If you’ve stumbled here from the ORC, Hello! I’m Annie, and this is the story of my life in a fixer-upper. I live in a 1920’s Craftsman in Nashville with my husband, our son, two cats and two dogs. After living through a renovation as a teen, I once maintained I would never put my family through that when I became an adult… and the rest is history. Contractors in our area were too expensive, so we’re taking the long way around and doing it ourselves. We initially gutted this bathroom way back in April 2019. Catch up on last week’s post here.
This week, my goal was to, at minimum, start laying tile on the back wall of the shower. In a dramatic turn of events – I actually completed this! No small thanks to the in-laws for taking our toddler for a full 24 hours over the weekend.
Laying penny tile seems like it would be simple, right? In my head it seemed simpler than trying to do a pattern with larger tiles or even laying individual subway tiles. It’s a bunch of small tiles, but they’re in 11’x11′ sheets so how hard could it be? Reality? It’s really hard to get those sheets lined up in a way so as to not show the seams between sheets. I read about it. I watched some videos, I thought I knew what I was doing and it still felt like I was reinventing the wheel. My technique improved throughout this project, but I have immense respect for professional tilers because my finished project is far from perfect. Tiling really is an art.
I did learn some lessons from tiling the floor a few weeks ago. I learned that I need to have a bucket with clean water in it and a few rags to keep excess mortar off of my hands and thus off of the front of the tiles. I learned that I should go back once the mortar has hardened some but not all the way and make sure I clean up any excess mortar between the tiles so I’m not stuck chipping away at mortar for what seems like years before I can grout.
It’s far from perfect but its still okay. It is done. It is tile and it is on the wall. It is not flawless, but it is progress toward being able to use that shower someday. And, hopefully, grout will camouflage the imperfections well.
Speaking of grout, we made a decision on grout color and I picked it up from Floor and Decor on Wednesday! We went with Mapei Flexcolor CQ Premixed Grout in Alabaster. Is this much more expensive than powdered grout? Yes. However – for me, it makes the task of grouting so much less involved. Trying to fit in projects in between working and parenting means that if a task requires a lot of prep, I often can’t even think about starting it until I have a big block of time… which may or may not ever come. Premixed grout allows me to say “hey! Looks like I have an hour, lets do some grout!” I had a great experience using this product on our floors, so I’m hoping it will be the same for the shower walls.
Alabaster Mapei Grout sample next to champagne bronze shower fixture, white penny tiles and marble for the niche.
Before I’m ready to grout I still need to finish cutting and installing the marble for the niche surround and seal the marble. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish grouting by the end of the weekend.
Head over to Instagram for real time updates of my progress and, hopefully, a satisfying grout time-lapse video sometime in the next few days. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the #oneroomchallenge posts and stories to keep up with everyone else participating!
Make sure to keep up with the rest of the One Room Challenge Guest participants via their blogs and on instagram. Find them here .
I have joined the Fall 2020 One Room Challenge as a guest participant, and the room I am working on is … the very same bathroom I worked on for the Spring 2020 One Room Challenge! Keep up with all of the other participants this round here: One Room Challenge Blog
If you’ve stumbled here from the ORC, Hello! I’m Annie, and this is the story of my life in a fixer-upper. I live in a 1920’s Craftsman in Nashville with my husband, our son, two cats and two dogs. After living through a renovation as a teen, I once maintained I would never put my family through that when I became an adult… and the rest is history. Contractors in our area were too expensive, so we’re taking the long way around and doing it ourselves. We initially gutted this bathroom way back in April 2019.
To put into proper perspective how long ago that is, when we first took a sledgehammer to our old bathroom, Joe Biden had not yet announced he was running for president in a campaign that feels like it’s been going on for approximately 10 years.
Completing a massive DIY Renovation while also working full time and parenting and losing access to childcare because of a pandemic takes a very long time. If you missed it, check out this post for the 22 steps that you too can take to gut renovate your bathroom in just 18 short months. I really enjoyed the community I found during the Spring ORC and the structure it gave me to make a ton of progress on our bathroom. Here is a little recap of where we came from and a rundown of what I hope to accomplish in the next 6 weeks.
As a reminder, the end of the Spring ORC got us here:
Rough in plumbing completed, electrical run, drywall and cement board installed, one coat of primer on the walls
Since then, I have completed the floor tile which was a – whole thing – and started to tile the shower.
