Final Bathroom Renovation Breakdown

Okay, sports fans, here is the final breakdown (and the more exciting before-after pictures). It's a lot of fun to review these numbers and remember the planned and unplanned adventures of this renovation. Of course, feel free to peruse previous posts to revisit the fun along with me (especially the discovery of the hornets nest):

Services/fees
$217.52 Electrical contractor to run new 220 and new breaker
$125.00 Exterminator to treat and remove huge hornets nest
$154.10 Plumber for two trips - one to fix shut-off valve to house, one to wait for city to arrive
$26.60 Waste materials to dump

Tile and tile materials
$362.18 including white subway tile and trim tile, floor tile, mastic, grout, Schluter Ditra

Miscellaneous building materials
$56.89 for new studs, joint compound, plywood subfloor

Trim and molding
$110.47

Plumbing materials and supplies
$208.00 Bathtub/shower and sink faucets
$95.54 miscellaneous extenders, supply lines, etc.

Big stuff
$158.00 Toilet
$288.00 Vanity/sink
$76.95 Beadboard
$98.00 Lights
$575.00 Tub refinish

Total bathroom renovation costs $2617.25

Overall, I feel pretty good about the costs of the renovation. I was hoping to stick close to $2,000 and I would have been there if it hadn't been for some of the unexpected expenses, which I should honestly expect. Anyway, I think that it was worth it. You can judge for yourself, of course:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

After again (just because I love this tile and refinished tub so much)

Miracle Method = Like New Tub

I am very excited to finally have a completed bathroom! Woot! Woot! The Miracle Method guy just left and for a mere $575 I have virtually a new tub. I know I could have gotten a brand new tub for this amount but it would have been some cheapy fiberglass version. Instead, I kept my nice old cast iron tub and it just got a face lift. It's guaranteed up to 15 years, they say, and honestly it looks just like new. I am very happy with it. Even better, I can stand in the bathroom for the next several hours and get a free trip - yes, it's pretty stinky in there. Anyway, it's totally worth it. I'll post my final before-after shots tomorrow along with the budget. But we can safely call this one a wrap!

Tub before

Tub after

Downstairs Powder Room

True to form, the paint is literally still drying on the upstairs bathroom and I am already setting my sights on the next home improvement project: the downstairs bathroom. There's probably some advice in there for other Type-A personalities and home improvement but it alludes me at the present time.

So, my thinking about the downstairs bathroom (or what has come to be lovingly referred to as the Harry Potter Bathroom) is that it's a nice weekend project. The sink will be staying put as it's in good shape, is pleasantly petite, and just had its faucet replaced several months ago. Structurally it's as good as it's going to get. So this project will entail a new floor, a new toilet, and maybe a new light/fan.

I've already picked out the new tile - just some black and white hexagonal tile, which should only take an hour to lay (seriously, people, this bathroom is small: 24"x67" at its WIDEST part). Although I should be more conservative and less optimistic about my timing - who knows what kind of mess awaits me under the ucky existing vinyl. I certainly learned the rotten-floor lesson from the upstairs bathroom.

A new toilet is another issue altogether. Thank goodness the rough-in is the standard 12" (the bathroom looks to have been added in the 1970s or 1980s) but, as I said, this is a seriously width- and depth-challenged room. The current toilet is a round front and a petite 25" deep. It's hard to find anything that is that small, other than the Kohler Rialto at Home Depot, which I found courtesy of a story on the This Old House webpage. I'm honestly not a big fan of the look of the Rialto, however, nor of the price tag. But, small bathroom beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. My recent trip to NYC showed me that small bathrooms have a certain art to them but I wonder if there was a time when these fixtures were more easily found - the days before McMansions, I would guess.

Other than that, I need to find a less ugly light/fan combination that is also relatively petite (i.e., not having much depth to it). Also not having much luck so far. Anyway, if you run across any of these things in your travels I'd love to hear about them.

Bathroom Reno 2010: Done! (almost)

It wasn't a terribly sexy home improvement day but I feel good that I can finally say that my part of Bathroom Renovation 2010 is DONE! I don't want to do the big wrap-up, budget, before-after thing yet simply because I'm having the tub resurfaced at the end of the week and I'd like to wait until it is all officially done before I take the exciting after pictures. But, as far as I'm concerned, my part is done and I feel pretty darn good about it.

Here's what I did today: I took back that nasty Home Depot paint (they were nice and gave me a refund) and took that money right over to Sherwin Williams and got my tried and true Harmony. After painting the closet doors and trim, I put the new knobs on them:
I'm very happy with them and thank Sarah again for the bajillionth time for donating them to the cause. Hooray!

I also spent a good hour or so cutting off the legs of the radiator cover to fit the height with the new floor. This was slow work with the hacksaw but it got done and it got subsequently painted:
Then I finished up the last piece of chair rail on the dividing wall between the tub and the vanity area. This wasn't a big deal but I needed to miter the sides and put in the little miter cap on the end where it meets the tile. (I forgot to take a picture, I realize now, and I'm too lazy to do it now - sorry.)

