Vintage Modern Master Bath Remodel

YAY!  I am finally posting about our master bath remodel!  I keep waiting, thinking I will finish up those last couple of projects for this room and then take the photos.  But I just decided this weekend to take photos anyway!  Get ready for an onslaught of photographs!

So here she is......

The Damage and Before Photos
Back in the fall, the master bathroom toilet overflowed and the tank ran for about 2 hours causing water to continuously flow.  Major water damage on all three floors of our home.  Thus began a major remodel of our master bath, along with refinished hardwoods on the main level of our home.  Here is where we started...our master bath was carpeted (YUCK, I know...) but these photos were taken after the carpet came up, actually all these photos are during the early stages of demolition.  We lived with it like this for 6 weeks or so until insurance issues could be settled.  Awful, just awful!  This bathroom was typical of the late 90's when our house was built, lots of big mirrors, brass and silver mixed fixtures, and the nasty smelly carpet.

 

My "Design Team"  LOL! :o)
In the beginning, I contacted Melaine of My Sweet Savannah about an online consult.  I love Melaine's style and felt she would be able to send me in the right direction for this project.  I sort of knew what I wanted, but needed someone to bounce ideas off and to give me some ideas for decor in this space.  Vintage is what I was going for, but with a modern updated feel.  Our home is a typical suburban two-story brick front house built by John Weiland in the northern 'burbs' of Atlanta.  I needed the master bath to be in keeping with the style of our home, yet push the envelope on what is traditionally seen in master bath remodels in our area.  Anyone who knows me knows that I don't often "just go with the flow" and this project is a good example.  This is why I thought Melaine could give me opinions very different than those I would gather from my friends here at home.  Even our wonderful contractor and very dear friend, Grant Albright, was a little unsure when we started.  This remodel was very different than most he does in Towne Lake.  So Melaine set me on a path with a great idea board (which I cannot find a picture of to show you!), some links to other bathrooms that gave me ideas, and some info on how to refinish a piece of furniture we used as our vanity.  I cannot say enough good things about the folks who helped me on this....Melaine is just awesome to work with!  She shows excitement about a project as if she were doing it in her own home!  And Grant Albright is the bomb!  If you are reading this and live in our area, you WILL. NOT. FIND a better person, a more skilled craftsman, or a man with more integrity than Grant!  Of course, I am a little biased, as Grant's wife, D'Ann is my one of my best friends!  And she tops the list of friends who heard me out, encouraging and cheering me on throughout this process.  Additionally, my friends at Bascomb listened to me talk and talk and talk about this project for weeks....Dawn, Marsha, Donna, Tammy, you ladies are good playground buddies to hear my stories over and over and over!  Kim and Jackie, can't tell you how much it helped to have your opinions of the 10 or so shades of blue and gray samples I painted on the walls!  I think I picked the perfect one out of all we considered!  And to the rest of my second grade teacher peeps....thanks for listening at lunch, in the hallways, and even on our rare lunch date on a teacher workday! 


The "During" Shots
Armed with great ideas from Melaine and a great contractor in Grant, the remodel begins.  Demolition is the worst part!  Grant ripped out the shower, all the gigantic mirrors (that I have hated since day one in this house!), the toilet...the real culprit for all this trouble, the vanities, sinks, tile surround on the jacuzzi, some of the sub flooring, drywall, everything out of the closets from 3ft down to the floor....until you do it, you cannot imagine the work that goes into a project like this!  So for your viewing pleasure, I present the "during" photos....

There was LOTS of mold in the drywall behind those mirrors! And see the lighting soffets?  The one on the left came out during this.  Several days I came home to find Grant working on removing and redoing drywall from inside the ATTIC!  Hard work, I tell you!

Here you can see some of our new choices....carerra marble and subway tile!

LUURVE!!!!

Tile work is done....floor, shower and tub surround.  Can you believe the floor is tile???  I really really really wanted hardwood floors, but couldn't convince Hubbie this would be okay.  So where there is a will, there is a way....and I found this tile that looks like hardwood!  We used dark brown grout to keep it from looking too contemporary.  The shower and tub got gray grout. I wanted the tiles to pop and white grout was not going to give me the look I was after.  Soooo happy with the gray!

The Full Reveal!!!!

So after water damage that occured in early September, after dealing with the insurance company, and after many months of hard work, our master bath was ready for us to use in late November!  I cannot say how happy I am with this bathroom.  I sometimes just stand in there and stare, still just can't believe the visions in my head are really here, in my house, and look just like what I envisioned for this space!

The Shower

Love the frameless glass!  We decided to use the shower floor tile to create a border, which unites the space. We moved the shampoo niche and added three marble shelves in the corner.

LOVE LOVE LOVE our new shower!

A close up of the basket weave carerra and black tile floor.

We moved one wall of the shower over onto the tub surround, which gave us a ledge in the shower. Amazing how much more space we have with just a 6 inch row of tile!!!

Love the contrast of the white tile and dark brown floor!

Just some decorative towels to finish out the shower side of the room....above this towel bar, I am making a HUGE square frame that will hold the last vintage print.  It is almost ready to go up! And this is a good place to see the color.  It is called Stone Partition and it is a Valspar color from Lowes.  The ceiling is a lighter color in the same family.  I must have put 10 different swatches of color on the walls and I just could not decide.  As we all know, grays are tricky, and I wasn't sure gray was what I wanted.  I also considered blue.  But I decided on gray, then had to get the "just-right gray" that did not have too much green OR too much blue.  I love the one we choose....and I say we because several of my friends came over to look at the colors and give good opinions and offered  things to think I should think about when making my final decision.