Floor tile laid and grouted. I used 2 inch white hex tile from Floor and Decor and Gray Mapei pre-mixed grout
Red Guard waterproofing membrane on the shower walls
White penny tile up on one wall of the shower
In the next 8 weeks, I hope to finish this room, which involves:
1. Finishing tiling the shower 2. Grouting the shower 3. Installing shower fixtures 4. Painting the walls 5. Installing the toilet 6. Finishing plumbing and installing the vanity and sinks/faucets 7. Finding and installing a door 8. Installing window, door and floor trim 9. Accessorizing
It is still a HUGE amount of work, but it really does feel like we are in the home stretch! (Don’t ask how many times I have declared that we are in the home stretch only to later realize that we are not.) I really could not have gotten half as far without my internet friends cheering me on and supporting me. So if you are reading this right now, thank you.
Inspiration
Our house is a craftsman although most of the craftsman character has been removed over the years. The space where this bathroom sits I believe was once the kitchen in the house. Sometime in the 80s, the kitchen was moved to the other side of the house and a horrible giant tub was installed. Doing the demo on that tub was so cathartic. It did not drain properly so we never used it in the first 4 years we lived in the house.
My goal is to bring this house back to it’s former glory and to put design elements back in that reference that craftsman style. That’s why I chose simple white hex and penny tile. Originally, I had envisioned subway tile, but, next to the exposed brick it just didn’t feel right.
Craftsman style to me means using wood tones, natural stone, simple lines, classic shapes and the result is a room that is very function forward but also feels warm and inviting. Here is a picture that isn’t what this room will look like, but I think what it will hopefully feel like when it’s all finished.
This bathroom from Em Henderson’s blog is definitely a bit more lux than ours will be with that marble tub, but many of the same elements are there: clean lines, hex tile, natural stone, wood grain, mixed metals and a beautiful runner. The trim around that window is similar to what I hope to do with our window as well.
Another inspiration to this room is Stephen and David’s Spring ORC bathroom (although, I’m pretty sure I started my bathroom first…) Their use of wood tones, marble stone and mixed metals is truly perfection. Their ability to make a room feel both modern and classic all at the same time is amazing. Even though they covered their brick back up, it’s still one of my favorite bathrooms on the internet. If you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out here: The Suite.
Here is a peek at what we will be installing over the next few weeks.
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There are still many details that I have yet to work out – such as what color grout we’re doing in the shower and what the baseboard and window trim will look like – but I do have a few items I have been collecting over the last several months just waiting to get installed when the room is ready for them.
Since this project has taken so long, the vision of what we are going to do has evolved over time – and as our desires came in contact with reality (read: budget). I even toyed with the idea of building my own vanity for a while. A few weeks ago, this vanity came up on a Home Depot Deal of the Day. It isn’t exactly the style I had originally envisioned, but it has a white (cultured marble) top, two under-mount sinks, soft close drawers, black hardware and the right wood tone. Honestly, once it arrived, I am very happy with this purchase and I am thrilled with the price. Home Depot lists this for $1799 but we got it on sale (with free shipping!) for just under $1200.
I will say, check out my saved stories on Instagram under “vanity saga” for a bit about how this was delivered. Let’s just say I was not impressed. However, once it was un-boxed and we got it in the house – I’m very pleased with the vanity itself!
Home Decorators Collection Aiken 60” Vanity
One benefit to taking a super long time to complete a renovation is that you have time to search for good deals and collect your items slowly as you find them. One of the things I am most proud of finding for a great deal are the shower fixtures. I scoured eBay for months to collect all of the pieces we would need and ultimately paid around $400 for what we needed, saving about $1,200 compared to what it retails for. I think champagne bronze looks so luxurious and I can’t get over that we will have these fixtures in our shower.
My eBay skills did not pay off when looking for sink faucets. I came up empty handed despite months of searching for the Delta Trinsic wide spread sink faucets in matte black. When we ordered the vanity, I started searching for something with a similar look and came across this faucet on Amazon. I am not familiar with the brand Mr. Faucet [“Please, call me Jim; Mr. Faucet is my father”], but when these arrived, I was immediately impressed with the quality. Time will tell if this was a good purchase, but the price was definitely right: $80 for Mr. Faucet vs. $300 for the Delta one.
