Spare Bathroom -so far

It isn't quite done, but I thought I'd give you a little teaser on the spare bathroom. If we work hard, I think it is realistic to expect this to be done by the end of the weekend. Yay!

What we've done so far... I mentioned that the electrical had to be redone when we were expanding the laundry closet. This left us with a big hole in the wall that had to be repaired. Fixing the electric meant changing the door swing to the place it was originally intended, which meant removing the existing door and replacing with a new one. The bead board glue had come loose so it needed to be fastened to the wall again. This time we used nails. The ceiling had an area that needed to be repaired, plus it needed to be repainted and of course, cleaned thoroughly.

I've got to the point of painting the walls with primer and 2 coats of paint. I still see a few touch ups, plus the trim and ceiling still need to be painted. The floor will need to be re-grouted before we put down the floor trim, and we still need to install the new door. But we have made a lot of progress.

The old, very bold turquoise color-

The new colors-

I took one pic with the light on and one with the light off. On the right with the light off is a truer depiction of the yellow color. It is actually the same shade of yellow in the great room of our current home, Behr's Calm Air. The gray aqua color is Behr's Contemplation. Calm Air and Contemplation- good names for a bathroom, don't you think?

There is a tall white cabinet that fits in to the left of the pedestal sink. That has been removed while we work but will be replaced soon. The pedestal will be fitted properly back under the sink and the tank will be put back on the toilet. It is all a process, but I wanted to show you that we have really started work on the main floor.

12 inches equals 2 weeks

I so wish I was better about taking before pictures. I didn't get any of the laundry closet because, well, it was a closet. Soon it will be a thing of beauty. :)

Getting super fancy appliances meant expanding the space by another foot. We were able to bump the closet back into the master bedroom without causing any issues there. In addition to creating the extra space, we'd need to move the plumbing from the left side to the right side, move the dryer vent from the left side to the right side, as well as switch the electrical outlets for the dryer and washer.

The first couple evenings were spent on planning and disconnecting. All of the things that needed to be moved were in a tight space in the basement above the furnace ducts and cold air return. It was not going to be an easy project. Then came the demo. The back wall was there one day, gone the next. I walked in to find Scott standing in the master bedroom looking at the back side of the wall and he seemed to be in a relatively good mood. "Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good," he said. He explained that he'd forgot about the triangular shaped dead space that ran through the area where the spare bath, laundry closet, and master bedroom meet. (to see this on the plans go to this post and scroll down to alternate plan, it is located behind the dryer) Inside this space runs the venting for the upstairs plumbing and assorted wiring. Had this not been there, the venting would have come through the wall of the laundry closet and it would have been a HUGE hassle and expense to try to change it. Yay for luck!

While the wall was ripped out, he realized he this would be his only opportunity to fix a screw up in the spare bathroom that happened when we built the house. The light switch was placed on the wrong wall. We dealt with it by putting a door in that swung in the opposite direction, but it is awkward. As much as it didn't make sense to add to the amount of work this project already required, this really was the only opportunity to fix the blunder.

You can see that the door had to swing past the wall that bumps out next to the tub. Every time it passed, the door latch scraped the wall. The door should have swung in toward the tub, with the light switch on the opposite wall. Like it is now:

You can also see by the pictures that before we had to drop everything and work on the laundry closet, there was a lot of drywall repair going on in this bathroom. That's ok, the walls were filthy and I wasn't crazy about this color anyway.

Scott worked every evening after dinner until about 10pm. On the weekends, when we weren't at our daughter's games, picking up materials or eating meals, we were working. Delivery was set up for September 27th so we had 16 days. My birthday was the 25th and it was "celebrated" by working. There was simply no choice. Even then we were forced to admit that we'd have to push the delivery back. Another week of going to the laundromat for me.

Finally we were nearing completion. The drywall was up and a coat of mud was on. Hurray!

We were also lucky in that we had exactly enough tiles left over from the original construction to add one more row so we didn't have to change the floor. After installing we had just one tile left... until Scott dropped his level and cracked one of the new tiles. Now we have zero, so hopefully we won't ever need to make any other repairs!

Aside from the drywall and some copper and PVC fittings, we didn't have to buy much for this project. It was just a lot of work. Then waiting. Waiting for the mud to dry.
We should have bought quick set mud and mixed it. We didn't. *banging head*

All this work and I still don't know if we'll be done by tomorrow, October 1st, the new delivery date. Yesterday I sanded and primed the walls even though the ceiling still needed another coat of mud and the knockdown texture applied. This is my most recent photo:

Sorry it is so dark, the light was disconnected so this is the best I could do. On my way down right now to sand, prime, and paint some more. With any luck I'll be able to show you more progress tomorrow, and also show you the gorgeous stand we made for the washer and dryer.