Bathroom renovation

I have just finished re-doing the downstairs bathroom.

Last winter I had a couple brainwaves for some remodeling. One was to do something about the dark paneling in the living room; the other was possibly removing the tub from the bathroom. I never take baths; the tub hasn't been used for a decade except as a catch-all for clothes, cleaning products, spiders, and at one time: An excersizer! (There is a shower in the upstairs bathroom.)

I took a little time to see what realtors are saying about removing tubs from houses and found a mixed-bag of opinions, so I figured it would be ok whatever decision I came to. I left the question hanging for the meantime, but I was intent on doing something about my former living room which looked more den-like than suits my tastes. I had an idea that I could take the top part of the paneling out and replace it with sheetrock, leaving just the bottom part of the wall paneled.

This spring I got in touch with a contractor who did the panel removal and sheetrock installation. Right away, before starting the job, he noticed the bit of sag at one side of the hall door leading into the living room. That's something I'd been aware of since buying the place and it was caused by someone(s), at some point in the history of the house, deciding to cut one of the joists under the floor in order to fit some plumbing! The contractor stressed that it was a serious issue and he'd love to do something about it, so I asked him for a quote. It was approved and he spent a day propping up that portion of floor with a new partial beam perpendicular to the joists, and it is held up with two acroprops. I am very thankful to him for bringing that problem to my attention and stressing it's importance and effect on the rest of the house.

After he'd taken out the top of the paneling, installed sheetrock and put in a chair rail, I wallpapered. The paper is from Little Greene (A UK company) and the pattern is called Great Ormond St in the green colorway.

My former living room is now to be known as my "grand salon" ...

Before (you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them):

After:

It's so much lighter and airier now. I like it very much. I have decided I'd now like to replace the ceiling (it very much needs it) with a tin ceiling. But not this year.

While he was here working that week, I asked him for a quote to remove the tub from the downstairs bathroom. So a month later he came to remove the tub, sheetrock where the tub surround had been, and rebuild part of the floor under the tub because there was a big hole there. (My desk is on the other side of the wall from there and I wondered why it seemed much cooler in that corner in the winter!) When he finished his work, I painted and papered, lifted the old floor tiles, and installed trim.

I chose wallpaper from Sanderson in the pattern called Woodland Chorus. I need to take lots of time when I paper. I absolutely can't do it if I'm stressed or hurried, it's not a fast process. I may put up one strip and need to walk away to de-stress. I don't think I've papered any of my walls in one day. This little bathroom had it's challenges. But the papering got done and I really like it.

The sheetrock on the old walls (where the tub was not) was not like the stuff that's common today. When I was pulling off the old paper from those walls, sometimes the top paper layer of the sheetrock came with it. What a mess. After thinking about it for a few days I decided to skim the surfaces of the old walls with watered down sheet-rock compound and then prime it with sealer in order to put up the new wall paper. It seems to have worked quite well.

Then the time came to pull up the old floor tiles. My little video will explain the tricks I learned to make good work of it:

The challenges of not being professional at something are 1) we don't usually have the precision, high-grade tools available, and 2) we don't have lots of experience making mistakes to learn from. All this came into play when I did the trim work. My little chop saw is not up to the task, really--it doesn't saw straight when the blade is tilted 45 degrees. Oh well, I managed to get the trim in and it looks acceptable to me as a DIY project.

I had taken a "before" picture but I accidently deleted it from both my hard drive and my camera! Anyway, here's the "after" pics. I contacted the contractor today to let him know he can come and put the toilet back. As he was rebuilding the walls where the tub had been, I asked if he could build a niche on one wall. I've painted it robin's egg blue. I will go down to the glass store this week to inquire about custom-cut shelves for it.