Master Bathroom Reveal

I've been so excited to reveal our new master bathroom to you. I have lots of photos, so here we go! 

(I'll be mentioning what's what, but this isn't a sponsored post.)

This is the little alcove leading to our master bathroom from our bedroom. We uncovered and refinished the original 104 year-old Douglas Fir floors in both rooms. All the walls were painted with Benjamin Moore's White Dove in eggshell, and the woodwork is the same color in semi-gloss.

 

  Our bathroom is tiny, measuring just 5-1/2' x 11', and we kept the same plumbing footprint as the old bathroom.

We added a new and much needed linen cabinet where there is an unusually thick wall. Here in front of this cabinet is our little dressing area.

 

We chose simple but heavy polished chrome knobs from Schaub.

 

A new electrical outlet inside the linen closet conveniently recharges small appliances out of sight.

 

We added another smaller cabinet over the toilet for toiletries.

The new Memoirs toilet by Kohler suits our old home well. We chose the taller version, and for anyone over munchkin size we highly recommend a taller toilet.

 

We told our contractor we wanted a new walk-in shower big enough to dance in, and we got it! We love the way the frameless glass enclosure seems to disappear, making our bathroom appear larger. The new casement window is fiberglass, and the tile installer wrapped and sealed it carefully so it won't leak.

 

Our shower controls are Weymouth by Moen, and the handheld shower head is the Adler, also by Moen. We were able to play with the shower heads at our plumbing supply showroom to make sure we got the water pressure we wanted. All our fixtures are polished chrome.

  

I love the white porcelain inserts. 

 

We meticulously designed every feature of our new shower. We chose shiny white subway tile with light gray grout for the walls, with an accent line of gray tile. The plumbing supplier recommended having a second hook for the handheld shower near the quartz-topped bench, and we've used it a lot.

The shower floor is hexagon-shaped marble tiles with darker gray grout. We had the marble sealed and upgraded all the grout to one that resists mold and fading.
 

 

The tile border around the shampoo niche matches the border around the window.

A pony wall separates the shower and vanity and was capped with the same quartz as the counter and shower bench. This little wall goes all the way through the floor and was anchored from the crawl space below to support the weight of the glass door that's hinged off it. The 32" mirror frame over the vanity was built on the wall and then the glass was cut to fit inside it.

 

We love how far the Moen Weymouth faucet reaches over the sink, making it easy to fit our hands under it. And we love our Kohler Ladena rectangular sink, too. When we wash our faces, the water stays in the sink now instead of splashing on the counter.

 

The faucet handles have the same porcelain inserts as the shower fixtures, and I thought these Pottery Barn accessories almost looked made to match. In this picture you can see a little more of the color variation and depth of the pietre gray quartz from India. I went back and forth between marble and quartz, and in the end I liked the spa-like look and warmth of the quartz in our all white bathroom. 

 

I've been looking for a tall bright pink orchid in a pretty white pot for this corner, but I haven't found one yet. So I tucked these flowers into our toothbrush holder to spare you from seeing our toothbrushes! 

 

We wanted our new vanity to last a long time, just like our old vanity did. This one is actually made up of three separate cabinets attached together and has dovetailed drawers with really sturdy slides and hinges. All the new cabinets in our bathroom have soft close doors and drawers, and I'm totally spoiled by them now! We were able to fit in a 48" long vanity with three drawers for each of us. Yay! And we love the taller 35" counter height, too.

   

 

Here's a close up of the original Douglas Fir floors we had refinished. We love the one hundred year old patina and imperfections. Wood floors aren't the most practical choice for a bathroom, but we're fairly careful and don't slop a lot of water around. We'd never do this with kids! We held our breath when we took our first few showers because we didn't want to caulk our shower glass. (We were told the clear caulk would turn cloudy after a few years.) Luckily, our shower is huge and the glass is tight enough without caulk and doesn't leak at all, so we're now confident the wood floor will work out fine for us here. If we do ever need to replace it, though, we'll match the hexagon marble tile from the shower floor. The washable rug adds just the right amount of happy color for us and is from Target.

Our polished chrome light fixture is from our local Builder's Lighting. One of the reasons we chose it is because it holds three 100 watt bulbs, and we like a light bright bathroom. We matched the new molding above the mirror and the new cabinets with the old molding above the door.

   

We love the old five panel doors and bronze doornobs in our home. We added the brass lock from Restoration Hardware when we first moved here twenty-five years ago. I can never figure out how people can have bathrooms without locks on the doors - they're braver than I am!

