An Embarrassment of a Bathroom to a Welcoming Guest and Kid Friendly Bathroom

When we moved in to this house we knew that one of the first projects would be the bathroom (at that point it was the only one in the house). The toilet was cracked and a bit leaky, leaving the flooring nasty and the subfloor also poor. The state of the "decor" was alright...as in...not horrible. Nothing was really to my liking in terms of style. The tile was big ugly and plain squares, the sink had yucky tile with no counter space, the storage was limited and everything would fall out of the cabinet into the toilet. The floor was some horrible fake marble color. The whole thing said move-in ready and basic and boring all over it.  While that was the case, the bathroom was the last part of the house to get any updates whatsoever! 

Phil's first home project in our new house back in 2009. The shower stopper wouldn't work and that couldn't wait!

We lived with that ugly bathroom for three years without much more than new towels and a single piece of art work to "decorate" (if you can even call it that). When we decided to do the remodel, it was because we felt the effects of too many people trying to share the one little bathroom each time we had guests in town. So we focused our efforts on the new bathroom and figured we would spend our money on it and the rest of the remodel instead of the current bathroom. It was one of those situations where I didn't want to waste any time and money fixing it up a bit, only to let those measures go to waste when we finally had enough money to completely overhaul it and change everything down to the subfloor. As the rest of the house began to come together and after we had lived in the remodel for a while, we realized that we really should include the front bathroom update as part of the remodel. It just seemed silly (and embarrassing) to have this amazing house with a complete eye sore right at the front of the house and is a high traffic area with guests. How ridiculous to spend all that money on a huge remodel and not spend whatever is necessary to make the whole house cohesive and pleasing. Yes, we splurged and dipped into our pockets more than we wanted to (especially since we finally decided to hire out instead of having Phil DIY it. Best decision ever!). We got to redo the tile and the floor and added a bit of bead board to the one major wall. We got a new vanity with more counter space and more storage. It still needs decorative shelves (that I bought about 6 months ago and have yet to install), hooks for guest towels, and some art. Unfortunately the company we used did not do the best job with the calk in the shower and they didn't paint behind the vanity (even though if you bend down it is visible) and they also didn't sand the bead board first so it is slightly rough to the touch. As annoying as those things are, it was still worth it to let Phil devote his time and energy to enjoying our son's milestones rather than have him slaving away over tiling and painting and everything else. My favorite part of the new bathroom is the slate looking floor tiles. Micah's favorite parts are the frogs on the wall of course!

I did my best to snap photos in here, but now that we do not have a window to the outside, the lighting is harsh no matter what.

The walls are actually grey. They look brown since the lighting in here is horrible!

It is still completely a work in progress, but I'd say it has improved drastically!