Home Project - Bathroom Upgrade

One of the best qualities my husband has is his handyman capabilities. He'll deny it and tell you that the most work he does with his hands involves a keyboard & mouse. Since we've been together, we have tackled many home improvement projects and I'd like to share our latest. 

As a present to ourselves, we decided to give our dated first floor bathroom a major overhaul. We had repainted every other room on the first floor, replaced floors and installed a new ceiling. At one point, the bathroom was only a little irksome but with all of the other changes, it was looking increasingly dated. 

Here are some before pictures; that pale blue toilet became too much for me to handle! We had to replace the seat a couple of years ago (on the day of our wedding reception at the house, of course) and it cost more than a new toilet. I was not sad to see it go...

For our remodeling project, we did the following things: 

• New toilet, sink, cabinet and mirror 
• White decorative chair rail trim (about 36 inches from the floor)
• Pine trim for floor w/ dark mahogany stain to match cabinet
• Move wall decor and put up dark wood shelf
• New lighting fixtures - one for above mirror and one for ceiling  
• Thin tongue-and-groove wood beams for new ceiling (replacing the popcorn texture - ick) 
• Dramatic shade of paint for bottom of walls

We decided to cut down on painting by keeping the top half of the walls the same color as before. The teal-blue color looks striking especially with the dark wood accents. I love it when a plan comes together! 

Here is the back-splash that inspired my tile coaster project. It was simple to do with the tile-setting mat (Home Depot, $20, 20 sheets) which doesn't require any waiting period before you grout. We were able to do this in about 30 minutes.

New ceiling and light fixture. These boards were thinner than we've used before so they were easy to cut & install. This part took about 2.5 hours, with Bunch doing the majority of the cutting and nailing, while I acted as queen of the tape measure and assistant. 

These are the mirror bubbles that were on the wall facing the door. I changed the design and spread them out a bit on the top half of the wall behind the door.

Speaking of home projects, our bedroom makeover is headed into Day 4 tomorrow with the second coat of tape and compound on the new ceiling. I will be so happy to get rid of the popcorn texture in that room as well. The next fun thing we get to do is pick out paint colors. The new carpet is a tan earthy tone so we have some room to play around. I've got my heart set on a cream colored ceiling with some sort of relaxing shade of green...

Namaste.