You will have to bear with me here, as this before and after requires a bit more imagination. This is not because there is not a drastic difference, however it is because the bathroom was in an entirely different location to begin with.
At the onset of the whole project I had intended on putting two bathrooms upstairs, side by side. One of those bathrooms was going to have direct access to the master bedroom, while the other served as the hall bath/guest bath. While my house is wider then most, after laying out two bathrooms in the area I had to work with, it just didn’t feel right. The tub setup fit fine in the “master” but I wanted the awesome shower. As it ended up, I settled with one large bathroom upstairs. In my opinion, it was a success for several reasons. I got the shower I wanted (60″ x 32″), a separate jetted tub, a double vanity, plenty of room to move around, and I did not have to sacrifice any closet storage space in the master bedroom for the proposed door way.
When I bought the house in August 2009 there was one bathroom in the house. It was crammed in the back left corner of the house. The bathroom’s original foot print took up a good 10′ x 5′ area in what is now the back bedroom. The upstairs was setup as a 3 bedroom 1 bath, with 2 of the bedrooms practically being useless. It is unfathomable to me how even a single bed and dresser would have fit in either of these rooms. The original bathroom had outdated fixtures (obviously, everything else in the house was) and Tommy Bahama looking wall paper.
What is really unfortunate is I seem to have no pictures of the bathroom when all that remained was the toilet. For some time we actually used the old shower liner as a “screen” to hide yourself when using the toilet. This lasted until the plumbing rough-in was done and many battles ensued regarding the lack of a place to go to the bathroom.
One of the first tasks after determining the bathroom needed to be relocated was to get rid of the “bedroom” that was currently in its place. It took quite some time and I vividly recall pushing dangling wires out of the way that we waited to disconnect until my electrician George came to demo all the old wiring.
From the hallway looking toward the back of the house:
And cue the dangling wires…
Looking toward the master bedroom:
The where the wall sat previously changed about a foot to accommodate for the eventual widening of the stairs.
I feel like these pictures never made it onto the blog because of the amount of dust in them, however they do illustrate a bit more clearly what everything looked like with the walls down, the carpet up, and if you look closely, you can see the painters tape on the floor where we were playing around with the layout.
Looking towards the back bedroom:
Looking toward the front bedroom:
This room fell victim to the picture lapse too. As I do each one of these before and afters I start to think that its possible that maybe it was just that next to nothing got done during the dead of winter. I’ll continue to blame the blizzard(s).
Some time after the holidays the framing was finishing up and the plumbing was roughed in:
From the hallway:
Whirlpool tub:
Shower control wall:
Shower pan some time after the rough-in inspection:
Here is the wall that I ended up building to close off the shower stall. I still don’t have a door for it, but glass doors are fairly expensive and its not a necessity at this point. The water actually stays in the shower stall fairly well for the time being.
Finally we started to put some tile down:
And then there were WEEKS of tiling…
I think the tile in the master bath caused the majority of the battles between my Dad and I as the project progressed. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was the one on the 100 degree back patio with the tile saw. It might have also had something to do with the fact that some of the walls were not very square, either way..
And now that leaves us at where we are today. The short list of things left to do in the master bath are as follows:
1. Misc. caulking
2. Paint the bathroom door
3. Find a shower door
Beyond that the bathroom is fully functional and I am very happy with how it turned out.
Here it is as of tonight:
The little black shelf was actually supposed to go in between the two mirrors, but I liked it better here:
Two volume controls and one temperature control:
Both shower heads in view:
Completed shelf:
Center drain:
Yeah I snuck this one in…speakers in the bathroom. They’re tied in to the main house system downstairs.
Stay tuned. Hopefully Huey will continue to behave well and give me time to update!
