Another Project Completed

A half bathroom is usually the smallest room in one's house, and our former travesty of a half bathroom was no exception. This room was as depressing as it was tiny. It really needed to be put out of its misery. This was one of those rooms that, when we first saw it thought, "well, at least it's clean." To call it an embarrassment would be like saying GM is "financially challenged." To say that it was outdated would have been like Erika going to work in a hoop skirt and bodice. Let's take a look at what we had to work with:

Three things kind of stick out. First, I don't even know what kind of floor this is. Is it supposed to look like cracked marble? Like little dingy interlocking stones? I have literally no clue, but it appeared perpetually dirty, no matter how much it was scrubbed, mopped or wiped down. Next, the tile on the wall was that classic 1970s harvest gold. It might have been a touch lighter than that, but you get the general idea. Here's a confession, though: I actually thought we could leave this tile and paint the walls a bright orange. Erika pointed out that this might cause either seizures or flashbacks by anyone confined to our bathroom for more than 2 minutes. So we took the tile down. Finally, you can kind of see the wallpaper, but you'll have to take our word for it when we say that all 3 layers were completely unpalatable.

Ah, there's a better shot of some of that wallpaper. Whoever patented that design must have made a fortune because I've seen that crap everywhere. There was actually an additional, hidden layer under the mirror that was a kind of neon green paisley - which I am sure actually did cause someone at some time at least a mild seizure. The mirror/medicine cabinet/lighting combo is one that we see elsewhere in our house. My theory is that the contractor either had a relative working at the store where these were purchased, or he got some sort of 3-for-2 deal on them. If you like them, let me know quick, because the remaining 2 in our house are not long for this world.

The vanity is another piece that we have more of in our house. It's made, I think, of cardboard. And while your eyes might be telling you that the counter is carved from a single piece of creamy yellow marble, joke's on you! It's not! Actually, I don't know what it is made from, but I think some sort of polymer was involved in its creation. And while it's in the picture, has anyone else taken up a toilet? I thought there would be some intricate, secure connection between the toilet and the pipe that takes stuff to wherever. Yeah, the toilet just kind of sits on this hole. All that stands between a dry floor and utter, awful disaster is a relative thin ring of wax. Luckily my father was able to walk me through the proper removal and reinstallation of this thing.

So there you have it: the before shots. Now to the after!

Obviously we needed to repaint, adding to the current tally of repainted surface in our house. Instead of tile we put up beadboard or wainscoting (heard it called both and I use both terms interchangeably). The tile is, well, tile. I think it's marble but I honestly don't know.

Little bit of an aesthetic upgrade in the vanity/sink department. Although I feel a little hypocritical because we got a very similar vanity for our master bathroom, just as the original vanities in our house seemed to be from the same litter. No medicine cabinet because it's a half bathroom and it seemed superfluous. The granite is this really cool (in our opinion, anyway) piece that looks like a cross section of a fossilized river bed. We spotted it in our original stone safari when we were looking for a surface for our kitchen but didn't think it looked right in that kind of setting.

So that's it. We did everything ourselves except for the floor. I'm sure at some point I'll learn to cut tile, but until then we have no problem paying someone to do it. Sure, it took a little while, but it came out pretty darn good. Only two rooms to go now! Still...Dad, if you're reading this, I'll probably need just a little help on those toilets, too!