We demolished our bathroom.
That’s not quite as dramatic as it sounds. Although if you knew what brought on our demolish rampage, you might feel a little differently.
You see, it was last Saturday or so and I was sitting on my butt all day thoroughly enjoying the Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family. Then something struck within me that made me feel like I needed to do something. So, I got up and decided to give the master bathroom a good scrub down. As I started working on that, I thought to myself:
What if instead of completely gutting the bathroom, we gave it a facelift and did a full reno in a few years?
With my new idea in mind, I went to tell my husband who was basically sick with the flu and delirious due to many doses of Nyquil. He liked the idea, and so we went to the bathroom to remove a panel of those faux tile thingies. Ugh, who the hell thought of those? Probably the cousin of whoever invented wood paneling, right? Geez.
And…we found a hot mess under the faux tile panel surrounding the shower enclosure. The drywall was moist and I could see mold.
So much for that idea.
And then Daniel says something that only someone who has had too much Nyquil can say:
Harry Potter is so strong and keeps going after Voldemort. We can demo this bathroom and make it nice.
People, I cannot make this stuff up.
While the thought of just saying a few spells is tempting, it’s not going to be that easy.
image credit: cheezburger.com
With the power of Harry Potter in us, we started to demolish our bathroom. And by demolish I mean daintily remove our ugly linen cabinet and vanity. That’s all. We still have a shower stall and toilet in there because we don’t have the tools to demo those just yet. And truthfully, we’re keeping the toilet since it’s a fancy Kohler one and perfectly good. A sledgehammer is on my shopping list for this weekend to tackle the heinous shower stall though.
The photo above shows what 8 hours of Harry Potter will do to a man with the flu. And it also shows what I mean by faux tile panels.
I don’t quite know what to do next. Once we have most of the bathroom down to the studs, it’d be a lovely time to get the pros out for estimates. We are pretty sure we need a plumber, electrician and a tile dude. Finding pros in my tiny town is proving to be quite a feat. I find 4 different numbers for one pro and they’re all disconnected. If something goes wrong on this reno, am I going to be able to get in contact with him to get it fixed? Oh the stress. Am I overreacting?
Part of me just wants to put the vanity back and live with it, but now that I’ve seen moisture warped walls and mold, there’s no turning back. Also, I am 99.9% sure that nothing has been done or upgraded in this bathroom since it was built in 1979. With the exception of wallpaper being put OVER wallpaper and faux tile panels.
Fugly y’all. Just ew.
Now I need a new vanity, a shower stall with fixtures, and tile.
Vanity Contender, via Overstock.com:
Shower Fixture Contender, via Overstock.com:
Tile Contender, via Floor & Décor Outlets:
My biggest conundrum right now is do I want a shower stall with a pre-fabricated base (which requires moving of the drain by a plumber) or do I want a custom shower pan created around the current drain?
Pre-Fab Shower Pan:
Custom Shower Pan:
So, that’s where we’re at.
I am worried that no matter how much research, prep and work I do on these pros, I will end up with a shoddy bathroom. Which then makes me decide to DIY this whole thing, but I have no experience in doing so…then I really might end up with a shoddy bathroom.
Maybe it’s time to stop watching so much Holmes on Homes; it just leads to contractor paranoia.
Dear Harry, what have I gotten myself into?
Help.
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