Half-Bath Reno

This project has been done for awhile, so it's high time I finally showed the pictures!  There aren't many to show as this half-bath is TINY!  Apparently it used to be a closet and a prior owner put in a bathroom.  Almost the middle of November we started the renovation on this bathroom.  Not sure when we finished, but I think we were officially done about three weeks later. 

Let's let the pictures do most of the "talking".  Not much here but a tiny, pink bathroom crying for a redo!  Can't believe this is what it used to look like!  I often forget the pain and prior ugliness with renovations...






There was one pull-string light in here, with no switch, and no outlet.








Pretty much the whole bathroom in the back of Lee's van!  Minus the drywall, paint, and other little odds and ends.


Lee gutted the bathroom in one night, while I was painting in the girls' room.  I mentioned before that we were knee-deep in renovations, and we were!  Thankfully it was an easy "gut".  And even more incredible, the garbage people took everything!  We put the sink, toilet, wall boards, flooring, everything, out the night before garbage day.  The whole thing was hauled away the next morning.  WOO HOO! Thank you sanitation specialists!


See the tile in the bottom right of the picture?  Yep, the kitchen tile that keeps on giving!




I did the tile job all by myself, and messed it up all by myself.  Lee corrected part of it himself.  I was able to lay the tile in a few hours one day. I didn't waste one single tile!  I was very proud of myself.  Good thing I didn't waste any, because the tile stash was getting low.  I was afraid we might have to do a piece job in some corner, but it worked out perfectly!  And the very last large tile was used.  We have a few smaller ones left, but no big ones. It's funny that the guy at the tile/carpet shop had me order so much "waste" tile--there was enough leftover to tile our two bathrooms!  It was a good thing though.  We like the tile and the pattern, and it was purchased back in 2013.  So it was like using free tile, right?  Sort of?


Some cuts were too tricky and I had to pull out some paper, draw a pattern, then trace the pattern onto the tile, then cut. It worked!


Here is the part where I failed.  I mixed the grout wrong, or the mix-in sealant had expired, but I do think I mixed it wrong. 


Grouting the floor...my big fail. I will say, I did a nice job grouting...too bad the grout wasn't good.


Oh, before I started grouting I noticed that this piece was loose. Somehow I didn't place it properly.  This happened with one of our tiles in the kitchen back in 2013.  I was able to pry it out very easily, clean the dried-up thin set and put it back in with fresh thin set. 


A day or two after I grouted, the grout was breaking and crumbling.  I think my liquid/grout ratio was off.  Lee bought a grout saw, and removed all of the grout for me.  Wasn't that so sweet?!  I had him mix the grout the second time, and I grouted. Again.  Initially I was pretty proud of doing the tile all by myself, and was crushed when I hadn't done it right.  Thankfully it's fixed now, and all is fine. My pride too.  I think.  Ha ha.


Lee did a lot of the hard stuff in here like gutting, installing an outlet, a light switch, a new light, putting in new drywall, hooking up a new sink, toilet and the plumbing, etc.  Oh, yeah, and removing the faulty grout.  He hung all the drywall for me too.  He did such a great job on the behind the scene stuff and with the bathroom fixtures/pieces.  Thanks Lee!!! Seriously one of the best surprises ever...that Lee is an awesome handyman.  I had no idea until after 10 years of marriage.  Oh, yeah, and when we actually owned a house.  By the way Lee, that oven part you ordered is in...hopefully our lower oven will be up and heating soon!


I did the mudding and taping! Yep.  Thought I was done with it.  But since this bathroom is so small and we decided not to drywall the upstairs, I went for it.  Of course after the mud dries then there is sanding and mudding again...and sanding! It's a tiny bathroom, but we still put in many hours of work.


After finishing the drywall...I did a horrible job...I primed, caulked and painted.  As stated Lee put in the bathroom fixtures, and also the baseboards.  I caulked and painted the baseboards too.




Our "new" half-bath! See the coloring of the tile in the above picture?  That is more what it looks like.  In the following pictures, the tile looks darker and brown.  But my cell phone doesn't take awesome pictures so you can't see the true color.  It's not that dark in real life.






Look!  An outlet and a switch!  How novel!


Again, the tile isn't that dark.  Much lighter.


Wish I would have taken a better picture of this light, but tonight while posting these pictures, I didn't realize that you can't really see what it looks like. I am sure you have a wild guess though.


I found these fun glass bottles when Lee and I were shopping for ugly Christmas sweaters at our local thrift store.  I love how they have the different colors of blue/green.  It ties in all the colors. 


I found this cute little jar at Hobby Lobby.  Love having Hobby Lobby just 20 minutes away!


That's it! From this:


To this!


I want to get some art for above the toilet, but who knows when that will happen.  Thought I would go ahead and post the renovation anyway, every though I'm not completely done with that finishing touch.  Bathroom decorator I am not. We have a few more projects we'd like to complete like installing a solid door between the kitchen and the laundry room, redo our bedroom, refinish the upstairs floor, and put in a privacy fence.  Oh, and Clark and Cal need a new fan in their room....We'll see what we get done this coming year!  The laundry room needs a re-haul too but I seriously don't know if we'll ever tackle that! Hope you enjoyed the small tour!