Guest bathroom makeover!
Our canal-front “Frankenhouse” was originally built in the 40s with many additions and extensions added over the years. It had been partially updated when we bought it, but two of the three bathrooms were clearly last updated in the 90s and they were done on the cheap.
We’ve been updating over time, but we were distracted by that time we found an inground swimming pool under our old deck boards.
We decided it was time to update the main guest bathroom after getting annoyed by how BLAH it was every time we used it. It also reeked of patchouli, a smell my hubs loathes. It was time.
In this post, I’ll show the updates we made and share what we learned during this project. Hit us up in the comments if you’ve got questions or comments!
90s beige blahness
We started with that basic square beige ceramic tile everyone has if their house has lived through the 90s. It’s depressing. Eventually they’ll be saying that about brass and gold-toned hardware again, but I digress.
The plumbing in the shower was also leaky and didn’t work super well. Since we’re just off the lake and we have a dock (and now a sweet pool), we do get guests in the summer, so we wanted to make that bathroom more functional and welcoming.
It’s also right next to my office, so we use it regularly.
New navy blue vanity with gold accents and marble top and new starburst floor tile
We decided to install a slightly smaller vanity than was there before, to give us some more space for a waste basket, plants, and shelves for people’s cosmetic and toiletries bags.
This one is a 36-inch navy vanity with a white marble top and gold hardware (Altair Gazsi) from Home Depot.
We installed a circular mirror I’ve had for years to replace the old glue-on mirror that was there before and, because we ended up having to open up all the walls, we added electrical for two lights on the side of the mirror, as well as one for a bidet toilet.
The ceramic floor was pretty affordable for our small space and from Home Depot. It’s Daltile Memoir Cosmo Blue. We have another black and white-patterned tile in our entryway and master bath and I love the style that patterned tile adds to a room. I wanted something to tie different shades of blues together so the bathroom had a lakehouse feel.
We went with a Toto bidet after reading an absurd number of reviews and, guys, it’s a game changer. We call it the butt spa.
The old vinyl shower insert had to go. I do love that they’re easy to clean, but it was just so ugly.
We also wanted to shove in a soaker tub somehow. Since we had limited floor space here, we decided to take over a small hall closet and make that part of the bathroom since we weren’t really using that closet anyway. I’ll go into that in in the next section, but first, I’ll talk about the bathtub choice.
We didn’t have enough floor space to have a freestanding soaker tub and a shower stall without making the shower stall really small (32 x 32) and since most guests will use the shower, that didn’t seem like the right call.
I also figured that anyone who buys this house after us will be using this bathroom as their kid’s bath, so having a large shower/tub combo made the most sense.
I found a behemoth of an alcove tub that’s 6 feet long and 3 feet wide with an 18 inch soaking depth (Hydro Systems Sydney tub). I knew I wanted a bold shower surround, so we chose a blue Daltile-brand subway tile that I knew would be a breeze to install. That brand has built-in spacers, so it’s super easy and it’s both affordable and good quality. We used Daltile’s LuxeCraft tile in Aura for the shower surround.
I didn’t see any of these in person before buying because most was only available online, but since it’s Home Depot and we know they have a good return policy, I wasn’t super concerned. When we were able to pick up everything, I was pleased to see it was going to work!
Removing the old hall closet
Like I said earlier, we needed to take over the hall closet space to make room for the massive tub/shower and to give us a small space for an open linen closet (very small, at 13 inches wide).
Here’s a few pics of what it looked like before and the process of closing it in and combining it with the bathroom. Another bonus of doing this was that we were able to remove one of the SIX doors in this corner of the house (3 bedrooms, another small linen closet, the bathroom, and then this old closet).
We went with a barn door-style door mount to maximize space. This works fine as long as your door is wide enough to offer privacy to guests. We use a basic hook and latch inside so you can lock the bathroom door.
This is the small space we were able to gain for towel storage and bath supplies in the bathroom. I included a hamper for wet towels, bathing suits, and other dirty laundry. The closet is 3 feet deep, so I’ve added some bins and baskets in the back for things we don’t need to access much, like extra toiletries and seasonal things.
You can also access the water shutoff valves from this closet. Pay no mind to that door trim…I need to do a bit more finishing work there or, worst case scenario, cover the old framing with new trim for a fresh look.
And, yes, that’s a candy jar I’m using to store bath salts.
Oh look, a vent pipe now in the middle of our bathroom!
In ripping out the closet, we discovered there’s a vent pipe that was now running right through where we wanted to put the shower. Nick was able to tuck this behind the shower before we re-drywalled everything. Then he ran it back into the pipe going through the attic and roof.
Oh, look, a heat vent!
We also discovered someone had buried the heat vent under the tile during the last renovation, so we re-routed that into the wall before we sealed the floor back up.
We also moved the sink plumbing from coming up through the floor to going through the wall, which is standard in more modern bathrooms and sure makes it easier to tile the floor!
What we learned
Doing a reno in your own house creates a persistent mess. Or we’re just not good at containing the mess to the room in question, despite use of drop clothes. Drywall dust is the worst culprit.
Even when we’re planning to just do a refresh on a project, we’ll inevitably take it down to the studs and re-do all the years of bad DIY from previous owners. We can’t stop ourselves!
If you add 4 layers of sheet laminate flooring and 2 layers of subfloor, you’ll be adding about 1.5-2 inches to your room and you’ll need to hack together a super thick (3 inch) transition piece, making a small step up into the room. Don’t do this. Just rip out what you want to replace, geez. The person after you will hate you otherwise.
Measure 15 times. We ordered a big old soaker alcove tub without thinking about the space needed between the tub and the vanity. We’re to code, but right at the minimum. We accounted for the length of the tub, but should have taped out the length and width on the floor.
Similarly, we should have taped out the other fixtures and even closet spacing before ordering things. This is one of the downsides to shopping online, but it just means you have to be extra careful to check the specs and dimensions for what you’re ordering.
We ended up tearing out the subfloor(s) to get access to the plumbing since the crawl space is pretty rough under that room. Nick’s done a bunch of Pex and equates it to playing with Legos, which is kind of fun. Just basic plumbing was needed in rerouting pipes.
Once the subfloor was up, we noticed a number of the floor joists were just shy of sitting on the block foundation, so they had zero support. This led to some bounciness once we pulled up all those levels of flooring. To fix, we sistered joists next to the original and ensured all of them were supported.
We had an issue where our shower in our master bath, which shares a wall (and water feeds) with the bathroom we were remodeling, wouldn’t get hot water, but had normal water flow. Nick was able to fix the issue short term by shutting off the hot feed in the bathroom we were renovating and it immediately fixed the issue. Nick theorized it had something to do with air in the lines, and the issue did not return after we were able to open the valves and bleed the lines. Maybe Nick isn’t that great with Legos?
The electrical in this house is wild. In each bath there are three or four switches places around the room. Need to turn the light on? It’s right by the door. The exhaust fan? Walk further into the room. The vanity? Could be next to the vanity or in the center of a random wall. We took the opportunity to consolidate things.