Beyond that, I had to take the bathroom door off before I painted it to plane down the top and bottom a little since it wasn't closing well. It was the first time I used my little hand planer and I'm pretty smitten with it. Anyhoo, the door is now painted and closing relatively well. It still sticks a bit but I don't know how much of that is the heat/humidity and how much is the door but I'd rather not plane it down further until fall or winter.

After that, I put on the last coat of paint on the trim and it was a wrap, peeps.
I am looking forward to taking pictures of the bathtub refinishing process on Friday. It should be pretty cool, well, if you're into that kind of thing anyway (which I know most of you are). I will then report back with the final budget and the before-after pictures. Woot!

Not my day

Today may not be my day for home improvement. I was hoping to finish up the bathroom today and put up some shades in one of the bedrooms but it's not looking good. I bought said shades yesterday - the same ones I bought for the other bedrooms upstairs over two years ago but, for whatever reason, did not at the time buy any for that room. Well, I thought I measured correctly but obviously I did not as they're about an inch too short for the windows. I was able to rig up something for one window with some little spare plywood action but the other two are not cooperating. I took a break from that task to paint in the bathroom.

Unfortunately, that task also is not progressing as planned. While at HD yesterday buying said shades-from-hell, I decided to pick up some paint for the trim/closet doors in the bathroom. I have never bought paint from HD before and now I realize why. Here's the thing, though: I wanted to get the non-VOC kind like I usually get at Sherwin Williams (theirs is called Harmony) so I got HD's brand (Fresh Aire). Really the same price. Really not the same quality. Ugh. It's all smeary and watery. Yuck. So, I'm going to go back to SW and get the good stuff. At least I only painted the closet doors one coat but it's still an hour of my life that I won't get back (or $36).

The only thing working so far for me today is that I was able to put up the trim where the tile around the tub meets the ceiling. At least that looks nice (despite my blurry phone picture). Okay, back to the shades. I might be back later. I might throw in the towel and quit while I'm still sane and my blood pressure is still relatively low.

Crossing some more off the list...

I was able to cross a few more things off the punch list today and, boy, does it feel good to be back at this! Hooray for home improvement!

First, I finally got sick of my towel on the counter and hung up the towel bar. Good deal from Target:
Then I grouted the floor under the heater (sorry for poor quality photography):

And then the corner by the shower:
After lunch, I tackled the closet doors. As I said yesterday, these were a donation from The Amazing Sarah, and are perfect! It took me a bit to scrape off the gold paint with which someone at some point felt the need to embellish the doors. Then I had to run to HD to get some new hinges that would fit since they're pretty narrow. Then it took me a while to hang the doors by myself, but I did it, by golly:
They, along with the trim and wainscoting, will now need to be painted and that's about it. I do have some quarter round I need to put up along with the last little piece of chair rail and then that's it, folks. I will wait to put up the final, final, final pictures (and budget) after the tub gets refinished but it feels nice to get back in the swing of things!

Still Kicking!

I admit it. I was burned out - emotionally and home improvementally - but I have returned, fair readers! After a several month respite during which I licked my wounds and contemplated the universe, I have returned today to finish ye olde bathroom renovation! As I've said before, I really only have a few hours left of work to do so it felt really good today to get back to working on about half of what's left. Here's what I tackled today:


I apologize for the fuzzy picture (my camera died last month so these are from my phone), but I finally tiled that spot under the heater that's been driving me nuts. You can see the not-quite-after shot below:

I'll grout tomorrow. Then I can put the cover for the heater back on and get it painted, along with the rest of the trim, probably next weekend. I have been contemplating building a cover for the heater so it will look more like the vanity so that's why there is a bit of a space with the baseboard there on the right.

Believe it or not, I also finally tackled my "gap" problem! Wait, that deserves a few more exclamation points (!!!). I guess I needed the months off to ponder this problem because when I went about tackling it today it really only took about 45 minutes to fix. You see below the nagging corner:

I shaved off some drywall there in the middle, put on some corner bead, and found some tiles (gasp!) that were exactly the right size for the remaining gap between the old tile and the edge. Quite pleased am I. I will grout this tomorrow as well:

Then I can put on the last piece of chair rail on the side, paint up the whole mess, and be done with it.

The remaining things may get done tomorrow, if I feel up to it. Really, besides the painting, I need to cut the bottom of the closet doors that Sarah gave me, install them, and paint them, and then put up the quarter round between the top of the tile around the tub and the ceiling. I'm planning to have the bathtub dude come in a couple weeks and resurface the tub once all of this is done. And, then, guess what? I'll be done, done, and done!

Post Script: For my very loyal readers, I wanted to mention that Mancha, my cat of 15 years, had to be put to sleep a couple weeks ago. She had been very ill with kidney failure for several years. She was a loyal home improvement buddy, always wanting to hang out for painting, drywalling, and general companionship, and was therefore a frequent feature in the blog. She will be sorely missed.