Hall Bath Makeover Reveal

If you recall from one of my early posts back in January, our master plan for this year included renovating our hall bath to install a bathtub before the baby arrives this summer. The previous owners had removed the existing bathtub and installed a handicap accessible shower (they were elderly) and that wasn't going to work for us. We figured it would be wise to knock this out before we have a baby sleeping on the other side of this wall that we need to work around nap times. Renovations are also very messy, we felt it was better for everyone's health to just get it done before there's another person to worry about!

We had a budget of about $3000 to remove our existing shower and install a bathtub with a tile surround. Once we found a contractor that we wanted to work with, we had him price out our options. I was not super concerned about having real tile in the bathroom since grout and tile can be difficult to maintain. Since we plan for this to be the main bathroom for our kid(s), we wanted something that could be cleaned quickly and easily. The only thing I cared about was the aesthetics -- I really, really wanted a white subway tile look. Surprisingly, that was really hard to find in an acrylic surround kit!

We were only able to find one option between Bathfitter, Lowes, HomeDepot, and the rest of the internet. Enter: the Delta Upstile System. We showed it to our contractor, and he was really impressed. He had not worked with it before, but was willing to try it with us and see how it goes. Spoiler: He ended up loving it so much, he's now recommending it other clients with similar projects! After selecting our materials, our final estimate came out to $1400. Less than HALF what we had originally planned. We were pumped! We even had enough  money left in our budget to do our master bathroom shower in the same product. I wrote about that makeover here! 

So, before I get to the goods of how the reno turned out, here's a quick refresher on what our space looked like when we moved in. As with all the other bathrooms (and our kitchen) we had the same salmony tile, cherry cabinets, sandy granite counters, and beige "marble" acrylic surround in this room.

Because there was previously a tub in this space, we didn't have to move any plumbing, or walls to get this tub to fit. SCORE! 

Next, the surround walls went up. The support beams are there to  make sure everything leveled out while the screws and glue set.

As a reminder, here's what we started with: 

And here it is after the tub installation:

All in all, our final bill for this portion of the renovation came out to about $1700 with some additional labor for drywall and plumbing, but it was still less than half of our original budget, and a fraction of one of the estimates we got early on that this would cost $5000 for real tile! The Delta Upstile system is holding up SO well, cleans great, and the real tile just adds that extra personality that makes it super convincing and attractive. 10/10 would recommend. 

Now that the tub was done, the rest of the room was in desperate need of some help! Because we had saved so much money on the tub renovation, I wanted to keep it going and challenge ourselves to spend as little as possible on the rest of the makeover. 

So, I decided to shop our garage paint supply, and I had JUST enough paint left over from our master bath reno to use what we had.  I was able to get the ceiling painted a fresh white (it made such a difference!) and the walls a pretty grey for $0 because I already had the paint. 

The next step was to decide what I wanted to do with the counter top and cabinets. We do still plan to replace the countertop at some point, but for the time being we went with a really budget friendly option: contact paper! We purchased $28 of contact paper at Lowes , and installed it right over top the granite. It looks beautiful, and is definitely super convincing from afar. It's tiding me over until we have the budget and (now) the safety to have someone in our home to come replace it (likely sometime in 2021 after baby is settled). The contact paper really helps aesthetically, but it has already chipped and peeled in some places from moisture so it's definitely not going to work long term (I knew it wouldn't, so it's all good). 

When it came to the cabinets, I had debated a playful navy blue that felt very kid-friendly, and went back and forth with my instagram friends on which we should do! Ultimately, my gut said that a bright white cabinet would really lighten this space up and... man.... WAS I RIGHT!? I am so happy I chose white for the cabinets (it also went along with my $$$ goals, because I already had a can of the exact paint I needed since it's what we use to paint all the chipping trim in our house! Another $0 improvement). 

If you'd like to see more about how I paint cabinets, visit this post all about it. I use the same technique, the only change is the paint. I've since switched from chalk paint to a specific line called Ben Moore Advance. It's perfect for cabinets and heavy use. We used it in our master bathroom, and it's held up BEAUTIFULLY over the last 8 months with every day use. We already had it on hand for our trim, so using it again in here was a no brainer. 

I also reused the existing hardware, so spent $0 there! 

The final result is seriously stunning. This paint is self smoothing and self leveling, so once it's fully cured, it looks like it was always there. At this point, I am SUPER confident that when we eventually get to re-doing our kitchen, we can comfortably repaint the those cabinets ourselves and a have a beautiful, long lasting result. 

These photos were taken at the same time of day (and I don't even have the light on in the second photo!) Having the white cabinets and light counters has made such a difference in the brightness of this room. 

As for accessories, I think I spent about $70 on a new shower curtain, rod, and 2 bathmats for this room. Pro tip!! We really needed an extra long bathmat in this space and could not find one we liked. We ended up buying two bathmats and "linking them" together with these from Amazon. They keep the rugs down so you don't slip on them, and putting them end to end made it look like one big rug! 

