One Big Hall Bathroom Update

It’s been a few minutes since I’ve shared anything about the hall bathroom, so today I thought it was time for one, big update. Like every other room in the house, it’s functional and almost finished, but not quite done. That’s something I hope to change in the next few months. 

Demo’ing out the space was the last post I shared, and so much has changed! This room certainly hasn’t been without some drama though, and it left us wanting to pull our hair out. First, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Here’s what the room looked like when we bought the house…

We removed everything from the bathroom, and then switched up the floor plan. That was huge on our part, and it made the space feel so much larger. 

With the room down to the studs, we had our electrician and plumber start re-working all of the lighting, outlets and plumbing. The toilet stayed in the same place, but it needed moved slightly. That was about the only thing that stayed in the same location. 

Like I’ve mentioned before, there were a few things we hired out. Building the walls in the bathroom, replacing the rotted sub-flooring and tiling was one of them. It was worth every penny, and meant we could move in sooner than later. 

The new wall went up for the shower…

Which left the perfect space for our new linen closet right next to it…

Sorry for the terrible lighting. At this point we were down to one tiny light. 

With the plumber finished with his portion, the handyman came in and started framing out the shelves for our shower…

I really wanted them to be on the main wall of the shower so they’d be a focal point, but there were so many things in the walls, we couldn’t make it work. Especially with the main framing for the kitchen support wall on the first level of the house. Bi-levels are fun… We’ve found that out as we’ve tried to do several things. 

We ended up doing the shelves on the back wall, which made them a little bit smaller than what we had envisioned. Sometimes the house tells you what’s going to be done.

Once the tile started going down, things really began transforming…

We picked a marble look-a-like, and I can’t tell you how much I love it. We bought it at Lowe’s and couldn’t be happier with how it looks. Because I wanted the veining in the tiles to “line up”, I pulled the tiles out of the boxes and laid out a pattern the tile guys could follow…

Basically, I just tried to make it look like one piece of tile continued into the next with the way the veining lined up. It was easier than it sounds. 

Looking back, I’m so glad I did this. It’s an extra detail that really does make a difference.

They also started working on the shower tile as well. We used this sleek white tile. It looks nice, but I’m not sure I’d use it again… more details below.

I wanted narrow grout lines, so they used drywall shims, which ended up being the perfect width. They pulled up easily too. 

All was looking great, until it came time to grout the shower…

The tile installer called and said there was an issue and that I needed to come take a look. That’s never a phone call you want to get. As soon as I walked into the bathroom, I could see the problem…

My heart literally sank. The tile looked terrible, mainly on the back wall. It looked like a basket weave. 

After further investigation, we discovered that we’d bought a few boxes of bowed tile. You can imagine our frustration when the company wouldn’t do anything for us. They took days to get back to us, and because we were on a timeline, we ended up taking the risk and ordering more tile, which had to ship from Denver. We eventually had the company get back to us and give us a tiny store credit for a future purchase. We’re both pretty disappointed.

Luckily though, two of the walls were salvageable, with one or two tiles that needed popped out and replaced. The back wall had to have everything removed to the studs… sigh.

Our tile installer felt so bad that he hadn’t caught the problem earlier on in the process, so he was eager to fix everything and do it right. We appreciated that, greatly. After a few days, the new tile showed up, and he finished re-installing the tile.

It was night and day difference. We definitely had a few boxes of bad tile the first time.

With the tile done, Todd started installing the plumbing fixtures…

It was like a sigh of relief to get to this part.

We also nailed on some trim so that we could hang our floating vanity and install the toilet…

I’ll share those tutorials in the next week or so, but first, let’s just admire the beauty of this tile…

It’s budget friendly and beautiful!

I can’t wait to take pictures of this space during the day. All of these were taken at night and they don’t do the tile justice. 

After a few stressful days with the hall bathroom, we were happy to be at this point. It was starting to come together, and that meant we were closer to moving in. More to share with this bathroom soon!