MR. FAUCET Bathroom Sink Lavatory Faucet 3 hole Deck Mount Two-Handle, Matte Black
When I thought I might actually finish this project in the spring ORC, I bought a pair of lights from West Elm that I am really excited to finally get up on the wall. I love the milk glass and how it softens the light. I am a little bit nervous that the antique brass will clash with the other metals in the room, but talk to me in a few weeks about that.
West Elm Staggered Glass Short Sconce, Antique Brass/Milk, Set of 2
We haven’t purchased our shower doors yet, but we designed this whole bathroom on the ability to use a standard size 48” x 36” shower pan that had an enclosure available. This has probably saved us the most amount of money in this whole process as we would have needed to hire out the shower if we hadn’t done this and the price of a custom-everything shower adds up quick. I did pick this out before finding the champagne bronze fixtures, so I may try to use Alex from Old Town Home’s trick to use Gun Blue to darken the stainless steel metal on this enclosure. I know it’s possible on screws, but it seems like it might be tricky with the amount of metal on these doors. We’ll see!
As you can see, we have a lot of items ready to go, but we still need to pick out and purchase a toilet, toilet paper holder, towel hooks or a bar and mirrors. Plus probably a mat to go outside the shower and a rug of some kind in front of the sink. And maybe some plants. And art. And, and, and…
Stick around and see if 6 weeks is finally the amount of time left on the bathroom renovation saga or if I will still be working on this room at Christmas. Sign up to get email alerts about new blog posts – every week during the ORC!
Real time updates on Instagram on the grid and in stories (stories if you’re a time-lapse junkie). Instagram is the best way to keep up with this bathroom renovation as well as the 15 other projects we have going on at any given time.
Make sure to keep up with the rest of the One Room Challenge Guest participants via their blogs and on instagram. Find them here .
Step 1: Contact contractors to see how much they would charge you to renovate two bathrooms. Find out that they all want at least $50,000 and for you to move your family and your pets out for at least 16 weeks.
Step 2: Cry about how $50,000 is approximately $50,000 more than you’d budgeted for. Since without a renovation you will not have a working bathtub, begin mentally preparing for your one-year-old to be the smelly kid at daycare.
Step 3: Convince yourself that you could renovate one bathroom yourself in 4-6 months, then the other bathroom in another 4-6 months. Even if each bathroom runs long, it couldn’t take more than a year total, could it? (Narrator: “It could.”)
Step 4: Blithely cross the point of no return by demo-ing the bathroom on a whim.
Step 5: Find out that the floor joists were not even attached to the outside wall of your house.
Ceremonial first strike
Ceremonial first strike
This giant tub never worked properly
U.G.L.Y you ugly
let’s see whats in these walls
uh.oh…
Step 6: Throw your time-line out the window
Step 7: Live without a sub-floor for a very long time and get weirdly accustomed to it.
Step 8: Spend two days wondering why there’s an ever-growing swarm of flies in your kitchen. Discover the opossum carcass in your exposed crawlspace. Remove the opossum with a shovel. Make a blood oath with your partner to never speak of it again.
Step 9: Learn how to do a lot of new things: plumbing, electrical, framing
Sistered joists, all level
Pex water line manifold
duct work
Step 10: Forgive yourself for making mistakes, try again.
Step 11: Do nothing related to the renovation for weeks on end because life has other plans
Trip to see family in South Carolina and a pit stop at our alma mater
Step 12: Find that it was surprisingly easy to get used to having your only sink and only toilet in separate rooms.
Step 13: Forget what it’s like to have people over to your house because its always a disaster – who has time to put the laundry away AND run the water lines? (and also your toilet is just behind a curtain and you can’t figure out how to have guests over if they have to use it)
Step 14: Crowdsource your emotional support for this project from strangers on Instagram.
Step 15: Continue to bathe your now two-year-old in the kitchen sink.
Step 16: Remind yourself that everything is fine. You’ll finish eventually!
Step 17: Freak out because what if you don’t finish eventually?
Step 18: Join the Spring ORC thinking it will help you finish. Make lots of progress, but do not ultimately come close to finishing.
Step 20: Attempt to tile the floor. Make mistakes, fix them painstakingly over a period of 7 weeks.
learn about glazing numbers and making sure all of your tiles come from the same batch
Step 21: Listen to Hamilton approximately 2700 times.
Step 22: Join the Fall ORC thinking it will help you finish.
See? It’s so simple. Just follow these 22 steps and you too can gut renovate your own bathroom 18 short months!
