Bathroom reveal

Today I'm guest posting at one of my favourite blogs "This Dusty House" with our bathroom reveal. Stop by to check out our first ever completed bathroom renovation!

Shower glass panel - choosing local

A while back I spoke about our glass panel options for the walk-in shower. 
After a lot of weighing things over and over in terms of budget vs. looks vs. practicality, we decided to go with our original plan and ordered a custom glass panel. Call me “old school”, but  the idea of ordering something this big and fragile online made me cringe. The fact that there was no “real” store to go to in case we run into any issues simply didn't agree with me.

So we decided to stick to local. In my pursuit of a good glass shop around the city I came across “Mirror Works”. They handled my request with professionalism and enthusiasm. After the measurements took place, we were suggested to extend the panel to the full height (instead of our original 80-inches plan) of the ceiling to be safe and for the look to be more solid. Now that we see it up, we are super happy we listened to the experts. On the installation day, the guys handled the glass with extra care and took their time carrying it through our very narrow entrance and staircase (and the hallway for that matter). The whole thing sits on three chrome brackets that are attached to the ceiling, the wall and the ledge of the shower. I'm super happy that the brackets match our chrome shower head, faucets and the chrome strip that we used for shower ledge and baseboards: The installation took less than an hour, but they made sure the panel was leveled and secured well:To be honest, I didn't expect the result to be so neat and simple. It's exactly how I envisioned it and I'm glad we went with this option.
I would highly recommend this shop if you have some glass ideas for your home that need realization. Having a positive experience like this made us think of other places we could apply glass to in our house. We know it won’t happen right away, but how about a glass staircase railing or backsplash in the kitchen?

Possibilities are endless, and now I know a great place to go to make those projects happen.

Vanity’s in!

Look at this all white, glossy and super accommodative Godmorgon vanity in its pride. I can't wait to fill in those drawers with my "oh-so-minimal-to-the-point-of-obsolete" beauty products:) But jokes aside, I'm glad there is this much storage as we don't intend to have a medicine cabinet or any shelves in this room. I was worried that it would be bulky for our tight space but once we put it up, it fit in like it was meant to be there. V adjusted the legs so the vanity is up to our desired height and is in a perfect alignment with the subway tile on the wall. There were some issues with water pipes being in the way of the drawers and in order for them to close properly, V had to cut the main pipe and shorten it. It was a bit of a hassle but all worked out in the end, and we’re now one object closer to being done with this room!
Oh, yes, the other major piece got installed this weekend – the toilet. I swear, I was hoping that I won’t have to blog about it, but I kinda feel I have to so whoever reads this won’t make the same mistake we did. Always, always MEASURE the rough-in for your toilet before you purchase one.
We didn’t. It just didn’t even occur to us to take measurements(duh, right?). So this beautiful, dual-flash, modern and minimalistic one had to be returned due to our own negligence (Live and learn!).
It simply didn’t fit between the wall and the sewage drain. So we had to go back to the store and look for one that had an exact 10” rough-in. The only one available with that measurement was this fella that I’m not crazy about.
I guess I’ll have to make my peace with this piece. After all it isn’t really a matter of how one looks but more importantly - how one works, and so far - just fine:).

Oh, the little things!

Sorry, no picture post today. Just me, complaining:)
This week V has finished the grouting, which took him quite a bit of time to do because the grey grout we chose for the floor was not washing off as easily as the white one on the walls. (duh, it’s darker! should’ve known) He had to change water many, many times. After all the grouting and washing, the biggest part of this bloody reno – tiling - was done. Finished. Completed. Yay!
Now, we are on to the little things. Just to paint you a picture in terms of how much needs to be found/bought/installed, try looking around you next time using your bathroom. There are little things everywhere: lighting, ceiling fan (our old propeller looked ugly, didn’t suck out anything but made a lot of noise, so it's gotta go), towel holder, toilet paper holder, soap holder, toothbrush holder, bath mat (or even two), light switch and electric outlets. Oh, and one more in our particular case – glass shelve for shampoos and other shower necessities, as we (I really mean – "he") didn’t opt for the built in shower niche.
I have a feeling that I’m forgetting something as I’m typing this…I’m sure there will be couple of more things that will pop up later on.

