So the bathrooms in this house need A Lot of love. I obviously can say this over and over about each room, but especially the bathrooms.
Bathrooms are a place where you become clean. In our case, I suppose “cleaner” may be appropriate for describing our level of clean. Wow does that sound appealing. But, it’s true. I honestly have never felt all that great after using these facilities because no matter how much I bleach things and clean, they still completely gross me out. There is a certain old bathroom smell that has multiple bathroom smells mixed together. (not old in a good way, old like 1970s old) I’d say a mix of musty moldy pee /old man musk cologne with a slight egg smell from the well water. It’s not pleasant. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but a “gift” I’ve been given is a hyper sensitive sense of smell. I once read that 11% of women have a “6th” sense of hyper smell. I certainally am a part of this 11%. So unfortunately the smells in the house before rooms are finished drive me absolutely bonkers. I’m always noticing smells everywhere I go. My co workers have probably been driven crazy by me for years due to me complaining about the low carb let’s be skinny and eat tuna out of a can that they eat in our work break-rooms. It seriously makes me want to throw up because it’s so strong in my nose! So yea, I hate bad smells.
So, this bathroom was complete with wallpaper, mold, multiple colors of porcelain, (brown being the most interesting choice of color for a toilet) water damage, pink woodwork, pink wainscoting, gold-ish rusty fixtures, and un even flooring.
Since we’ve moved here we literally never use this bathroom. We shut the door, and didn’t go back in for a longgggg time. Travis’s grandma said she never even knew this room was here when we told her what we were working on.
I wish I had a picture of how moldy the ceiling was. My friend Sue stopped over the day of closing and I specifically remember her pointing out how bad that room needed a ventilation fan, because the ceiling was covered in mold. The wallpaper was peeling down and hanging, and the bottom of the shower was covered in mouse poop. It was lovely.
About a year into living here, we became ambitious on a Sunday. Sunday, the “day of rest” is usually when we become the most ambitious of doing things to our house. Church first , then the day begins after that. This is usually bloody Mary inspired along with a trip to Sendiks for me, while Travis is working and ripping something out. I usually return with cookies, doughnuts, beer, and some sort of pretzel dip. And maybe some Svedka for more Bloodies. Our children love it because who doesn’t love bags of goodies mom buys after a lovely strong Bloody Mary. Many things end up in the cart on these trips.
I came back and Travis literally had the entire bathroom torn out. I was maybe gone 45 minutes. The brown toilet, shower stall, and sink were all laying in the grass by the back door. Well alright then. Go time.
The floor in this room was a typical small hex tile. I was initially fooled by this and thought it was original. Maybe not original to the build of the home but possibly from the 20’s when a lot of old homes added indoor plumbing and bathrooms. But, hidden under that was a subfloor, and a beautiful hardware maple floor under that. There was some slight water damage near the toilet area and also the shower stall, but mostly in beautiful shape. This told me that this room must of been maybe a pantry, or something kitchen/servant related. I know this because the only other maple in the house is in the kitchen. I do believe that this connected to the kitchen somehow, but the layout has been altered ,so we shall never know. I often dream of finding blueprints in the wall someday. A girl can dream.
Another 9 months ish go by, (door obviously shut this entire time,) and it’s one of those “we should probably get back at that bathroom” thoughts that rolled into my brain. I can say we scraped the wallpaper sometime in this 9 months, and I also scraped and bleached the mold on the ceiling. So atleast that was gone.
We became extremely torn over the floor in this room. I do not believe in ripping out original things to our house, we are after all restoring-ish, not remodeling. but I also didn’t want to worry about a wood floor and water in a bathroom. We decided that we would remove the maple; but save it for our kitchen remodel because that’s also maple and we know some areas need patching. This was ultra sketchy in my opinion when the floor was opened up. Whats below is the basement, (centipede spider hotline) not to mention the cistern. For those of you who do not know what a cistern is, a cistern was a large area in the basement that has walls around it about 8 feet high. They do not go to the ceiling, and the floor also drops lower then the rest of the basement floor. Picture a pool with 8 foot sides in our basement. This is pretty much what it was. A gutter connected to a drain pipe that lead into the basement that allowed rain water to fill this pool (cistern.) This is how the family brought water into the home before plumbing was a thing. They used this water for filling kettles for cooking, filling a tub for bathing, and pretty much any water they needed in the home. So imagine this sketchy giant hole beneath the floor in the bathroom. Not my favorite thing in the world. Also, we discovered tons of acorns between the stone foundation wall and flooring. Some little critter made himself quite cozy in there at some point. We’ve found acorns in other parts of the house mostly in the pocket doors. So, we do know this house was in rough rough shape at some point, much rougher then we ever saw it. Bad outdated design is one thing, critters in the home is another. We do catch an occasional mouse in the cellar doors, but other then that no critters, just giant spiders and centipedes.
don’t fall down to the hole of doom
Imagine a 10 foot drop literally. See the acorns?
