Main Floor Bathroom - II

Once we had gutted the bathroom to studs and floor joists the reconstruction began with framing around the sewer and water lines from the upstairs bathroom.  We moved part of one wall about 30 inches to create a space in the kitchen for the refrigerator.  When we raised the ceiling I decided to make a coffered ceiling and we constructed a built-in cabinet above the toilet.  The window sill had been chopped back level with the wall so that had to be built back out.  We found marble tile at Home Depot for $1 a piece and had a friend's son lay it for us.

Next we installed bead board and a cap trim.

Cheap marble floor tile

View from back wall

Poplar cabinet

Cap, beadboard and cabinet

Coffered ceiling and dark primer

Basic cabinet shell

To balance the cap trim I started by centering under the mirror and then cutting the trim so I was able to get a mirror miter on each corner and worked outward from there.  This was one of those projects I delayed and delayed until I felt comfortable that I had come up with the correct solution.  I built the cabinet doors and ended up just painting the inside of the glass panels white to get the effect I wanted.  The tub came with the house and we splurged by having the feet chromed for $160 and the interior refinished (a polyurethane coating) that turned out very nice.  We were able to reuse the sink faucet but did replace the pedestal sink as the former one was a modern design.

As for the rest of the features:

We sanded and painted the exterior of the tub.

The tub fixture was ordered from a company on the internet.

The wall sconces came from ebay and are antiques.

The mirror frame came from a great aunt in Michigan and we had a beveled mirror cut to fit it.

The chandelier we found on clearance at Fred Meyer for about $50.

The stained glass hangs inside the regular window and came from ebay.  We won the auction and paid about $300 for it - we would have paid probably twice as much locally if we could have found one in this good a condition.  We stripped and stained the frame and then built a secondary frame to tie it together.

Aunt Justina's frame

Lot's of advance planning to get it right

Built-in cabinet with painted glass

Finally ready for tub and sink

Close fit 

Coffered ceiling

Stained glass from ebay

Morning sun

Since we had no choice about the placement of the bathroom off the dining room I'm pleased with the overall appearance as it almost looks like a powder room more than a full bathroom.  I thought if we had to we would have located the door further down the wall and had a two foot hallway leading to the bathroom!

Once again, we found the internet and ebay a huge help in the whole remodeling process as we were able to get much better choice and quality for the money than we would have been able to locally.  I'm all in favor of supporting local businesses but there are times when they don't have what you want or it's out of the price range.

Main Floor Bathroom

Undoubtedly the first floor bathroom was in the worst condition of any room in the house and required taking it down to the bricks and studs and even replacing the subfloor.  We also rewired the room and redid most of the plumbing lines.  This bathroom also had a door with opaque glass panels like the other bathroom.  The floor had been tiled very poorly and had a trap door in the middle of the floor to get into the crawl space.  The ceiling had been lowered from 11 to 8 feet and never finished.  We believe this was once a pantry off the kitchen as we discovered two doorways, one from the original kitchen and one from the dining room.  The original door to the dining room was closed off and used as a storage space and a new doorway (a third opening) was cut for the current layout.  In the space between the original and new ceiling, plumbing, heating and electrical lines had been run.  Apparently the heat was so poor though that two of the plumbing lines were wrapped in heat tape to keep them from freezing and plugged into an extension cord hidden from sight.

Pretty ugly but  kept the price down!

Original doorway used as storage area

Nice tile job with well-concealed trapdoor

The ceiling when we bought the house

Above the sheetrock - notice the classic light fixture

We knew we were going to put the kitchen back in its original space so that meant reopening the doorway into the dining area and closing off the current doorway which then meant that the toilet had to be moved as it was in front of that doorway.  All the walls were in such bad shape that we stripped plaster from the brick walls and old sheetrock and lath and plaster from two interior walls.  There were about three to four different levels on the main floor as well so we tore up the floor not only to level it but so we could more easily replumb for the sink, tub and toilet.  The sink and tub stayed in approximately the same location but there was enough change that it required major adjustments.  There were also abandoned lines that needed to be cleaned up.  The ceiling had been lowered to the top of the window so that ceiling was torn out and we put in a new one a foot higher but still two feet below the original.  This gave us space to run new vent stacks and wiring and still hide the previously installed water lines.

Opening up one of the original doorways

Doorway to dining room

Brick wall after sheetrock and plaster removed

Partially torn up floor so plumbing can be redone

Upstairs bathroom drain exposed in lower  bath

Framing in a new wall around the stack

Original doorway into kitchen

Hauling plaster a bucket at a time

The room is very small (approximately 7x7) so we saved some space by using 1x2's as studs for the sheetrock on the two brick walls.  We also recessed the toilet into the wall to save space and to keep it out of  line-of-sight from the dining room.  This also provided space for me to construct a built-in cabinet above the toilet.  We also installed a vent fan and a committed circuit for a gfci plug next to the sink.  The room was totally rewired for sconces on each side of the mirror, an overhead chandelier, the vent and the gfci.  This is one of the rooms where we did all of the work except for laying the marble floor which the son of a friend did for us.

Raising the ceiling and adding framing

New location

Soldering on shut-off valves for tub

Partially sheetrocked

I'll stop here and in the next post show the renovation that ends with one of my favorite rooms in the house - favored for its appearance NOT its function - although that certainly has its place.

Where We "Den" Up

Initially I was going to try and show the chronological sequence of our remodel but I soon realized that too many of our projects extended over several years.  It was rare when we were able to tackle a project and remain with it until complete.

We started work on the den in late 2004, tearing off the wainscoting then patching and painting the original plaster and trim.  This room served as our first bedroom until the elevator was installed then it became our primary living area and has remained that even as the rest of the house moves toward completion.  The den is the only room on the main floor that has the original floor exposed.  After seeing a floor in another older home Chris decided she wanted to paint it so we sanded as much of the damage away as possible then painted a pattern and sealed it with polyurethane.  "This Old House" magazine actually expressed brief interest in featuring this project.

She also wanted a built-in look for bookshelves but all the ones we could find were well over our budget so creativity had to come to the rescue.  We found some nice looking 7 foot bookshelf units at Costco for $200 each.  I then found some upper kitchen cabinets on clearance for $60. I combined them and built a top on which to place the bookshelves and stained the bottom to match the top and added a bead trim to unite the whole into a unified look.    I was unable to find another matching cabinet for the second wall so I had to construct that one from scratch and find a cabinet maker to make matching doors.  The units stand  just over 10 feet and total cost was about $800.

We also rewired the entire room for electricity, phone and tv.

Fireplace in den

Original den looking into foyer

Notice the copper pipes and "nice" modern heating  units.

Tin ceiling and art deco chandelier

Our first bedroom

Wallpaper under partially removed painted wallpaper

Middle daughter Katie removing wallpaper

Son-in-law Jon and wife Chris agreeing on something

Long, tough, dirty job

Oldest daughter Kelly painting

Katie cleaning up

Prepping for paint

Laying out the pattern

Trim detail

Mounting the bookshelves

Randy and Brandon - Macho men

New light and fan fixture

All I need is a pipe, book and Irish Setter at my feet!

The finished product

We still need to reinstall the loose tile on the fireplace and add a gas coal basket in the fireplace.  A nice tin ceiling was installed by previous owners and the room had an art deco chandelier which we replaced with a ceiling fan bought on clearance at a local light store.  The glass shades came from our local thrift store for a dollar apiece.  The whole process lasted from 2004 to 2009.

Stay with Me

Short post.  Just a word of encouragement to say that we'll show you how we got from there to here in the coming months.  The most recent photo was taken today, May 1, 2011 and the earlier photo during the summer of 2004.