Master Bathroom Renovation...

Our plans for our future are pretty uncertain past March 5, 2013 (the date that Graham's enlistment is up). We have ideas as to what we would like to do, and where we would like to go, but the most important thing I've learned in my first year as an Air Force wife is that absolutely nothing is certain.

All we do know, is that our time in Arkansas is coming to an end. Leaving is going to be a happy thing, and a sad thing at the same time. I've met some really great people here, Graham has some good friends here. Our first home together was here. And I don't think I will EVER find a job that is as laid back as this one. Ever. But at the same time, I'm excited to move on. I'm excited to pick out a house together (preferably on the east coast, and much closer to Charlotte), I'm excited to meet new people, try new things and get away from the worst humidity and flooding I've ever experienced.

So, now that we're down to a rapidly decreasing amount of time here, we've stepped up our game, gotten off of our butts, and started working on one of the rooms in our home that needs the most work: our master bathroom. Frankly speaking, this room sucks. Absolutely sucks. It is my least favorite room in the house, is the biggest waste of space imaginable and is just flat out nasty.

The shower: so nasty. I don't think it has ever been used in the four years Graham has lived here. I know it hasn't been used in the year and four months I've lived here. At one point (before I moved in), the plumbing backed up, and water came up through the drain in the shower floor, and ruined the bedroom carpet. The carpet was replaced, but the shower was never truly cleaned, and so the shower floor is covered in rust, dirt and God knows what else. I know one of us should have cleaned it, but ew. So gross. Not to mention the shower door glass is cracked and it's the size of a port-a-potty. The shower door is also the reason the cost of this project is going to double our initial budget. More on that in a minute...

 

The paint job. Oh. My. God. I've said it before, but the people who lived here last should never, ever be allowed to touch a paintbrush ever again. Their painting technique is splatter paint, and that horrible painting technique has already tormented me throughout painting the guest bath & the foyer.

The blob of white is all me. The primer I used
is the BEST ever. One freakin' coat.

So, knowing those things, we set out this past weekend to fix up out bathroom. And we pretty much instantly ran into problems. Graham pulls out the vanity, and find that underneath the ugly, warped vanity, the floor is unfinished.

This sucked, because I had planned on replacing it with a much smaller vanity (24" or 30") to give the room a little more space. But, we measured the hole in the floor... it's 38 inches. You know what the standard size for bathroom vanities is? 36". Crap. Well... that means this project was instantly taken from a 1-2 weekend project to a month long project, because Graham is going to build a new one like he did in the non-standard guest bathroom. Considering he works full time, wants to spend some time with me & the fur-children, it's not going to be a quick process. The other problem with this is the vanity top. The vanity I liked already had the top. That obviously isn't going to work now, so we have to buy/or make a new vanity top for a non-standard sized vanity.

Other, smaller problems are the bolts that held the toilet down were rusted, and broke. The toilet was old and not very well secured anyways, so we donated it to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and picked up another one, which looked brand new, for $25. The little cubby hole is ridiculously deep and is a huge waste of space. And I got a little overzealous when removing trim and knocked a hole in the wall. *sigh*

Anyways... back to the shower door. The door is broken, so we need a new door. We figured we could to to Lowe's or Home Depot and get a new door. Well, of course it wasn't going to be that easy. This shower is seriously small. The hole for the door measures about 22.5". Want to guess what the smallest size door we could find was? 24". So, we asked the guy at Lowe's if they could special order one. He checks and tells us they don't make them that small. So, we'd have to have one custom made, which would run about $600-$700. Um, no. We start talking about our options and decide to get a few estimates to have a contractor come in, knock out the wall & the stupid cubby hole and either create a walk in shower, or put in a tub/shower combo. Graham wants the shower, I want the tub, but I have a feeling we'll go with the cheaper one. I'm sure it'll end up costing more than $600-$700, but I also think that a decent sized shower or a tub/shower combo will show a heck of a lot better than our port-a-potty sized shower will when we put the house on the market.

We also decided to wallpaper the walls, instead of painting them, after we fell in love with the beautiful, textured silvery-gray wall paper at the Ritz-Carlton. We went to Sherwin-Williams to order some that was similar to what they had at the Ritz, and of course it was going to take about a week to come in. So our big plans for the weekend were shot to hell, and all we did was spend money, remove the old stuff and spackle a few holes in the wall. Hopefully the wallpaper comes in soon, because we can't put up the light fixture, or put the toilet in until the walls are covered.

Wish us luck!