Master Bath: Before & After

OK, where are my giant pair of scissors for the ribbon cutting?  I'd like to officially unveil our finished master bathroom.  This one took a little longer--just because once Leland came, things slowed way down.  That, and the fact that our bath tub manufacturer sent us a faulty tub (it sloped and would pool water around the edges).  Luckily, they offered to reinstall a legit tub, but that took about 3 weeks to get everything all squared away.  Seriously, these 2 bathrooms.  My pride and joy, but also sucked the fixer-upper life out of me!  

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  I can remember my mom telling us to do both bathrooms at once so that our house wouldn't be a dusty mess twice--and I seriously didn't want to.  But, I'm so glad we did!  Yay, yay, yay!  Our house feels more complete, more like "ours" and man, our master bath feels like a spa.

 BEFORE

 

Our master bathroom was a little bit more of a stretch than the hall bath.  Simply because we combined the laundry area with the bathroom, and then moved the washer/dryer hook-ups to the basement, and then patched in a wall.  See in this picture?  That is me standing on our front porch, and before you could see right past the kitchen, into the laundy room and then on past to the bathroom.  Not exactly the first impression I'd like visitors to see...

Here is the old laundry area close up.

And on into the pink master bath, with the tiny, claustrophobic shower I thankfully never had to shower in...and a very pregnant me in the mirror.

Another angle, taken from the pink sink vanity...

DURING

Believe it or not, this is a clean picture--we put that shop vac to good use!

New electrical, and then bathroom vanity installed--still walls to patch, tile to be tiled, and tubs/toilets to be put in, walls to be painted, and baseboards to put up.

AFTER
 (For some reason some of these pics read a little yellow and some are fuzzy, but in an effort to just get this post done already, I'm just going with them.  Maybe I'll redo in the future.  Maybe not!)

Between the two bathrooms we kept many things the same--both vanities are the same walnut veneer flat panel w/ Ikea handles.  Both have the carrera marble countertops, both have the white subway tile.

 Our bathroom is now L-shaped, and this shot is taken from the old laundry area, but new toilet area...we chose to put in floating cabinets, which gives it a modern vibe.

 Haven't you always wanted to know what type of lotion I use??  Ha! No, but that lotion is sorta my color inspiration for the bathroom--since it has so much grey already, I'm going to warm things up a bit using those warm neutrals. 

 Love this HUGE sink and sink faucet, both of which I scored for HUGE discounts from the classifieds.  Boo-yeah.   

 This picture is more true in color that the above yellowy ones.  Just saying.  The wall in back of the toilet is the old doorway to the laundry.  And the full-length 3form panel is what used to be a backdoor.  At first I was a little sketch about putting in a panel right next to the toilet.  Rest assured it is completely frosted, and you can barely see shadows from the outside looking in.  The bonus of doing this rather than just bricking in the old backdoor is that it lets in light, and makes the bathroom seem more open.

Tile shot!  This 12 x 24 inch tile I love and found for a super reasonable price ($3/sq ft).  

 And here is our tub.  It's 6 ft long and deeeeeep.  So relaxing, and I'm glad Dave put his foot down to get it (The day we picked it out, I was grumpy and wanted to put in a 5 footer to make things easier).  So worth it. 

OK.  There ya have it.  Still needs some artwork on the wall, but done! 

I'm not going to go on in length about this project.  I think I've said it enough in other posts just how stressful these upgrades were at the time-- but what I'd like to remember and put in writing is just how much Dave devoted to making these bathrooms become a reality.  He was working full-time, going to school, being a husband/friend/dad and overseeing all of this mess--and then getting his hands nitty-gritty.  I'll never forget the day we brought Leland home from the hospital.  Dave came to the hospital with Jude to pick Leland and me up.  And he was just exhausted.  Like, annoyingly exhausted.  Hello, I'm the one who just had a baby!  A huge reason he didn't sleep at the hospital with me was so that he could get more rest.  Well, come to find out he had stayed up all night (alllllll night) painting both bathrooms so that I wouldn't come home to wet paint fumes and all that.  

If that's not love, I don't know what is.
That man, truly, is the sweetest guy.