On Sunday night I began to feel like my throat was scratchy and started to develop a cough due to cold and/or allergies. I’m not sure which. But the good news is I had nowhere I had to be on Monday unless you count working out at Smart Barre and I decided against it. No one really wants to listen to someone hack repeatedly while they’re trying to hold a plank position for an interminable amount of time.
So P took Caroline to school and I opted to stay in my pajamas in the warm house for most of the day because that seemed like the sensible thing to do and I have high hopes that maybe it will keep me from getting full on sick. Especially because I have an appointment to get my hair cut and colored tomorrow morning and, well, PRIORITIES.
If you could see all the gray hair that has suddenly sprouted from my head you would totally understand that I will not cancel that appointment even if I have to drag myself in and wear a surgical mask to keep from contaminating anyone.
Anyway, I was thinking about things I could write about since it was a totally uneventful day and I remembered I haven’t given any sort of update on Caroline’s bathroom remodel since this summer. And maybe some of you haven’t even been reading that long and you’re thinking you had no idea this was even a thing. This is why I could never be a home blogger. I lack follow through and my timelines are haphazard at best and it seems to always take me at least 60% longer than the average person to complete a project.
So as a refresher, we have been needing to remodel Caroline’s bathroom (which is also the guest bathroom) for years. The sink and toilet worked fine, but the pipes to the shower had gotten so old that it took a sweet forever for the water to get hot and, true story, the last time someone used it the shower handle broke off in their hand. We’ve essentially just all used our master bath for eleven years but it felt like it was time to change this since Caroline is on the verge of her teen years and everyone knows that a teen girl likes to spend hours a day in the bathroom.
Reason #243 I’ll never be a home blogger is because I apparently have virtually no “before” pictures of the bathroom except for this one I took while P was in the middle of demolition.
This gives you a basic overview. When we moved in this house almost seventeen years ago as poor newlyweds, I painted the tile in this bathroom white to cover up the sparkly gold striped tile that I would guess someone thought was awesome back in 1977. And then a couple of years later we wallpapered the rest of it with the black and white toile. I totally loved it for years but Caroline declared that it looked “like an old lady bathroom” and so we decided it was time for an update.
After we peeled back several layers of wallpaper and sheetrock, we found this treasure nailed to the wall in what I would assume was dreamy in the 1950’s.
And then this was a little further along in the demo process.
We basically got to this point and then it sat like that – just a big, open hole in our house – for about a month before our contractor could get started. Needless to say, we just shut and locked the bathroom door and tried not to think about it.
In the meantime, we tried to figure out exactly what we wanted both from a functional and style standpoint. The thing is – and I hate to think about this – Caroline is only going to be at home another six and a half years and we wanted the bathroom to be a little more timeless than the Hawaiian theme she originally proposed along with a sunset mural painted on the wall.
Ultimately, we designed the whole thing around the tile we all adored.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know that P adored it, but he went along with it. Also, he adored it less after we realized I’d calculated the cost wrong and it wasn’t quite as inexpensive as I originally told him. This was because I only quoted him the cost of having it shipped. The lesson? Don’t put me in charge of your home renovation projects.)
Here are some pictures of the finished project and I’ll list sources for the things I know at the bottom of this post in case you see something you like.
This is the view from the hallway. We stripped the walls down to the original shiplap and painted them a bright white.
Here’s a closer view.
The toilet is now hidden behind the open door which is nice.
Here’s the shower. The floor slopes toward the drain so there’s no door, just glass. I wasn’t entirely optimistic about this, but it actually works great. We opted for a regular showerhead and a rain showerhead. You can use them both or just one or the other. The best part is the controls are located on the far wall (not pictured) so you can adjust the water before you get in.
So there you have it. And I have to say it feels like a game changer for Caroline to have her own bathroom where she can actually shower and use her own towels instead of using my dry one since she forgot to hang hers up the night before. Speaking of, I opted for two robe hooks on the back of the door because she is much more likely to throw her towel over a hook than to actually take the time to hang it on a towel bar.
And even though it took longer than we planned and I thought at one point in November that it would never be finished, I’m so happy with the end result. It’s the perfect blend of the timeless look I wanted that goes with our old house and the fun look Caroline had in mind, which was basically anything that didn’t involve toile.
Here are my sources for the things I know:
Cement Tile: Granada Tile in Fez
Wire baskets with wheels: World Market (bought in store, but this basket is similar)
Concrete countertop and vanity was made by our contractor.
Blackboard crates in vanity: Magnolia Home
Lead glass window: Old Is Better Than New in San Antonio (I totally owe this find to Holly Mathis because I emailed her asking if she had a good source for old leaded glass and she told me to google “architectural salvage”. If you live in San Antonio, you have to check this place out. Tons of great old windows and doors and other treasures.)
Mirror and Sconces: Pottery Barn
