*Grout- as I suspected, you need to buy the grout yourself and it comes in about 100 shades and it's very scary to pick out. JO had to make an emergency 6:30 am grout run to Home Depot (the fact that the Depot opens at 6:00 is pretty convenient.)
*Toilet- we have a small bathroom and wanted to replace the small toilet we had with a toilet the same size. Apparently everyone wants giant toilets nowadays. We ordered one that got delivered during the renovation. On the last day they went to install it and it was broken so we had to scramble to find a new, small toilet in stock. Thankfully we found one at the Depot and our contractor was nice enough to pick it up for us.
*A toothbrush was in the drain- there was some minor drama when, after installing the fixtures in the tub, the contractor went to test things and the bathtub almost overflowed. There was a lot of whisper shouting and I hid in the living room. Come to find out, they found a toothbrush (that did not belong to either of us) wedged pretty far down the drain.
Thankfully these were all pretty minor and somewhat comical when we look back on things. We only incurred an extra $300 worth of expenses and we went under our materials budget so it seems like this will end up being a smashing success.
Here's a recap of the work we had done and the materials we used! I feel like the amount of HGTV I watch really prepared me for the reno process.
First, lets start with the tile. We picked out the mosaic (I love this mosaic so much and on our last shopping trip to pick out tile we found it for $8 instead of $10 which was awesome. Since we used it as a band we didn't need to buy too much of it. Just like I've learned on HGTV, if you don't need to use much of a material it's ok to pick something pricier, saving money on it was a nice bonus.) almost two years ago and than struggled to find matching wall tile after our original plan of white glass subway wasn't going to work. In the end, JO stepped up big time and went to Tile Showcase in Watertown where he found this beautiful blue, gray long subway tile! (The company calls it Chatman dew.) I was a little hesitant at first because the sample looked a little brown but when we put them all out we realized they had this beautiful blue hint to them.
Another design element we needed to consider was the trim on the edges. You could use stainless steel, polished chrome, matter chrome, white, black, etc. I was all about the chrome and I'm glad that's what we went with. It looks great against the blue gray tile and the blues in the mosaic. It also made picking out all of the other fixtures easy. Everything else we picked was chrome to match the trim.
For shower fixtures we just went with a basic set we got at Home Depot. I kind of wish we did a blingier shower head but we can always do that later and this one looks fine.
We debated back and forth about extending the tile out of the shower walls and around the bathroom walls. The tile was so beautiful I thought it would be a shame if it stayed hidden behind a shower curtain. I am so glad we took the tile out on all of the walls. It looks so beautiful and really makes the bathroom look fancy. Since we don't have a master bathroom we wanted to make sure to bling this one out (another thing we've learned from HGTV.)
The light fixture is one of my favorite parts of the bathroom. We found this at Home Depot for about $80 and it looks like it costs much more. (Pro tip- open the Home Depot stuff right away, like in the parking lot. We didn't do this and ended up having to return a bunch of stuff that was scratched. Easy returns but annoying.) JO and I both stared at all the fixtures and this was the only one I liked but I was sure he would hate it. Then we did a "1, 2, 3 point at the one you like thing" and we were both pointing at this one which worked perfectly. The mirrored medicine cabinet is also from the Depot and was maybe $30.
The vanity is from Joss and Main and we love it. It has a lot of storage underneath. Plus it was on sale and we got free delivery! I love the faucet we picked and again it was the cheapest one at the Depot. It works perfect with modern look in the bathroom.
At one point we realized we hadn't ordered a toilet paper holder and neither of us really wanted to go out to look for one. Thanks to Amazon Prime, we had one in the nick of time and it looks great (yes, I'm proud of our toilet paper roll holder 😀)
And can we talk about this floor for a minute. We had been hooked on marble hexagon flooring for a long time but all of the ones we looked at were kind of bland. When we were at Floor and Decor (where we found the mosaic on sale) we found this flooring. I was a little hesitant because it looked real busy but it's beautiful. It really ties the whole room together. (HGTV trick- we pulled out all of the sheets and took out any that really were too busy.) Huge shout out to Floor and Decor. They have a great selection, great prices, and a great return policy. We ended up returning quite a lot of tile and we didn't have any problems at all.
We've chosen a paint color and hope to have that done by Wednesday when they install the window.
We still need to select a shower curtain. JO ordered about ten of them so we have options 😀 Definitely seemed like reno panic purchases.)
We each take turns walking in and staring at what we created! I even sat in the bathtub for quite a while last night, just taking it all in.
I'm excited at the prospect of getting everything back to normal around here. I really miss the couch! All kidding aside, this process went so smoothly and hasn't been too bad living with things all over the place. I did buy a dress from the Loft a few weeks ago, just as demo was starting, and I know I tried it on but I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure that will show up in some really strange place. Look for a final post next week when we get our window.
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