So this weekend plans? Shopping for those bathroom necessities. I'm heading to Ikea first but if you know a great place to stock up on some (if not all) of those, please, please share.
P.S. Check out this soap dish holder (splurge alert!) and this bath mat (probably will need two) that I’m considering.
Great weekend to you all and please don't be like me this weekend - don't spend it all! ♥

Trying on neon

Yesterday I took some time to think of the colour choices for the opposite wall of our bathroom. I considered white, grey even black but for some reason all of those choices didn’t appeal to me. They’re fine, but just not quite what I want to look at when I’m using the room. Then, I decided to search for something fun and energetic.
I found interiors with neon accents, walls or doors very appealing and unexpected. Especially when paired with white. So I went to a nearby home improvement store to look at some choices of bright paints. To my delight, they had a special selection of vibrant coloured paints. This is the swatch of the one I loved the most - "Limoncello":

Back home I pulled out a piece of fabric in neon colour and taped it against the wall to help me visualize the colour in its surroundings. The impact I was hoping for was there. Too bad the lighting in the room didn’t agree with my camera; the picture doesn’t do the justice but at least you get the gist of where this is going.

P.S. I’m wearing V’s working shirt, so please pardon my “style” or the luck of thereof. It’s in neon though, that’s what matters:)

Bathroom vanity lighting

My last post I talked about changes. Changes in lifestyle, approach to life, you know, the BIG things. Truth is, before any action can be taken and dreaming start to become reality, we need to finish what we’ve started. Whether we like it or not, we can’t leave this place half-done. Just wouldn’t make sense for us and something tells me - for real estate market these days.
So we can keep on dreaming and planning (which is very stimulating, I must admit) but there are things to do around here. And we’re going to finish what we can. To the best of our ability.
This week V is grouting the tile. We’re choosing light grey for the walls and dark grey for the floor - to give that honeycomb pattern definition it deserves and save me time scrubbing the shower pan:) In the meantime, I’m searching for some not so boring vanity lighting options. Is it me or do they all come from one place? Seems like whichever site I open – same selection. And pricing. Anyway, here are few that we’re considering:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

V's favourite is #5, which I don’t mind either. I was leaning more towards something more edgy like #4, which would be a total splurge for us. What do you think?

On another note.
Yesterday watched the last episode of Game Of Thrones. This is the first time I say this about my favourite TV show: I’m glad it’s over. I donno about you but I need my summer blood, betrayal and evil plotting free. (Although I’ll miss snappy dialoging and Daenerys:)) I think it's another first for me to be ok with next season not being out until next year. That’s about right amount of time to be fully over “Red Wedding” episode, which I’m still grieving over.

Tiling bathroom floor

Never again!” – is the first phrase I hear from my very patient husband when he's out of our under renos bathroom. “Never again I will have to do this!” is another, a bit louder one. Can’t say I blame him for it, more like I blame myself for having to put him through this “pain in the…you know where” experience.

V spent two days straight accurately laying out the shower pan, piece by half-piece or smidgen of a piece in some spots(around the drain, border) to get the pattern spot on.

I don’t think it is stressed enough on the web world how tough these honeycomb/hexagon tiles are to put in by yourself. They look amazing, they feel amazing but THAT comes with a price and hours of kneeling and meticulous labour involved. So if you want to put in these by yourself, our advice would be – don’t. There is nothing better and easier than regular square or rectangular tiles, in fact, ‘till the last minute I wanted to change my mind in their favour, but since we already bought these and were eager to finish this project asap, I let go.
As for the shower pan ledge, we decided to lay it out with subway tile, on both: top and sides. And to make up for the width (the ledge is a bit wider than the tile), we added metal edging on sides. I think it looks neat. And we’ve managed to save some $, which is always great news in the whole renovating process.

Glass shower – practicality vs. looks

With bathroom tiling being in progress, I’ve decided to look at the glass enclosures for our shower.
Before V and I decided to convert our tub space into a walk-in shower, we had agreed that the enclosure would be glass.
So this is what we had in mind as our shower option number one (apologies for the mess and faked glass):

A single glass panel. With as less hardware as possible. I’ve inquired a few places around on it. In some of them I've been told that this type of installation would require a bar against the opposite wall in order to support the panel. I'm not crazy about that. As far as pricing goes, I was able to negotiate the cost of installation and got a somewhat reasonable quote.
But even with a quote, we are still mulling over this particular option. Our main concern is how practical will this one panel be in everyday use?