       

We ordered our heavy polished chrome towel hooks from our local Builder's Lighting. We like the informal look of these hooks, and they allow us to hang more towels in our limited space than towel bars would.

 

We copied the wainscoting on the bathroom walls from the original wainscoting in our dining room. I'm still thinking about what to hang above the towels, but for now we're enjoying the clean spare look of our newly painted white walls.

So there you have it, our new little bathroom in all its splendor. Our aim was to design a timeless master bathroom that will work for our old cottage for another one hundred years. We're really happy with how it turned out, and I wish I could convey the joy we feel each time we walk into our shiny new bathroom. 

I'm so glad you stopped by today for the big reveal. I hope you'll come again when I unveil the rest of our new master bedroom, too. 

Have a great week!

{Thank you to Jed Dilworth Construction for making our dreams come true!}
   

Please join me this week at these lovely parties!

French Country Cottage 
The Charm Of Home 
From My Front Porch To Yours 

A Remodel Update and New Neutral Decor

I'm super happy to tell you that our master suite remodel was finished last week! 

Yay!

You can't believe how good it feels to have our house back to ourselves after eleven long weeks of sharing it with a constant parade of subcontractors. It feels SO Good! Our new master bedroom and bathroom are so different now, moving back into them was almost like moving into a different house. I'll share the whole remodel story and all the details soon, but for now here's a quick before and after look.

Before

Do you remember this before picture of the hunter green faux marble Formica counter in the master bathroom?

After

Here's the new shaker style cabinet and gray quartz counter. What a difference, right? (Wait till I share the new shower with you next week. It'll blow your mind!)

Before

 Here's a refresher picture of our old ruby red and hunter green bedroom. Yikes! 

After

 And here's our new soothing neutral colored bedroom. Honestly, I'm in heaven every time I walk into this room, I love it so much! I have lots more to do in this room, and I'll be sharing it all with you as each project is finished. (Later this week I'll be sharing my DIY bedside lamp makeover.) 

Are you as bowled over by the difference in these two rooms as we are? It is so much fun to live in them, and we feel so lucky. It was worth every minute of living through the stress and saga of a remodel to have these perfect rooms, and I pinch myself each time I see them again. (Which I do about every five minutes because I just can't get enough of them!)

During the remodel I was busy redecorating our entry way and living room to be more in line with the new neutral color scheme and style of the kitchen we had redone last fall and with the rest of the house. Out with the bright jewel-toned traditional decor we used to have, and in with the new neutral-colored farmhouse theme. I had to do it all in my head and online because I didn't actually have access to the living room and entry area during the entire remodel. My studio was filling up with things I'd purchased and made, and I was pretty nervous to see if it would all work out. There were moments I really questioned just what the heck I was doing. 

Over the past couple of days I was able to put things in order, though, and I'm excited to share with you what I've done so far. I still have a lot to do, but I'm relieved to say I like the direction in which it's going. I've never tackled such a completely new and different decorating theme before, and I'm finding it to be quite a fun and interesting challenge.

Here's the entry way, which is actually just one side of our long living room that we've separated with this white homemade cupboard we placed behind the sofa. Lots of needed storage is here next to the dining room for linens, crystal, silver, and china. I considered a cushioned bench in the corner with baskets below and coat hooks above to define this area as the entry, but having the antique dresser there is just a more practical use of our limited space for us.

  

This is the part of the living room behind that white cupboard in the last picture. 

Our comfy new neutral sofa! 

(I need to make new pillows. Summer pillows, fall pillows, Christmas pillows...  I can't wait!)

The dining room and kitchen. 

I feel like all the rooms are finally starting to flow well and speak to each other properly, and this is what I hope they're saying: "I'm a one hundred and four year-old house, and I'm proud to show it!"

Thank you so much for stopping in today to see what's going on around here. I hope you'll stop back again later because I'll be sharing the details of our remodel and lots more pictures of all these rooms. I also have tons of fun DIY projects planned for all of our new spaces.

Have a great day, and see you again soon!

  I hope you'll join me this week at these wonderful parties!

The Scoop 
 Cozy Little House
Between Naps On The Porch
Mod Vintage Life
Elizabeth & Co.  
Homework 
Our Home Away From Home
Savvy Southern Style
The Charm of Home
From My Front Porch To Yours 
Shabby Art Boutique 
 

 

Master Bedroom Remodel (Before and Progress)

Our master suite remodel is moving right along. Today, I thought I'd share our "before" bedroom and a bit of progress in this room.

