How We Made Our Main Floor Bath a Jewel! Edmonton's Flufftastic Fairy Tells All...
We took possession of our home in March of 2000. It's a lovely home built in the '40s with cove and plasterwork ceilings, cross cut oak hardwood floors and a lovely large lot!
It was a mess when we bought it, even our agent had reservations about us buying it, (crayon on all the walls, a wall paper border in every room [not the same one and not the same heights] nasty stained carpet in the living room and hallway, all kinds of things) but I knew what I could do with it!
The first day we took possession I ripped out the living room and hallway carpeting to expose the beautiful hardwood underneath and scheduled to have it refinished. (Dave was a bit surprised to come to his 'brand new' house from work and find a mountain of carpet that needed to get outta there and the carpet tacking removed!)
Then I went downstairs to rip out the metal cubicle, stand alone, shower that just sat over the drain and every time someone took a shower water ran to the floor drain located by the washer and dryer. While doing that I noticed the ceiling tiles in the bathroom next to it (an actual room with a door) were all stained. So I ripped them out too and found that the joists were wet. WTH?!?
I call my dad and he says the toilet seal in the main floor bathroom must be worn out and he came over to replace it. Doncha love dads!?!
The problem was the plywood sub-floor had also gotten wet and, because in the 40's they used nails instead of screws, the floor squeaked. And squeaked. And Squeaked ! It would squeak if you breathed in there, forget about walking around or drying yourself after a bath. That sound drove me crazy! But we knew we'd have to gut the bathroom to fix it and we couldn't afford it.
So we listened to that squeak for almost 10 years. Then came the decision to get new triple pane windows and what better time to gut the bathroom so the installers could not only put a new window in, but a bigger one!
So the demo began!
Dave and I both worked like mad getting everything out of there! We found some cool stuff too!
We got a plumber to replace the stack and plumbing, replaced the old copper with PEX, and replaced the stained and lifted sub-floor with new plywood and sheeted over that with another layer of 5/8 ply so we could tile.
New insulation and we were ready for the window!
This is the only bathroom on the main floor, and the floor space is 5x5 with the bath tub adding some extra at one end, so I needed to get some storage in there somehow. So I bought a kitchen upper cabinet and inserted in between 3 studs, making sure to frame around it to keep the structural integrity of the wall. The cabinet didn't lose any of it's depth, but it doesn't stick out so far into the room.
I also framed a niche above that for some glass shelves.
Green board for the walls and it's starting to look like a room again!
We bought a drop in tub, so I could tile the enclosure and a vanity that was on sale at the local hardware store! Woo hoo! That bathtub sat in our dining room, then the living room, then the dining room again. The cats got very confused!
Then the windows finally came! How that went is a whole other post!
So we built a frame for the tub to drop into and we were off! Kerdi membrane for the walls to waterproof!
Heated floor and Ditra matting so we could install the marble tile I had found on sale at a local tile place Woo Hoo! I also found some shaved rock tiles so I added them to the floor.
I had found this beautiful Kraus vessel sink with waterfall faucet online and it was even more beautiful when we saw it in person! The tile place, Flooring Factory Outlet, had 3x4 marble tiles, so we bought one to use as the vanity top and had holes hydro-drilled to fit the sink and faucet.
The wall tiles had two different tones so I made a pattern with them.
A few years before our neighbour, who was in construction, came over and told us he had some scrap marble he was getting rid of, did we want it? Heck yeah! There were 15 slabs, 2 x 4, some wider, some longer, but I knew I could do something cool with it, so we rented a big tile saw and I made window & door frames as well as base board and a mid wall border with it.
The niche I made a bit of a permanent art display using marble scraps for inserted glass shelves.
I did all the tile, but Dave did all the grouting.
Then to draw the eye up and make the room feel taller, crown moulding and a ceiling the same colour.
To add a little glamour a shallow chandelier and a big mirror. Plus more shelving above the toilet from IKEA.
I realize the bathroom is a bit unique and not everyone might like it, but we love it, and so far have not had any negative feed back from our guests. In fact just the opposite...
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