• Will the splashes go over the “unprotected” side?
• Will it be cold with steam escaping through the opening? 

That’s exactly why we’re hesitant to go ahead with this option, because we don't know how practical it will be. And there is no worse type of a decision that is not based on practicality, no matter how pretty the outcome might be, if you ask me.
So here is our second, a bit more traditional option:

Source

A two panel glass with chrome  frame and a little door. Seems safer than the first option, while still providing clean and modern look, not to mention – agrees with our budget.

Have you ever ordered something big and fragile online? How was the shipping handled? Did it arrive in one piece?

Notes on the bathroom

I wish I had more progress to report this week. But the room is just sitting there, waiting for us to get back into “reno mode”. We’ve been out of it since last week and it’s REALLY hard to get moving again, I’m sure you’ve been there.
So until we do, here are our findings on the whole process so far:

1. Warped walls (and ceiling). Our 1979 semi is not so great with 90-degree angles or straight walls for that matter, so we ended up with some gaps in the corners. Fingers crossed - white grout to the rescue; 
2. Didn’t budget in the price of shower tile mortar: 3 bags, at $40 per bag – a bit more than we anticipated for the shower;
3. Shower ledge needs top. Subway tile doesn’t cover it the way we had hoped, the ledge is a bit wider, so we need to look into other options. Marble maybe? I wonder how much that would set us back in terms of $$. 
4. No built-in shampoo niche in the shower. This was the first topic we disagreed about. I wanted one and V was very much against the idea (apparently those are pain to built). So we agreed (or I surrendered?) on a glass shelve at the end of the shower instead. 
5. Glass panel for the shower or simple curtains? Boy, this is a big one and I think deserves a whole new post. 

 I’m very open to listen to your thoughts, ideas or suggestions. ♥

Ready for long weekend

I certainly know a person who wants to be done with this bathroom asap. And it isn't me. Although I am looking forward to see the fruits of our labour, I’m totally ok with waiting. Unlike my hubby.
This whole week he’s been practically living in this little room, taking breaks to eat and to go to nearby Rona for more cement or necessary tools. Our bathroom doesn’t have a window, so working there was a challenge with all the humidity from wet materials and my sweaty hubby.

I barely saw him this whole week and I feel responsible. After all, it was ME who wanted a new bathroom and now my dear husband is on his knees, leveling and accurately laying out each piece of tile. And there is more work ahead!
I’d better do my best to make it up to him this weekend:) And we are having long one this week, thanks to Queen Victoria. We really need it!

Hope your weekend will be full of family time, outdoor activities and lots of love!

Summer socks and tile progress

Weather was not pleasant at all this weekend. Although sun did pick through, it was cold and gusty out, which made me want to put on these:

The pattern was a delight to knit and I loved working with bamboo yarn.

On another note, we started tiling the bathroom. Finally. Yay! Oh how I love the smell of wet mortar and seeing the tile building up within hours - made me smile. We are in PROGRESS!

Taking on bathroom DIY

Right off the start, I have to admit that our bathroom is quite livable. Previous owners gave it a quick “face lift”. They changed the flooring, fixtures and applied fresh paint. And I wouldn’t touch a thing if that had been done properly. For example, the floor underneath the tile squeaks, the toilet seat wasn’t attached accurately so now it rocks back and forth, the fixtures are leaking and are very tight to close or open.

Not a fan of the layered rim either:

Or the three amigos:

I simply hate the original vanity from the 80’s. It's bulky, there are no shelves inside for storage, it’s also very low and what’s with the handles in the middle of the cabinetry? It makes no sense to me, but I guess people back then had their reasons:

The bathroom doesn’t have a window, as you can see, lighting is already an issue, and with this pale colour palette it’s almost depressing to be spending time in there.

So the demolition is scheduled this week. Hopefully, there will be pictures to share simply because when my man gets his hands dirty, there is no way I should be interrupting the process with my camera:)
Bear with us, folks, this project will be long and full of surprises, I’m sure of that. There is a lot to be decided on, argued about and, finally, purchased and installed. That's the non-labour-related truth behind DIY-ing: lots of compromise, research, learning, and making decisions.
So good luck to us!