One of my other favorite transformations is this corner behind the door. Our master bathroom had the same saloon style medicine cabinet that was not functional, had mold, and took up the only logical place for towel rack/hooks. We did the same move we did in our bathroom -- removed the medicine cabinet, and "patched" the hole by covering it with a slab of $14 beadboard from Lowes. We nailed it into place, used wood glue to keep it steady, and attached 4 towel hooks at various (kid and guest friendly) heights. 

The LAST bit of this bathroom makeover was giving our 35 year old, builder grade mirror a "glow up" with a little bit of framing. It's amazing what $14 of trim can do to make a space feel finished. We had these cut and measured at Lowes, and then installed it right on the mirror with construction glue. 

And now, we are finished!! Here are my favorite before and afters of this room:

I think that's enough words and pictures about this bathroom, but I am really, really proud of this one! All in all, I think our total spend on this room came out to probably around $1900, give or take. Which, given that an average bathroom remodel costs about $9000.... I'm pretty thrilled with. I'm so thankful we got this project done when we did, too, because if we had waited until our original April/May timeline instead of doing it in Jan/Feb, we would have been up Schitt's Creek  with everything going on with the pandemic. I'm really grateful to have a beautiful, functional bathroom to obsessively wash my hands in 4,283 times a day these days! 

Completed Master Bathroom Renovation

In our 2020 project goal list, I mentioned that we would be renovating our guest bathroom (70% done as of today!), but had no plans to tackle anything more in our master bathroom after we did our budget refresh last fall.

But, once we started working with our contractor on the plans for our guest bathroom, we found a really wonderful product that opened up the budget to do BOTH bathrooms at one time.... for less than half our original budget.

Back when we purchased this home, I had 3 contractors provide estimates for doing a subway tile shower surround (leaving the pan) in our bathroom, and re-installing a bathtub in our guest bathroom with the same subway tile surround. The cost for both bathrooms (together) was over $5000 for the tiling alone! That didn't even account for labor, plumbing, or supplies. We decided we were fine with our shower as it is. It worked fine, it just wasn't our style.

But, while doing research for the guest bath, I found this product called the Delta Upstile system. It's an acrylic surround (like what we had) but it is in a bright white with a subway tile pattern (and even has textured grout lines!). The BEST and coolest part about this system? It has an inlay where you can lay REAL tile of your choosing! Completely 100% customizable to your style.

The Upstile system comes in a shower and tub base and praise the L O R D -- the dimensions were actually perfect for the spaces we needed. The estimate I had for tiling our shower surround with real tile in October 2018 was about $2400. This shower surround system costs $474. I'll share more about the bathtub in a separate post when it's all done, but the estimate we had for installing a tub and tiling was over $3000 for that room. This system -- tub and surround included -- was $655. So, to recap: original estimate for both rooms = $5400.00. Cost for supplies (without labor) for both bathrooms using this system = $1129. Ca-ching!

We decided to go ahead and re-do both bathrooms at the same time while we already had the contractor there. I'm so glad we did, because the results are stunning and we are loving having a master bathroom that feels completely finished.

As a refresher, this was our before from when we purchased the home:

And this is what it looks like now. We did 90% of this reno earlier this fall. You can read about that here! 

I just absolutely LOVE that you can lay real tile in this system. It really is the best of both worlds. You can completely customize the look to your style, and it elevates the whole thing to look like real tile.... for a fraction of the cost. AND the maintenance! Having this acrylic surround makes it so easy to keep clean, since there are minimal grout lines to seal and maintain. I am a happy camper!

For a full budget break down on this room, we were able to completely renovate this bathroom for just under $3000.

New counter tops: $650 
Shower surround: $1000 with labor 
Tile (back splash and shower): $320 
New fixtures (sink and shower) $220 
Floor paint: Free (already had on hand)
Bead board wall: $26 
New toilet: $300 
Medicine cabinets + install: $450 
Total: $2966.00 

Not too shabby, if I say so myself! This feels like a massive improvement on a (relatively) minimal budget....Especially considering we did this in two stages over about 6 months. This was definitely an investment in time and money, but we love having a crisp, clean bathroom to use every day, and it was worth the elbow grease to get it here!  **saying this emphatically to remind myself the work remaining in the guest bathroom will be worth it too!**

Our 2020 Project Goal List

Well, the cat is mostly out of the bag, but if you didn't know, we are so, so thankful and humbled to share that our sweet rainbow baby is on the way and will be joining our family in July. We are currently (just about) 15 weeks along, and things are going really well. I'm finally feeling better, have started feeling the baby move, and we are excited to make plans for this baby to join our family.

With our impending arrival in summer 2020, we know our "project list" is going to be shorter this year. We are planning to make the most of our time before baby comes, and really focus on projects that will either

1) Improve the safety of our home for baby
2) Improve the function of our home for baby,
3) Be less disruptive if we get them done before trying to navigate nap schedules, etc.

