Master bathroom.

In addition to running a half marathon this past Spring, my (our) other labor of love was a master bathroom update. Like my blog post on the subject, this was LONG overdue. There were a few aspects of this bathroom I HATED from the moment we first walked through it in early 2011. To the folks who think the mammoth-sized full wall mirrors with mirrored outlet covers and ugly stage lights are good design choices, I do not understand you. 

Oh, we also had some worn out, dirty linoleum floors which it turned out were not the originals. As our contractor discovered, the original linoleum floors were underneath these and were actually pink. Blech.

Let's take a look back at the listing agent's picture, keeping in mind that this was the best shot. Sorry for the blur and poor quality but I didn't have a digital copy at my disposal. So, this is a picture of an old picture.

And, here we are now.

I breathe a sigh of relief just looking at these pictures. Griff and I but mostly Griff replaced the lights and mirror ourselves. Thank goodness the ginormous mirror was not glued to the wall as it left minimal repair once we took it down.

The catalyst behind our bathroom update was the shower frame. No matter how hard we worked at it, the frame was rusting and there was never ending mildew in the seal between the glass and frame. It is so frustrating to clean something and not have it look clean when you're done.

When we researched seamless shower surrounds, we decided that if we were going to spend $x on the shower surround, we could spend a little more and fix the shower surround plus other stuff we don't like so we can really enjoy the bathroom. 

We kept the bathroom footprint the same but replaced the shower base, tile, fixtures, and surround as well as tub decking and apron, tub fixtures, flooring (this was a big ticket item), lights, mirrors, and baseboards.

A few years ago, I painted the existing oak vanity and have been really happy with the results. We like the size and look of it, now, so didn't feel it necessary to replace the vanity. The vanity top, sinks, and fixtures are on our short list of things left to do. However, after the hail storm in June, we're taking care of exterior repairs first before tackling the vanity top and sinks.

I absolutely LOVE the way the subway tiles in the shower and tub surround turned out. When the tilers were here working and I first came up and saw half of the subway tile in place, it took my breath away. The floors are a marble herringbone and they actually were not my first choice. My first choice was a marble basketweave but there was a mistake in ordering and these came instead. They are Arabescato Carrara Herringbone and they weren't cheap. But, they were and definitely are worth the money.

So, the short version of this story is our shower surround is now clean and rust and mildew free and we are happy. And, just in case you need another reminder -

Before.

After. Ahhh...