As you can see, our master bedroom had deep red walls with hunter green carpet. 

We were going for the cozy cocoon look, and this was one of my favorite rooms for years. The door with the mirror on it leads to a very small walk-in closet.

 

 Hey, these colors really were "in" once upon a time! Really! Very popular!

Tucker is guarding the little hallway that leads to the master bathroom. 

 

My favorite things in this room are the wide moldings, the high ceiling, and the picture rail. 

My least favorite things are the small size, about twelve feet square, and the lack of natural light from the one small window. But it is very cozy.

We bolted this great old five panel door to the wall for a headboard years ago, well before the days of DIY blogs with terrific illustrated tutorials for making proper headboards. 

 

Out went the old headboard along with these inexpensive old brass bedside lamps that tilted off-kilter whenever we extended them for bedtime reading.

 

 And out, out, out went the old hunter green carpet!

Beneath the carpet was this very old linoleum pattern. At one time, linoleum was the "in" thing in floor coverings (just like hunter green carpet!) 

 

 Past owners of our house must have really fallen in love with the stuff because so far we've uncovered it in the kitchen, in the formal dining room, and now here in the master bedroom; three very different vibrant patterns in each room. Isn't this wild?

Everything came to a halt as a small piece of the linoleum was sent to a lab for asbestos testing. Had it contained asbestos, we would have just covered it up with new carpet rather than pay for expensive required containment and removal. Not only did we luck out when no asbestos was found, but the linoleum had never even been glued down to the floor. So there was no awful glue and felt backing to scrape off, just a few nails holding it down around the edges. It came off in minutes!

  

And luck stayed with us as the last of the linoleum was pulled up and we found the original fir floors in great shape for refinishing. I can tell you, we did a happy dance on these floors!

Only a few small spots needed repairs.  Here you can see the original subfloor under the nice thick Douglas fir boards. 

 

The floor refinishers put a few test patches of stain on the newly sanded floor for us today, and this Special Walnut is the one we chose. The men thought we'd be disappointed with the deep nicks and discolorations of 100 years gone by on our floor, and we said, "Oh no! That's our favorite part and what we like best!" I quickly snapped this blurry phone photo of the square they'd sanded and stained right before we cleared out so they can finish their work. The house will have to stay closed up tight for a couple of days while they work their magic, so we'll be staying in a nearby hotel. 

Tucker just loves hotels!

Thank you for stopping in to see what's going on with our master suite remodel today. I won't be showing anymore progress photos because it's so much more fun to see a big reveal at the end of a remodel, isn't it?  

I promise you'll be the first to know when it's all done!

 {Note: Click here to see our finished master bedroom.}

Come and share the fun with me at

Elizabeth & Co. 

Building a New Shower in the Master Bathroom

Today is the very best day of our master suite remodel so far!

The new shower has been built in our master bathroom, and today the tile is being installed. I thought I'd faint dead away from happiness when I took a sneak peek just now and saw that it's all looking exactly as I imagined it would.

I thought you might like to see a sneak peek, too, and also see what building a new shower in the master bathroom has involved. 

Here's a look back at the old claw foot tub that was getting to be a bit of a challenge to climb in and out of. We were sad to see it go, but not sad enough to break our necks over it.

 

The old wood double hung window went next.

 

A knee wall was built with support added under the floor to make it sturdy enough to hold the weight of a thick glass panel above and a glass shower door on the side. A large shampoo niche was framed out, too. 

 

New plumbing and a new waterproof fiberglass window (the only one approved by the very picky North End Historic District, by the way) were installed next, followed by new mold resistant drywall.

 

Taping the drywall joints and then many layers of mud applied to smooth out the walls took quite a few days to dry. Our contractor said this stage is the one that seems to drag by for homeowners, but we were thrilled by the progress.

 

When everything was good and dry, the cement shower pan was poured, the bench behind the knee wall was built, then everything was lined with a waterproof material. 

 

And here is your sneak peek of our tile installer hard at work today. During the next day or two he'll be installing the marble tiles on the shower floor, and then he'll grout everything. 

And that's how our shower was built in our master bathroom. It's quite an undertaking!

On the schedule after the tile is finished are:

1. repairing the wood floors

2. installing the vanity and cabinets

3. finish carpentry and wainscoting

4. painting

5. installing the quartz countertops

6. refinishing the wood floors

7. installing fixtures, hardware, and glass

You can see there's still a lot to be done, and we're hoping our entire master suite remodel will be completed by the 4th of July.  

Next time, I'll show you what's been happening in the bedroom.

Have a great day!