The Tub

Quite possibly my favorite part of the remodel!  There is so much going on here! And it was probably the area I was most unhappy about redoing. What I would have loved would have been to take out this Jacuzzi tub and replace it with a stand alone clawfoot tub.  I never even brought up this subject with Hubbie or Grant....I guess they are just finding out about this... Surprised, guys?  No, you are not surprised...what is that nickname Hubbie has for me?  Oh yeah, that would be "Cost Plus"! LOL! 

But after the beadboard and marble tile went up and I spray painted the knobs to change out from brassy gold to muted silver, I think this area is PERFECT! 

Melaine gave me the idea of using lots of candles.  These are in one corner of the tub. The clear glass candle holders, I made using hurricanes and  glass candlesticks I found at the dollar store and thrift stores.  I did forget  one thing....isn't there something about bad luck having candles that have not been burned in your home? Guess I better take care of that.  :o)

And another of Melaine's suggestions.  I found two of these really large apothecary jars on a website online (cannot remember where) and they were the most reasonably priced ones I could find in the size I wanted.  And the one with bath salts I made using a flat clear jar with lid and a  candlestick that I bought at Homegoods.  I began to look for and gather sponges, soaps and salts and this is what I ended up with in the other corner of the tub!

And it was a brilliant idea from Melaine again that led me to these vintage botanical prints.  I found these on Etsy.  The lady I bought  them from had an old book of botanical prints.  I bought cheap dollar store frames and spray painted them Heirloom white, loaded up the vintage prints and had Grant make a ledge on top of the beadboard so I could lean these prints here.

The Vanity!!!

It all started here....with a Craigslist find!  Actually it started when Melaine gave me the idea of using an old dresser as the vanity. So I set to work to find just the right piece.  It was not easy... there were dimensions I needed to fill the space and have room to do a double sink, and I couldn't believe it when I found this 72 inch dresser! 

So with Melaine talking me through the process of how to paint and distress the dresser, I set to work in my garage! I used a color not quite white, but more of a creamy white as I didn't want too much stark white to make the  room look cold.  And I spray painted the handles in a muted silver.

Never. Even. Imagined. how good this would turn out!!!!

Agree?  Her lovely legs and curvy lines brought in just the right amount of feminity without making the room looking too girly!

The mirrors were a real pain!  I really wanted mirrors on pivots and I did...for a  few days, and I still have the pivots thinking MAYBE one day we will try again. My fatal mistake was trying to use cheap, thin mirrors to save $$. Mistake!  The pivots put too much pressure on the mirrors and they cracked.  So alot of money and a hard lesson later, I just picked these two oval mirrors at Lowes and painted them the same color as the dresser. Not totally happy with them, they work, but I just may change these at some point in the future. 

The Sinks

I just cannot get over how good the marble vanity top turned out!  The granite/marble company came out and made a template from the wood top that we removed from the dresser.

The old vanity had been a dumping ground for all the stuff we used regularly, but didn't want to store away under the sinks.  Now since every- thing fits in the drawers, we only keep the cotton, Q-tips and my jewelry  on top of the vanity.  And they look oh-so cute!  You can also see the faucets we used.  I wanted them to look vintage-y and you cannot imagine the  price on some of them out there!  Was not willing to put that money into faucets, so we found these with cross handles for less than $100 each at faucetsdirect.com. I was a little worred we might get something sub-standard, but they are

so good!

Some Odds and Ends

A few blooming, creamy, fake roses from HobLob in a milk bottle I found in a thrift store. I also have plans to add flowers to a little gray metal milk bottle tote that I got half price at HobLob.  Just haven't gotten around to it yet. You can see it in a couple of the first pictures at the top of this post.

This ladder has had a couple of homes in our home. I found this back in 1998 when we first moved into our house.  It was at an antique store near my hometown of Macon.  It had hooks already in it and was used over the island in my kitchen, hanging flat with vines intertwined. Then it moved to a wall in the kitchen over my desk area and held some dish towels.  I am still looking for the perfect piece for this spot....which was another of Melaine's suggestions. I want to put an old chippy white door here, leaned against the wall, maybe with a mirror in it and some big old looking hooks for towels. I can't find what I am looking for at a price I am willing to  pay,  but this ladder is great for now!  It has the chippy white look I am after and holds some decorative towels.  You can also see the soffet thingy is gone now from the left wall.  It totally opened up this room!

This is the only photo I have of the toilet area of the bath. I added this plate rack, painted Heirloom white and put white towels in it.  I am happy with the several shades of white and cream used to achieve a warmer feel in the entire bathroom.  I think using too much stark white would have made this a chilly place to be!  And see that toilet there?  Well, I sure hope this one never fails us!

We have always had this little niche above the hallway leading into our bedroom.  Never have done anything with it, but I thought it would be a great spot to add more candles and this great vintage rose print I found at Marshalls.

In both the above photo and this one, you see the lighting I choose.   I knew I wanted something different, vintage-y.  I also knew I had a limited budget....we are getting to the end of the remodel and Hubbie is just about to pull the plug on the money we are funneling into this project! LOL!  I found these at Lowe's for around $70 each. I don't think they are meant to be used over a sink vanity, but hey.... it works for me!



And One Final Look.....

I just LOVE my master bath!!!

Thank you for sticking with this post

ALL. THE. WAY. THROUGH!



I am linking up my project here: