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Bathroom Remodel 2010 Edition
Mar. 29th, 2010 08:50 pmWe finally have a new bathroom! Well, mostly new. The almond (or bone, or biscuit some stores call it) tub and toilet remain, but they match the tile behind the tub so that's another major undertaking.
This year we focused on the little sink area which is sort of separate from the toilet/tub area (used to have a door between them, but we removed it since we're an old married couple which means we don't need any privacy).
Plenty of pics behind the cut, but first the tale of getting the job done.
I had my fears about it being too expensive (those tax refunds sure have a way of evaporating into thin air once they're deposited, don't they?), particularly after wishfully browsing the sink selection on Lowe's website. Not only did they seem pricey, but enough choices to make your head spin. Colors, styles, positions (sit on top of or hang below the counter), etc.
Of course the big job was going to be replacing the vanity top. We had decided to keep the old vanity, partly because it didn't look nearly as hideous, mostly because replacing it with a sleeker, svelter model would necessitate retiling the floor to cover the huge gaps to either side.
At least, I thought replacing the top would be a big job until just for ha-ha's Tery and I decided to check out the vanity section of Lowe's. Unbeknownst to us (and possibly many of you), you can buy a vanity top that ALREADY HAS A SINK BUILT IN. Much cheaper than we expected, around $130 for the whole deal. Which meant really all we needed to pick out was a new faucet (plus a mirror and light, which weren't as intimidating).
We ran home and measured our vanity, sure it would be some bizarre size that's been discontinued since it was built 30 years ago, but to our surprise it came in at 49 inches, a size Lowe's actually stocked.
Now it was just a matter of finding someone to do our dirty work for us. We certainly didn't want to pay a plumber and an electrician separately. I found Chris the $49 (an hour) handyman on the Better Business Bureau's site and booked him for the gig.
He showed up and looked it over, thought it all looked pretty standard and said all we had to do was set a date and then go shopping.
We ran back to Lowe's that afternoon, grabbed the 49-inch top we liked, (last one on the shelf. Fate!) picked out a mirror and a light. This was the fun part. How I'd love a $5000 budget to re-do, well, anything really.
Getting the top home was a bit tricky. Turns out the back seat of my Honda isn't 49 inches long, not with the doors shut anyway. Tery, who didn't have to drive, proposed a hare-brained scheme of jutting it out and tying one of the doors closed with twine. She's also the one who happily straps our Christmas trees to my roof with only about three passes of twine, leaving me the harrowing task of driving while it slides alarmingly backwards and forwards whenever I take a corner.
I thought a much better idea was to lower the front seat and angle it through the middle of the car; it fit perfectly that way, unfortunately not leaving a lot of room for Tery to sit, but she adapted a lot easier than the slab of "cultured marble."
Thus we got it home, where it became a repository for cats and dirty clothes until Chris came to install it.
Chris was a shortish man, prematurely balding, with a kind face. Best of all, no radical plans to overthrow the government like Rick the Fridge Repairman (or at least, he didn't share them with me if he had). It never occurred to me he might be gay until I noticed he was playing the pronoun game, with lots of talk about "my partner" and the two English bulldogs that were "his babies." This doesn't always mean anything, of course, except sometimes it does.
Before he did anything he wanted to open up the top to make sure it would fit. I insisted we had measured carefully but he knew more about it than us. He tore through the box, rendering it useless, and we maneuvered it in together. Sure enough, it turned out to be about a quarter inch too long. We should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
That was disheartening in the extreme, because we both really, really hated the old counter. I suggested maybe he could at least install the new light while he was there. He said there was a 1-hour minimum for the visit so I might as well use him.
It was while he was working on that when we got to chatting and he realized we owned rather than rented. Knowing this, he suggested just notching into the drywall a bit to make the counter fit. Desperate for a new bathroom, and even more desperate not to have to drag the thing back to Lowe's for a custom-made item, we eagerly agreed.
Good thing, too -- in the space of time it took to discuss this, the ferrets had discovered the open box and made short work of the styrofoam packing blocks that would have been needed for the return trip. Styrofoam is like crack to a ferret. Sweet, easily torn to bits crack.
So I left him to it. Approximately 2-1/2 hours later he was done with everything (he had estimated 3, so I thought we'd be saving money; I hadn't counted on paying for his materials plus a $15 "travel charge," which seems a tad underhanded considering it wasn't like he could do the work at his house).
Except it wasn't quite the finished product we had dreamed of. Obviously we had to paint a bit after taking down the ginormous mirror and light fixture. We hadn't counted on the huge gash in our wall where he'd "notched in" (I'm imagining selling this place to someone who will hate our choice in vanity tops, and tear it out only to discover all the damage we're covering up and saying, "DAMN IT ALL TO HELL"). Plus I thought I'd go insane imagining the light was crooked until I took a level to it and proved that it was -- fortunately it was easy enough to straighten, but jeez. Bargain handyman sure cuts corners.
