Bathroom Reno - Always a learning opportunity

Last week I took a my final week's vacation to get some work done around the house. I've been neglecting the house as job and life seem to get in the way lately.

I enjoy the chance to work in the area of renovations once in a while. A nice mental change working with your hands. Wood, paint, silicone,.... they require different TLC than people do. : )

Below is a brief picture diary of the process. I think the end result turned out pretty good, but I'm no home improvement expert. I always find Reno's to be a time of learning in a different way. Walls are never square, paint doesn't always go on the way you'd like, I sometimes make errors like putting way too much glue down on the floor.

In all of it I continue to learn new things. Always a good thing. It's what you do with those learnings that's important.

Here is a picture of the bathroom before Reno's began.

A different angle. Nice color eh.... After ripping everything out, but not the tub/shower, I painted a nice blue colour. Joycegina picked it out....I'm colour challenged to say the least.

Look mom, free hand painting. I find taping takes so much extra time. Got to have a steady hand though.

Katrina wanted to help so I let her take a crack at rolling.

She did very well.

Sarah too.

Here I am learning, after the fact, that one should ration the glue one puts on a new sub floor. Lots sure came out of the sides as I used a rolling pin to push out the air bubbles. (I'm too cheap to rent a proper roller).

Voila. The finished floor.

I reused my old cabinets. I just couldn't find something the same, and didn't want to pay lots of $$ for something custom made. A good cleaning with VIM and things looked much better.

Another view. All I can say is that silicone covers over a multitude of gaps and crooked stuff.

Front view.

Here I am cleaning off the mirrors. They were pretty gummed up with past pictures and other colourful ornaments.

See that set of drawers at the far left? My old set was hand made so that was the one thing I had to purchase. Turns out they don't make cabinets with 16 inch depth that I could find. I had to chop this one, and the upper one from 20 inches to 16 inches. Took 7 hours to re drill all those holes. It all worked though, but I sure was glad it was finished. I also discovered that these prefab things aren't cheap either.

Things slowly coming together. We purchased new cupboard knobs. It seems that the quality of those little buggers has gone down as well. Not all of the ones would screw tight, or threads were incorrect....an exercise in patience.......seems that Reno's are a lot like ministry.

We purchased a low flush toilet. One with the two buttons. One for yellow, and well, the other for brown. You get the idea. I couldn't find the instructions to put the thing together, so, of course, I winged it. Things worked quite well. I did happen to find the instructions AFTER. Seems I didn't QUITE put it together the way it should be, but hey, no leaks.......so no taking apart either. : )

Here I am drilling holes in the new cabinets for the handles.

We purchased some new chrome towel and toilet holders. Turned out quite nice actually. Again, not my doing. Credit goes to Joycegina on that one.

If you come over to our house, here's what you'll see for the toilet paper holder. : )

The end product.....95 % finished. The family was VERY happy to be able to once again use the upstairs bathroom for those essentials. No showering for a month though, as the paint needs to set.

On last look at a different angle.

It was fun to do, but I'm glad it's mostly finished. I think I was more tired after this week, than when I actually work (easy with the comments now) : ).

Now, it's back to work...........................