In all seriousness, I am truly looking forward to the structure that the ORC gives me. I accomplished more in the last 8 weeks of that challenge than I had in the few months prior. The community that it helps to build is also a HUGE perk. Some of my best internet buds are participating and I can’t wait to follow along with them and meet some new friends too.
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You can find real time updates @lifeinafixer on Instagram.
Today is the official last day of the Spring 2020 One Room Challenge. Most reveals were posted on June 24th, but many – now including mine – have been trickling in since then. Don’t get too excited, the bathroom is not finished. But a lot of progress has been made in the last 2 months. Let’s remember what the room looked like on May 7th:
It still very much looked like a construction site. Walls were framed, electrical was mostly complete, plumbing was mostly complete, insulation was partially installed, some drywall was up. In the 2 months since my dad left after coming to help us finish framing and install our new window, the room had become a dumping ground for all of the junk we didn’t want to deal with. We were, after all, figuring out how to live in a global pandemic with a toddler and work from home during quarantine.
So, knowing that I had a mountain of work left on the bathroom, I entered the One Room Challenge as a guest participant. What did I have to lose? Nothing. (Except the feeling of defeat watching everyone’s beautiful room reveals knowing that I was probably still months away… )
Prior to starting the ORC in May of 2020, we already been working on this project for quite some time. We started with demolition of the old bathroom in April 2019. As with most renovations, we ended up with more than we bargained for and needed to completely rip up the sub-floor, reinforce and level all of the floor joists, run a new ground wire to prepare for new electrical, run all new water lines and drain lines, remove a window, add a window, frame and cut a new door opening… you get the picture. But we just are here to talk about the last 8 weeks.
Week 1:
The first step was cleaning up the space and getting organized. That’s honestly all we did the first week. One thing I have learned during this long renovation is to always put everything on the to-do list. The second most important thing is to keep my workspace as tidy and organized as possible. It makes it easier to jump in and do a bit of work when I have a moment at nap time or in the evenings.
Week 2 and 3:
Plumbing. We had run the water and drain lines for the double vanity months ago – before the subfloor was installed. I’m going to be honest, I kind of forgot how much more plumbing we needed to do when the ORC started. This error probably contributed to the hubris I had when I started that there was any chance I would finish in the time period. With vanity plumbing there are two main options: plumbing coming up from the floor or out of the wall. The wall option is a bit more work on the front end, but I think it will give us an easier time later when we tile since we won’t have to tile around water and drain lines in the floor. It will also make it more possible to switch out the vanity sometime in the future if someone wanted to.
Finishing the shower plumbing happened somewhere in here as well. (What is time anymore, anyway? I feel like this whole year is Jeremy Bearimy). There’s a whole post about theshower plumbing if you want all the details.
Week 4:
Drywall installation: this is where I started to feel like progress was moving quickly. Drywall up on the walls made such a HUGE difference in how the room felt.
Drywall taping and mudding: this is where I started to feel like this project would drag on forever.
Unlike many people, I actually enjoy the process of taping and mudding drywall seams. There is something therapeutic about it. I like to have a project that I can throw some headphones in and knock out a bit of in the evenings – and mudding is definitely one of those things. I learned a lot in the process and I plan to write something more detailed with all of my drywall mud tips in the future. There are some steps that can be taken to minimize the need for lots of sanding, which is always everyone’s drywall finishing complaint.
Week 5:
Week 5 we went dark. The heaviness that our country is dealing with warranted some time for quiet self reflection. In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter. Love is Love. Science is Real. Women’s Rights are Human Rights. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
I have been so proud to be part of the old house community in this moment. So many accounts are speaking out and using their voice and platform to amplify Black voices and educate others on matters of racial injustice. I used to compartmentalize my politics and my renovation story, but through these last few weeks it has become increasingly clear that is not an option. It’s all connected. We’re all connected. It’s important to be vocal about the things I think are right.
Week 6:
Primer. Drywall primer is an important step of any new drywall installation. Unlike paint, drywall primer will soak into the drywall and seal it and the mud (which is water soluble). Getting that primer up on the walls accomplished two things:
1. It stopped feeling like a construction zone and started feeling more like a real room, and
2. Brought out the imperfections I needed to fix in some of my seams – so, more mud was in my future.
Week 7:
Cement Board. I had never installed cement board before this project. I figured, how hard could it be? Seems like it would just be heavier drywall. Boy was I wrong. Cement board is a pain. It’s difficult to cut; I had to go buy new tools (but who doesn’t love an excuse to get new tools!); and kneeling on it really hurt my knees (I have since invested in some knee pads). The tools I needed to acquire were: a carbide grit hole saw set, a jigsaw (how I didn’t already have this, I’m not sure) and some heavy duty metal cutting blades for the jigsaw.