So a few coats of paint, some side splashes and Tery's magic touch with a tub of spackle later, and we're extremely pleased with it. Check it out, won't you? All pics thoughtfully resized:
( ::Practically new bathroom:: )
This year we focused on the little sink area which is sort of separate from the toilet/tub area (used to have a door between them, but we removed it since we're an old married couple which means we don't need any privacy).
Plenty of pics behind the cut, but first the tale of getting the job done.
I had my fears about it being too expensive (those tax refunds sure have a way of evaporating into thin air once they're deposited, don't they?), particularly after wishfully browsing the sink selection on Lowe's website. Not only did they seem pricey, but enough choices to make your head spin. Colors, styles, positions (sit on top of or hang below the counter), etc.
Of course the big job was going to be replacing the vanity top. We had decided to keep the old vanity, partly because it didn't look nearly as hideous, mostly because replacing it with a sleeker, svelter model would necessitate retiling the floor to cover the huge gaps to either side.
At least, I thought replacing the top would be a big job until just for ha-ha's Tery and I decided to check out the vanity section of Lowe's. Unbeknownst to us (and possibly many of you), you can buy a vanity top that ALREADY HAS A SINK BUILT IN. Much cheaper than we expected, around $130 for the whole deal. Which meant really all we needed to pick out was a new faucet (plus a mirror and light, which weren't as intimidating).
We ran home and measured our vanity, sure it would be some bizarre size that's been discontinued since it was built 30 years ago, but to our surprise it came in at 49 inches, a size Lowe's actually stocked.
Now it was just a matter of finding someone to do our dirty work for us. We certainly didn't want to pay a plumber and an electrician separately. I found Chris the $49 (an hour) handyman on the Better Business Bureau's site and booked him for the gig.
He showed up and looked it over, thought it all looked pretty standard and said all we had to do was set a date and then go shopping.
We ran back to Lowe's that afternoon, grabbed the 49-inch top we liked, (last one on the shelf. Fate!) picked out a mirror and a light. This was the fun part. How I'd love a $5000 budget to re-do, well, anything really.
Getting the top home was a bit tricky. Turns out the back seat of my Honda isn't 49 inches long, not with the doors shut anyway. Tery, who didn't have to drive, proposed a hare-brained scheme of jutting it out and tying one of the doors closed with twine. She's also the one who happily straps our Christmas trees to my roof with only about three passes of twine, leaving me the harrowing task of driving while it slides alarmingly backwards and forwards whenever I take a corner.
I thought a much better idea was to lower the front seat and angle it through the middle of the car; it fit perfectly that way, unfortunately not leaving a lot of room for Tery to sit, but she adapted a lot easier than the slab of "cultured marble."
Thus we got it home, where it became a repository for cats and dirty clothes until Chris came to install it.
Chris was a shortish man, prematurely balding, with a kind face. Best of all, no radical plans to overthrow the government like Rick the Fridge Repairman (or at least, he didn't share them with me if he had). It never occurred to me he might be gay until I noticed he was playing the pronoun game, with lots of talk about "my partner" and the two English bulldogs that were "his babies." This doesn't always mean anything, of course, except sometimes it does.
Before he did anything he wanted to open up the top to make sure it would fit. I insisted we had measured carefully but he knew more about it than us. He tore through the box, rendering it useless, and we maneuvered it in together. Sure enough, it turned out to be about a quarter inch too long. We should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
That was disheartening in the extreme, because we both really, really hated the old counter. I suggested maybe he could at least install the new light while he was there. He said there was a 1-hour minimum for the visit so I might as well use him.
It was while he was working on that when we got to chatting and he realized we owned rather than rented. Knowing this, he suggested just notching into the drywall a bit to make the counter fit. Desperate for a new bathroom, and even more desperate not to have to drag the thing back to Lowe's for a custom-made item, we eagerly agreed.
Good thing, too -- in the space of time it took to discuss this, the ferrets had discovered the open box and made short work of the styrofoam packing blocks that would have been needed for the return trip. Styrofoam is like crack to a ferret. Sweet, easily torn to bits crack.
So I left him to it. Approximately 2-1/2 hours later he was done with everything (he had estimated 3, so I thought we'd be saving money; I hadn't counted on paying for his materials plus a $15 "travel charge," which seems a tad underhanded considering it wasn't like he could do the work at his house).
Except it wasn't quite the finished product we had dreamed of. Obviously we had to paint a bit after taking down the ginormous mirror and light fixture. We hadn't counted on the huge gash in our wall where he'd "notched in" (I'm imagining selling this place to someone who will hate our choice in vanity tops, and tear it out only to discover all the damage we're covering up and saying, "DAMN IT ALL TO HELL"). Plus I thought I'd go insane imagining the light was crooked until I took a level to it and proved that it was -- fortunately it was easy enough to straighten, but jeez. Bargain handyman sure cuts corners.
So a few coats of paint, some side splashes and Tery's magic touch with a tub of spackle later, and we're extremely pleased with it. Check it out, won't you? All pics thoughtfully resized:
( ::Practically new bathroom:: )