So, we have a shorter to do list this year than last year, and we are A-Okay with that! To be honest, we both are feeling like we are almost "done" with this home. We have a couple wish-list items (like moving the laundry from our garage to a room upstairs, and turning our deck into a screen porch), but we want to adjust to life and a budget with our new baby before taking those on down the road.

So, without further ado, here is our project goal list for (the first half) of 2020!

1) Renovate the guest bathroom
The previous owners took out the only bathtub in our house and replaced it with a handicap accessible shower. It worked for them, but it doesn't work for us and was a big issue when they were trying to sell this home! We have been saving up for a while and are excited to share that this is our first project for 2020! The contractors came yesterday, we made our plans, and work should start in the next two weeks!

Here's our current situation, and our mood board for what we are envisioning it becoming:

We are going to be:

- Removing the shower surround and basin, and installing a bathtub. Thankfully, it looks as if we won't need to move any plumbing to accommodate this. Fingers crossed it stays that way! We will be using a really cool system called the Delta Upstile system. It's an acrylic surround that looks like subway tile (but is way easier to clean because no grout!), and even has an inlay where you can lay REAL tile! You can select any tile you want, and make it fully custom. We are making our selection for that this week and are super excited. We really loved the classic look of subway tile, but the cost (and upkeep!) of laying real tile vs. the acrylic surround made a huge difference. This surround & tub kit cost us $600 vs. about $3000 to lay real tile. I ain't mad about it!

- We will be replacing the toilet in this bathroom, as well. The toilet is original (35 years old) and we often have plumbing issues with it. We've already replaced the other two toilets in our home and have seen our water bill significantly decrease, so we are going to replace this one with the same low-flow model.

- Replacing the counter top and painting the cabinets, and likely will be adding a little second sink here, as well! This cabinet has the plumbing already there (just like our master bath did) so we know at some point there was a sink here but they took it out for some reason. We figure for guests, it will be nice to have a kid sink and a guest sink for them to use! We're big fans of white counter tops, so will be going for that look again. However, in this bathroom, we decided to go for a bit more color. This bathroom sits at the top of the stairs, so you can see it when you walk in our house. We want it to be really pretty when the door is open, and since it will primarily be used by our kiddo(s), we wanted it to be a bit whimsical and fun. Spenser calls it "luxe whimsy" which I'm really here for!

This photo is serving as my "inspiration" for the room, but we won't be doing a tile wall or wallpaper. We may try to find a really color shower curtain though to bring in a similar vibe!

- Painting the ceiling and walls, and removing the saloon cabinet. Our master bath and this one are mirror images, so everything we hated about our bathroom, we hate in this one, as well. We will likely do the same beadboard treatment to cover the medicine cabinet hole, and hang a new mirror. Because we have recessed mirrors on our side of the wall, we can't do medicine cabinets in here, but will likely find a pretty new mirror to hang as the one currently installed has a large crack down the side and isn't safe any longer.

Some folks have asked why we are "rushing" to do this before the baby comes, since our tiny human won't even use a bathtub for quite a while. Obviously the main motivation for this reno is putting in a bathtub for the baby to use at some point, but the reason we are doing it NOW is because we feel taking on a bathroom renovation with all the noise, dust, and expense that comes with, would not be smart when there's a tiny person trying to nap on the other side of the wall. It just makes sense to us to knock this out before there's someone else's needs to navigate around!

That was a long summary because we have actual plans in place, but here's the rest of our 2020 to do list:

2) Replace windows. Our windows are original to the home, the only remaining "old house" item that need to be updated. We've been having issues with our windows not opening/sealing shut, or when they are opened, the top sash crashing down and then we're unable to keep it up unless the window is locked and shut. On top of that, our bottom floor windows go pretty much to the floor. The screens are old fashioned and mounted on a single screw, and our cat has pushed her way out the window more than once, easily. Our fear is that a cruising toddler could easily push out of a window and would fall 4+ feet from the house (the front is elevated) and could be seriously hurt. This wasn't something we had planned to do, but with the energy efficiency improvements, functional improvements, and safety improvements it would provide, this feels like another project we want to fast track to avoid lots of noise and mess when baby arrives. We are currently getting price bids now and hope to do this mid-spring/early summer.

3) Add built ins around fireplace. We have wanted to do this for a while, but got sidetracked. This is something we plan to DIY, and will be adding built ins and a new fireplace mantle at the same time. I expect this to happen mid-late spring! We'll be following this tutorial to get it done!

4) Obviously complete our nursery! This is a given, but we will be focusing on getting Baby Rubin's nursery set up before our due date. Babykins will be sleeping in our room for a while, but we hope to enjoy this room as a place to change diapers, nurse, and read books together. We'll share more plans about this soon once we share baby's gender... which we already know!!!

So,  those are our big plans for 2020! In summary:

1) Keep growing the tiny hooman
2) Renovate guest bath
3) Replace windows
4)Add fireplace built ins
5)Start/Finish nursery

Once little nugg arrives, we'll be focusing on adjusting to being parents for the rest of 2020. I don't expect us to get much else done on our house except maybe some landscaping here and there! TBD!