Bathroom Refresh: Out with the old, in with the new

This past long weekend, Rick and I had the pleasure of helping our dear friends with their bathroom refresh project.  It was two years ago that we helped them with their main bathroom refresh project and it was time to hit the master bath and powder room.

Bathroom Refresh

The Plan

As you all know I love to plan things out, here was the plan I put in place for the bathroom refresh:Thursday

• have counters templated in both bathrooms (as the length of the cabinets were not changing).

Friday

• Demo existing vanity in master bath.
• Demo existing vanity in the powder room.
• New master vanity install.
• Install new powder room vanity.
• Have a new counter installed in the master bath.
• Install counter in the powder room.

Saturday

• Have the new vessel sink and faucet in master bath installed.
• Install new faucet in the powder room.
• Lay the new flooring in both master bath and powder room.

Sunday

• Install shiplap for the feature wall in both master bath and powder room.
• Have two new toilets in master bath and powder room.
• Hang new mirrors in master bath and powder room.
• Install new lights in master bath and powder room.
• CELEBRATE!

Master Bath

Our friends built their home many years ago and while the house has gone through some changes, the master bath refresh project was on the list for this year.  Our friends had already had some work done in their shower, so it was time to refresh the rest of the space.First of all, here is the layout of their master bathroom:They have a really good space to work with and the changes that we made were simple, yet very effective!

New vanity

Our friends (who are much taller than we are), had quite a low vanity.  And by low, I mean it came lower than my belly button (and I'm 5'4")!  When we started the conversation about helping out of friends, my girlfriend mentioned how their existing vanity was not great for storage and it was not tall enough.  Although it was a big vanity (almost 68" long), having doors on all 3 cabinets was not great.  As you may know, cabinets with doors allow for things to get shoved to the back - never to be seen again. Here is what the vanity looked like prior to us removing it:In this particular bathroom, our friends had the great luck of being able to go a bit bigger with the depth of the cabinets.  Normally, bathroom cabinets are  21" deep and we had enough room to go with 24" deep cabinets!  I loved being able to give them more storage (and you'll soon find out why, in the same breath, I hated having the 24" deep cabinets).As all of my projects revolve around a budget and this project was no different.  As we were able to go with 24" deep cabinets, my girlfriend and I chose the Nimble Cabinets by Diamond that Lowes provides, in the colour Sea Salt. I specified 18" drawers for either side and we used a 30" sink base for the middle cabinet.  Here is what it looks like (we still had the protective wrapping on):With a new vessel sink and vessel faucet that are going to be installed, our friends will never have to bend down so low to wash their faces or brush their teeth.

Flooring

Our friends had linoleum on their floor that was certainly not going to go with the new bathroom refresh plan. When Rick and I refreshed their main bathroom, we used a Luxury Vinyl Tile.  Our friends love the flooring so we decided to go with a similar floor (same LVT but a different style and colour).  Since my girlfriend wished to have things lightened up in her space, we went with a 16X16 white tile from Armstrong Alterna.  The grout I chose relates to their cabinet and counter colour.  Here is what it looks like:When Rick and I were installing this floor, we were careful to make the angled cuts and ensure our tile pattern was followed.  As we had 3 tiles left (the difficult ones with the angles), I accidentally cut myself.  Nothing says 'renovation' like a little wound! Looks like I need to have a manicure in my future!In two days, we had the bathrooms (both the master and the powder room) demolished, new cabinets installed, and new flooring installed.

Counters

For the master bathroom refresh, I chose a quartz that ties in with the colour of cabinets, and for the powder bathroom refresh, I chose to go a bit more casual.  Here are the two selections I made for our friends:

The big delay

While we could have easily been completed both spaces in three days, I made a MAJOR error!  If you see above, I had my counter installer go and measure the cabinets so we could have the quartz installed on Friday.  Well, guess what?  When he arrived he couldn't install the counters.  Have you figured out why?  In 99% of the bathrooms, the cabinet depth is 21".  Do you remember what we installed in this bathroom?  Cabinets that are 24" deep!  Not once did I think about that when my counter installer was measuring.  I just kept thinking how this was going to be pretty simple - out with the old and in with the new.  When Will arrived to install the counters, he saw right away my HUGE mistake!  I may have said a word that rhymes with truck multiple times over!  Of course, we were also doing all of this work over a long weekend so there was a pretty good chance that having 2 new slabs cut over the weekend was not going to happen.  I'm still saying that very bad word when I think about it and write it here.

Glass Half Full

I am SO thankful that our dear friends are so understanding. I am the first to admit when I make a mistake but let me tell you, Rick has not let me live this one down! I'm pretty hard on myself so this is not sitting well with me.  So with the counter delay, here is what we have left to do:

• New counter installs in both bathrooms.
• New faucet installed for the powder room (to go with the new undermount sink).
• Installation of a new vessel sink and vessel faucet for the master bathroom.
• Installation of shiplap feature wall to be installed on sink walls for both bathrooms.
• Brand new lighting to be installed in the master bathroom.
• Both bathrooms will have new mirrors installed.

Rick and I are planning to have this all done for our friends by the end of the week.

Bathroom Refresh

While the two spaces were not completed in 3 days, I am still excited that our dear friends will have 2 new spaces by the end of this week.  So here's a recap of what we did to make the bathroom refresh changes:

Master Bathroom

New

• flooring
• vanity
• counter
• sink
• faucet
• toilet
• 'shiplap feature wall"
• baseboards
• mirror
• lighting.

Powder Room

Newly installed

• flooring
• vanity
• counter
• sink
• faucet
• toilet
• 'shiplap feature wall'
• baseboards
• mirror
• re-install existing vanity light

I'll be taking some after photos once we're all done.  I will also do a breakdown of the budget so you can see that carrying out a bathroom refresh doesn't have to break the bank!  I can't wait to show you all how these two spaces turned out!

Thinking of a renovation and not sure where to start?