A Bathroom Renovation! One Room Challenge: Week 1

Alright, so I know that we’re totally crazy. But we’re taking on yet another renovation before this baby arrives (in about as much time). We’re excited to be taking on our one and only bathroom for our first time participating in the One Room Challenge as a guest! If you’re not familiar with the ORC, it’s basically a group challenge to renovate or makeover a room in six weeks- giving an update every week. I’m not sure how well you know me… or how well you do math… but we also have about 6 and a half weeks until our fourth baby is due. So we’re totally on the clock for this one.

Want to see what we have planned?

I’m so darn excited! We’re going classic greys with lots of marble and modern shapes in the sconces and hexagon tiles.

So a bit of background before I get into all the details. If you’ve been following along for a while, you might remember that we’ve been renovating this bathroom in stages. Why? Well… we had planned to just give it a good coat of paint and wait to do the whole thing BUT after moving in for a few months… it was clear our tub was a disaster. It poured water into the basement each use- even after having a plumber in to replace all the plumbing he could reach. We had to tear it out. Here is the total ‘before’ photo of the space… when we moved in 3 and a half years ago. 

A 1960s dream, right? Notice in that photo of the shower, Shane’s shoulder is pretty much level with the shower head.

So we painted everything that was pink to a grey or white and added some new hardware on the vanity. We also swapped out the light for one that wasn’t broken and we replaced the window (along with every other window in the house), trim, baseboards and door (we did this throughout the house before moving in).

Then… because of the leak, a few months later we ripped out the shower/tub because we had to and put in a new tub and tile combo… on a budget. We used leftover kitchen floor tiles for the surround and added a marble hexagon accent strip (leftover kitchen backsplash). We laid down leftover basement floating vinyl flooring to cover the subfloor until we could finish the renovation and added a couple shelves above the toilet. Here’s what the rest of the space looks like right now.

 

It’s a small bathroom… but it’s our only one. Which is one of the challenges with this space! The other challenge is that doing this renovation in stages has left us with a shower we love but we can’t get the main tile anymore. So to ‘match’ we’re limited to the marble hexagons. It’s a good thing that they’re also my favourite tile out there ;)

So what are we planning to do this time around? Here’s the list:

• Remove vanity and medicine cabinet, plumb for two sinks and re-drywall
• Replace built in vanity with footed double vanity
• Replace single light with three sconces
• Paint
• Replace toilet
• Replace floating shelves with *something* custom
• Tile the floor
• Decorate

It’s not that crazy for six weeks… is it? Ha!

Now onto the fun things… all the pieces we’ve chosen! To be prepared for the tight timeline, we’ve already picked pretty much everything for this bathroom. I’m so excited to be partnering with Home Depot Canada and American Standard for this bathroom! The marble hexagon tile in the shower is actually Home Depot tile, so we are planning on carrying that through on the floor with matching grout (Delorian Gray). We are deciding whether to size up the hexagons from 1.5″ to 2″… I’m leaning towards the bigger ones right now- what do you think? Oh! And weigh in… heated floors… yes or no? We don’t plan to stay in this house forever so are trying to decided if that’s a selling feature or more of a ‘nice to have’ feature.

The vanity is a HUGE PIECE. I feel like that is the biggest decision we have made (or will have to make). Since we only have one bathroom (and almost 4 kids), we really wanted to have the two sinks for teeth brushing, hand washing, and everything else but we also wanted to have great storage. We settled on this Avanity Brooks double vanity from Home Depot Canada and I can’t wait for it to arrive next week! I really love that this vanity has a marble counter that plays so nicely with the floors, two sinks (yessss), and drawers instead of cupboards. I am also crazy about the open bottom/feet. I am hoping this will make the space feel so much larger. A couple baskets with toilet paper and maybe some folded towels and it will be great for storage as well as beautiful.

The one thing about this vanity is that it has holes for widespread faucets… which are gorgeous but there aren’t nearly as many to choose from! Most are really traditional in style. We were excited to find these Serin High Arc widespread faucets from American Standard and I’m so in love with the modern feel of them. I am excited to counter the marble and classic greys we have everywhere with some more modern touches.

We’ll be using two mirrors and three sconces for a more modern feel as well. I am in LOVE with these sconces from the Progress Lighting Mod Collection. I’ve ordered them from Home Depot Canada online and am *notsopatiently* waiting for them to arrive. I really love the chrome and the globes. They remind me of our dining room light and I love how they play with the chrome faucets.

The mirrors I had chosen… I loved. BUT they’ve since discontinued! I was heartbroken (look at those curves!), but found some affordable alternatives when I was out shopping last week. They’re simple rectangles with a thin black metal frame. I love that the black metal frame adds some contrast into the space- I’m thinking I’ll add black hooks for towels to carry that through.

The toilet will also be replaced- which I couldn’t be more excited about. It’s actually been broken since we moved in and we knew we would be replacing it so haven’t bothered fixing it. For three and a half years. I’m not only excited to have a completely functional toilet, but the American Standard Cadet one we chose from Home Depot Canada is modern and the lines are so clean. Aaaaand lastly, above the toilet, I am hoping to replace these shelves we put up with the $2 Ikea brackets with something more custom. Like chunky white floating shelves. I’m trying to talk my Dad into helping build those- I’ll let you know how it goes ;)

I’ve also started to think decor and without making this post WAY crazy long… I’m thinking a fun hand lettered sign with hooks to replace the rustic one we have there now, a hanging plant or two (if Shane lets me!), and possibly switching out that shower curtain for something a little more playful and lighthearted.

Sooo… what do you think? Are we totally crazy or just a little bit? I’ll be sharing tons of updates as we get started over on Instagram and you can check out all the other One Room Challenge guest participant rooms over here.