Planning A Bathroom Reno Before Baby: a house log

We know there are plenty of you out there who are eagerly waiting for our nursery makeover project to begin. And it will. Simply not quite yet. After all, the third bedroom (aka: soon-to-be-nursery) which normally looks like this…

… right now looks like this:

We know, it is embarrassingly messy (you’d be surprised how many readers take comfort in the fact that we in fact live in chaos from time to time). The reason? It is ground zero for our last big, pre-nursery project: a total bathroom remodel! We are talking about a gut job down to the studs- which even involves the rental of a mini jackhammer. Yeah, we are fairly excited about it.

And for any of you who have been following along with our weekend sneak peeks via Twitter and Facebook, you’ve in fact heard how some of that demo has gone. But before we put the cart before the horse, we need to talk about the whys and the hows of our one-and-only full bathroom makeover. We think the classic look of the original black and white tile, the basketweave floor and even the cramped quarters are all quite charming (and befitting of our 1950’s ranch).

Yeah, it looks fairly darn good from afar, but upon closer inspection is also has its fair share of flaws that we simply cannot get over – shattered wall tiles (from what we assume was the house settling at some point), uneven and stained flooring, and a chipped sink simply to name a few.

Oh well. The original bathroom served our house well for over half a century (what more can you ask for right?) and although we are all about saving what you can and working with whatcha got, in this case we are sorry to say that after a fairly serious cleaning and recaulking effort a few years back- which certainly tided us over for a while- the time has come to bring the bathroom up to speed. And after living vicariously through my parents’ two Hands-on bathroom makeovers (one seen here) – Sherry and I have at last chose to bite the bullet and get ‘er done. Like, now. But of course we will still be bringing in some classic tile and materials that will not look too futuristic and out of place in our 50 year old ranch. Fear not.

The approach: well, we have already begun tearing things down to the studs and plan to build it all back up again with our own four hands (ok, and with my dad’s generous assistance as well since Sherry’s doing a fairly essential job on the side). So there will be new walls, a new tub/shower surround, new flooring, and a new Hands-on vanity project before we officially turn our attention to the bean’s room. Of course we plan to donate as much of our old stuff (vanity, faucet fixtures, etc) to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore to give them a second life. And if all goes as planned, the whole redo should be done before Christmas. Fingers crossed…

Oh and because we know it is coming, to answer the “where will you shower?” question (since it is our only full bathroom in the house), we are nothing if not resourceful: I plan to use the shower at my gym every morning on the way to work and Sherry will swing over to my sister’s house (we are especially lucky that she lives extra close) and borrow her bathroom in the evenings (she’s a night showerer- weird huh?).

And speaking of my lovely/quirky wife, she’ll be posting quite soon about all the design details including a working mood board of sorts (since I am sure most of you are now saying “ok, but what will it look like!?!”). And since we know that you like all the pre-planning details (sometimes it is hard to know where to start) we will be including a ton of those as well so stay tuned for that. We have in fact already selected a lot of the new materials (floor tile, wall tile, a chunky nightstand that we will retrofit with a sink and faucet) as well as borrowed/purchased a bunch of tools that we will be using… hence the nursery right now looking fully unsafe for a newborn. Lively, lively, lively.

But while we are on the subjects of bathrooms, does anyone else out there have a bathroom that could be termed a “Monet” like ours (also known as: fairly from afar, ugly up close)? Are there any impending bathroom remodels on the agenda? Or lately completed bathroom sprucing projects? Anyone crazy sufficient to tear their bathroom down to the studs in hopes of having things up and running again before Christmas? Do tell.