well, it’s been a LOOONG time since I posted here! That’s because we haven’t been doing any work on the house… until two days ago.
We have finally decided to go ahead with the remodeling of our 2nd floor bath.
Here are some “before photos” that we took (and posted here) two years ago: http://www.myoldhouse.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=20
Our tax return gave us some “starter money” towards this project. But by no means will that money pay for the whole thing. Yeah, we’re going to have to use credit on the rest. And that sort of goes against the “Dave Ramsey Plan”, which we’ve been trying to live by for the past few months.
But every few years I get this feeling that “we’ve GOT to make SOME progress on the house, no matter what”… usually because we get so tired of living with a problem.
In this case, the bathroom chief problems are its size (which we can’t do anything about), a lack of storage, a lack of light, crappy-looking cabinets, and a nice clawfoot tub that, as of 2 years ago, was still hidden within a wooden “box”!
We’re working with “Inviting Spaces”, a husband-and-wife-team/company. Mike and Denise Butler live about a mile to the east of us. Over the past few years of working with them on different projects on Independence’s West-side, Terry and I have found them to be of good, solid character. Plus, their own home, which we have toured, is a COMPLETE rehab of a house that had previously been CONDEMNED! So, we decided to engage them for help on this project.
We actually met with them initially last year. I was SUPPOSED to have started demolition on this bathroom over the winter, but I just didn’t get around to it.
So, Mike started work on Wednesday doing the tear-out. The floor is going to be leveled and repaired a bit with some cement “backing board”, especially near the sink. The floor there obviously had some dips. Even more dips in the floor were revealed when Mike tore out the sink and cabinet there.
We’re putting in a sunk-in medicine cabinet with an oval mirror. On either side of that, we’d LIKE to have two things, but I get the feeling we’re only going to get one of them, for lack of space:
1) Some sunk-in-the-wall shelves on either side of the mirror.
2) Some cabinetry on either side of the sunk-in shelves.
I think we can’t do the sunk-in shelves due to a lack of space on that wall, plus the fact that we’d have to tear a vertical wall joist completely out…. which is something we don’t want to do.
On three walls, we’re going with subway tile, which will be done with some patterning to it. (It’s hard to describe here, but Denise showed me some computer-drawn mock-ups of what the design patterns would be and I think they’ll look great!)
The floor will have some porcelain tile (larger squares). The sink is going to be a new pedestal sink, the old-fashioned looking kind that will have a fluted column pattern on its pedestal. (This pattern is the same pattern in the columns on our front porch)
The lone light that is currently to the RIGHT of the mirror will, instead, be moved to be ABOVE the mirror. And we’ll put a 4-bulb fixture in there, instead of a 1-bulb fixture.
Where we’re really “throwing our money” is going to be in the tub fixtures. Yes, yes, we’re definitely keeping the clawfoot tub! In fact, my wife and I are discussing how quickly we can repaint its exterior, now that Mike has uninstalled it.
But I went shopping online for a clawfoot tub shower surround, including new drain and supply lines and an “almost matching” faucet for the sink.
Now, I actually did a lot of research online for this over a year ago. Heck, two years ago. The emails I’ve got on it are from 2008. At that time, I discovered www.shop4classics.com. What interested me most was that their location was local: They’re in Olathe, Kansas.
But, in retrospect, that’s probably not much of a benefit to me now, because I now realize that they do not have a warehouse or a showroom. Instead, they order directly from the manufacturer and have that manufacturer ship to your house.
Now, that might seem kind of lame to you. And you may then think to shop elsewhere. Well, I tried… and three things kept bringing me back to their site: selection, price, and the QUALITY and SPEED of their Customer Service people’s email responses to my questions!
I can’t emphasize that last part enough. With a newbie like me…. especially since I’m NOT a do-it-yourselfer…. I’m very worried about ordering the wrong thing. I don’t want the embarrassment and hassle of having my contractor come back and say “you ordered the wrong part”.
Two years ago, I emailed Shop4Classics.com some questions along with photos showing the tub and what its current drain and supply lines looked like. They ALWAYS responded to me within maybe, at worst, 2 hours (assuming this was on a weekday). And they always asked me thorough questions and explained why they were asking.
So, two years ago, thanks to their help, I identified the EXACT shower enclosure system I wanted.
Now, this week, we did encounter one hiccup: my wife wanted an OVAL shower ring, instead of a RECTANGULAR one. The kit I had chosen only came with a rectangular one.
Shop4Classics.com told me how to use their shopping cart so as to ADD an oval shower ring to my shopping cart… and then SUBTRACT OUT the rectangular ring.
If you register as a user there, what’s nice is, your “shopping cart” will persist: You can come back several days later and the same stuff will be in your cart. So, I used this functionality to SLOWLY build my order over 2-3 days.
I added a new drain, supply lines, a shower curtain (you need a really big one for a clawfoot tub), and some shower rings.
I asked Shop4Classics.com about a matching faucet for the sink. My wife was very ADAMANT that I get a MATCHING faucet. Yet, I wasn’t seeing a matching one as being offered by the same manufacturer (Sign of the Crab).
Shop4Classics.com told me that most reproduction fixture manufacturers don’t produce “matching sets” of bathroom fixtures, like the more modern companies do. However, they pointed me to one that was similar. The two most distinguishable features in a sink faucet are the faucet shape and then what the handles look like. So, I was able to use their recommended one, because it has the “gooseneck” and handles to match the shower faucet I chose.
My entire Shop4Classics.com order came to just over $1300. But what’s really cool is the manufacturer has told them that they can have the stuff shipped to me within 3 business days. I doubt a special order at Lowe’s or Home Depot would be so quick.
(And, to be honest, I should have had my act together and made this purchase long BEFORE demo work began on this bathroom. The “rush” necessary in our order is all my own fault.)
OK, I’m running out of time to post today. I’ll probably post the next update on Monday or Tuesday.
I think Terry and I may meet after work tonight at Lowe’s to look again at light fixtures. And I still have to pick an exact paint color for the walls (the tile will NOT go all the way up the wall on any of the bathroom walls).
Thanks for stopping by the site!
-= Dave =-