Another Extreme Home Makeover

Ever since we have moved in to our house we have never been totally satisfied with how each of the bathrooms looked. If you remember, back in April (See April blog post) we had some one do our upstairs bathroom which was a complete demo and rebuild, something we did not want to tackle ourselves.

Over the holidays, Dennis was off for two weeks due to the plant holiday shutdown and Teresa had a week off as well, so we finally decided to redo our downstairs bathroom. This is something we have wanted to do since we moved in, but focused on the other areas of the house first.

Here is a picture of the bathroom before I tore out the existing floor. Looks pretty neutral.

After tearing up the linoleum, we put down a backboard. This wasn't bad, but I did all the cutting in our family room and the whole house was a dust cloud for the duration of this project.

Here you can see Teresa cutting some tile (Thanks Jenn and Sam for the use of the Wet Saw, and all of your help and guidance during this). Cutting the tile quite possibly was the part of this project we enjoyed the most.

When the saw was low on water, rather than turning the water back on for a small amount of water, we were creative and use the elements...that's right, we put some snow in the reservoir.

Teresa did a great job spreading most of the mortar and laying the tile to ensure perfection. If Dennis did, he would have rushed and nothing would be straight.

While mom and dad were working away, others discovered "another baby" in the house. Owen loved looking in the mirror and I couldn't throw it out until a new one was put up.

TA DA! OUR NEW DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM!

We were going to put the old vanity and sink back in, but after it came out we decided not to put it back. Teresa found this sink, complete with a granite counter top and back splash Lowe's.

At Target, we found a nice cabinet to store the bathroom essentials.

A new shower curtain to go along with the new paint job.

And of course, the newly tiled floor.

At first I tried talking Teresa out of doing this because I did not have a lot confidence that it would turn out how we were imagining it. I am glad she stuck to her guns. It isn't perfect, as if a contractor did it, but knowing we were able to do this on our own, makes those small imperfections seem invisible.

Bring on the next home improvement...maybe landscaping in the spring! Stay tuned.