Weekend Warriors: Mini Bathroom Remodel

I've watched a lot of HGTV remodeling shows. A lot.

But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would actually do a mini room remodel on my own.

Well, let me re-phrase that...I never thought I would be involved in doing a mini room remodel because let's be honest... I didn't actually do that much.

Yes, I did a little bit of demo. I did some painting. I did a lot of cleaning. And a lot of assisting. But I left the professional stuff to the professional...my neighbor Kristen.

She's amazing with household projects.

I'm fairly sure that if I had to pick another woman to be stranded on a deserted island with, I'd pick Kristen. Because in no time flat she'd have a two-bedroom hut with a fully functional bathroom constructed out of coconut husks and palm tree branches. She's crafty, I tell ya.

So when I mentioned to her last week that I was finally ready to update the guest bathroom, she jumped on board and said, "Let's do it!"

Oh... did I forget to tell you that I bought all of the stuff and did the entire first day of demo and rebuilding without telling Brian?

Yeah. It's a long story. And I'm glad I kept it a secret, because he probably would have talked me out of it and told me to hire a handyman (who wanted to charge me $2,000 to complete this project by the way). So I needed  - as Nike says - to JUST DO IT - and ask for forgiveness later.

Now that it's completed, he's happy that I made the decision to go forward without involving him, but I don't know that I'd recommend that approach to any other married couples. :)

So, without further adieu, let's get to some fun photos, shall we?

Here's what we started with:

It's not terrible. But it's what the house came with. The only change to the bathroom since it was built was the terracotta floor tiles that the previous owner put in. Other than that, the laminate countertops and builder-grade sink and cabinets had definitely seen better days.

Better view of the outdated fixtures and sink.

 When we started removing the cabinet, countertops and backsplash, we realized what a bad job the builders had done when installing the cabinet in the first place. Hello... don't you think there should be drywall behind the cabinet??? Well, there wasn't!

This photo shows the gaping hole where the backsplash was, but we had to replace the entire wall with a new piece of drywall. That's where my girl really impressed me! Cutting drywall, installing it, taping it, sealing it, even texturizing it. Amazing!

Girl's not afraid of an electric handsaw!

 

You can see better from this picture that all of that purple drywall is new. We also had a hole on the adjacent wall that had to be patched.

I think my most jaw-dropping moments were when Kristen was cutting tile. She controlled that wet saw like nobody's business!

We were able to completely demo and prep the room on day one. Oh, and we also did all of the shopping for the materials on the first day. We were busy women! By 5 p.m. we decided to call it a day.

On Saturday, I got up bright and early and got all of the paint supplies down from the attic. Fortunately, we still had leftover matching paint for the room. So my little "helper" assisted me in painting the exposed walls.

Of course we signed the boys' names to the wall.

We were so fortunate that Kristen's uber-handy husband, Dave, was also willing to help us finish up with the install on day 2. Mixing thin-set and laying tile are not my strong suit. So glad we only had 2 tiles to patch up the floor underneath the vanity.

 We let the tile set while we ate lunch and Dave worked on putting the sink and countertop together. Then we got to install everything and see the beautifully finished bathroom!

DRUMROLL PLEASE.........

Ta Da!!!!

Just for fun, let's look at a before & after like all those HGTV shows:

It looks and feels like an upscale hotel bathroom, which I love. I am so happy with it, I want to just sit in there and look at it. But that would be weird if I hung out in my bathroom, so I just go visit it a lot throughout the day.

And, in case anyone was curious, all the materials were purchased at Lowes, and my grand total for the project was $718.46. A LOT cheaper than the $2,000 my handyman wanted to charge me.

I can't thank my neighbors enough for all of their hard work and know-how. We absolutely could not have done it without them. If you ever read this post Kristen & Dave, thank you, thank you, a million times thank you!!!

And that my friends, is how I spent my weekend

How about you?

P.S. No menu post this week. I'm sure you'll make do somehow (ha, ha).