After some trial and error, the cement board went up in the shower and I was able to tape the seams and cover them with mortar.
One issue we uncovered during cement board installation was that, since the outside wall of the house is bowed, there was more than a quarter inch difference between the cement board and the drywall in some places. I was very distressed by this initially, but, as we’ll see – it turned out just fine!
Week 8-9:
The last two weeks have felt slow because I didn’t make any dramatic visual changes to the room. I needed to work on fixing the issues with my original drywall seam finishing job. There was one seam where you could see a lump all the way down the top of the seam. Primer can help bring those imperfections out and it actually makes them easier to fix because the mud underneath is sealed in and you can’t make it worse. I also needed to level out the seam between the cement board and the drywall that I mentioned earlier. It took several days because I only did one coat per day, but I think it turned out really well. In addition, I wasn’t happy with the size of the gap between the drywall and the exposed chimney, so I used mesh tape to get a little closer – which meant I needed to mud that as well.
There were a few other spots here and there that needed some touch-up with the joint compound (mud). Once I finished that, it was time for another coat of primer on the walls. I also worked on sanding a spot on the subfloor that was a bit unlevel.
This weekend I have been working on getting cement board down on the floor in preparation for tile. This time, I have some better tools that are really making the process easier than when we did the shower. I have knee pads, which is making it far less painful to kneel on the cement board while cutting it or while screwing it to the floor. I upgraded my cordless drill from my trusty 10-year-old Ryobi to a DeWalt a few weeks ago and it has been SO much easier to use. Using the carbide grit hole saw went twice as fast with my new drill, and fastening the cement board required way less force. I can’t believe that I waited so long. Seriously, thinking about how much faster the drywall would have gone up with this drill almost makes me want to cry! I also got better blades for my jigsaw – blades for cutting thick metal seem to be working the best, but they don’t last long. I did not get enough of them and had to go back to the store for more.
The Reveal:
My reveal is a transformation from a construction site to a room with walls, ceiling and a floor and plumbing and electrical ready for installation of all the pretty features. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a massive amount of progress in just 8 weeks.
Don’t forget, I still have a full time job and a toddler at home! Sometimes I need to remind myself of that because it seems that others are able to get things done at a much faster pace. It’s important to remember that everyone has different circumstances and I can only do what I can do.
I’m not giving myself a timeline for finishing the room, but here is the list of things we still have to do (probably close to the order I’ll do them in):
Tile floor
Grout floor
Apply Red Guard water-proofing to the shower
Tile shower
Grout floor
Prime (again, I know) and paint ceiling and walls (x 2 coats)
Install shower plumbing fixtures
Install toilet
Decide on a vanity and sink fixtures
Install vanity and sink fixtures
Install vanity lighting
Install door
Figure out what we’re doing for trim… and do that.
So, the ORC challenge is over – but, life and renovations goes on! I’ll keep plugging away at this bathroom until it’s done. And then… we’ll demo the hall bath and start the whole process over again…
But what if the real One Room Challenge was the friends we made along the way?
Right away, the camaraderie that I felt as part of the ORC was wonderful. I met a bunch of great people who were also working on bathrooms like Sachi Lord and Jenna Beach. I became closer with insta-friends I already knew who were participating like Mary from @homebuggie. The online DIY/old house/renovation community is truly a special place that I am so grateful to be a part of, especially now when we are all isolated from our in-real-life friends.
It’s interesting to see the designers renovating their rooms alongside the “regular” folk. Mostly, it’s inspiring to see what they are creating. (Sometimes it’s a little discouraging, but that is a post for another day.) I am forever grateful to Stephen and David of @renovationhusbands who shouted me out and encouraged me so much along the way. Their bathroom/bedroom/closet renovation is truly a work of art. The detail and precision they bring to their designs is really inspiring. Plus, they’re just delightful human beings!
So, despite not actually finishing my room, I’m glad I joined the One Room Challenge this year. Next time it rolls around, if you’re considering joining but not sure if you’ll finish – what do you have to lose?
Life in a Fixer 