I picked my favorite tile ever for this bathroom. It’s the most beautiful Carrara marble hex tile. It’s stunning. When Travis laid the floor I literally had flutters when I got home from work that night and he had most of it laid. It’s literally what dreams are made of. I choose a light grey grout, only because I wanted the tile to stand out, but not the grout lines. I also did not want white because white is impossible to keep clean. Can’t go wrong with light grey or grey anything!
The claw foot tub came from Craigslist and is beautiful. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to paint the outside of the tub grey, or black. I’m so glad I went with black. You can never go wrong with black. Or grey. Travis reglazed the porcelain on the inside and It turned out beautiful. I will always prefer old versus new. Theres just nothing like soaking in a old tub after a long day of haircutting.
I was unsure of where to get a claw foot tub bath fixture so the World Wide Web is where I started. We ended up using Signature Hardwares website and it was absolutely outstanding. I wanted to impress Travis and order everything without his help. I however had no idea where to measure for a bath fixture on a vintage tub. Lucky for me, the instant chat option for help from a customer service rep was outstanding. It was a real person who talked me through it every step of the way. I ordered our vanity from here, the bath fixtures, plumbing shut offs, and vanity fixture. Everything came absolutely perfect. Not to mention in 2 days. I will absolutely use this website again when we redo our kitchen and other bathroom.
A favorite thing for me in this bathroom is the massive Victorian Eastlake mirror. Actually everything in this bathroom is my favorite. I’ve been hunting for one of these massive mirrors for years. Anytime I’ve come across one, they’re like a million dollars and I can’t afford it. Or, they just aren’t massive enough. I wanted drama and a huge mirror for the bathroom. We have 10 foot ceilings so I always like using things that are big and tall.
One rainy day in September, I was headed to my moms with the kids and I went cruising past a rain soaked “antique rummage sale” sign. I whipped the car around and headed straight there. I needed 5 minutes to get out of the car . The children had been extra difficult that day which is why I was probably going to my moms for some mom encouragement time. I walked up the rummage sale driveway in the rain, and was met by a nice guy named Bob. Bob was an antique dealer, but was selling it all because they wanted to move to Florida. Not to mention, everything was half off.
I walked into the garage and it was loaded with beautiful things. And there she was, in her glory, a massive eastlake mirror. I immediately went to it and saw a tag for 220$. I would have absolutely paid that, because usually a giant eastlake mirror can go for well over 900$. I told him I wanted it, and then he said “oh and it’s half off you know.” “Um yes I’ll take two!” Winning. I talked with him a bit which is when I found out he was selling it all to move. A cool thing about being a lover of old things, you meet so many people along the way that share your same love. It’s like a old things/old house love happy family. Sky, my older son had his window rolled down and was yelling for me along with a sceaming baby. I promised Bob I would be back later that day with my husband and our truck since the size of this mirror is about the same as my actual car. I dragged myself to the car to get in with the beasts, but was perfectly ok with it considering the score I just found. No screaming child could get me down. I’m not exzaggerating when I say I’ve been looking for one of these mirrors forever. It’s true. So a great find at a super cheap price is obviously another thing of what dreams are made of.
the mirror waiting to be hung
Lighting in this room was tricky for me. Usually I have no problem picking out lighting. I used the wonderful website of Overstock like usual. I picked two glass pendent lights for the vanity and the same chandelier we have in the foyer. I wanted drama in my glamorous bathroom and a beautiful chandelier definitely brings that. When I ordered it, I thought I ordered the same bronzey color the foyer has, but turns out I picked a copper one on accident. I came home late like usual after work and the love of my life was working on hanging the chandelier. This was after he poured 600 yards of concrete (60 concrete truck loads) and worked a 14 hour day. I got home and it broke my heart to see him standing up on a ladder hanging this thing. I’m like gese guy get down and go to bed. But, I actually died a little inside when I saw the light. I HATED the copper color. I literally barely slept that night because I kept thinking about how I loved the light but hated the color. And then it came to me. Duh take off the crystals and paint It the Same black we used for the tub and it would tie the two together. Luckily Travis understood and is pretty resilient to me Changing things and was ok with me wanting to change the color. He painted it for me, and wa la. It’s absolutely perfect. I ended up putting the crystals back on it out of guilt which took me like 5 hours but it was the least I could do for the poor guy. It was the final touch to the room. Completion is a beautiful thing.
I couldn’t be happier with this bathroom. It’s a glamorous, bright, clean smelling, brand new bathroom. Everything I hoped it would be. Most people dream of vacations and fancy cars, I dream of marble tile and rummage sale mirrors. We still have a few things to finish, you’ll notice in some photos where the door is, It’s not stripped of paint and looks really dingy and dirty. John our paint stripper will be on the job for that one. He refinished our fireplace mantle, dining table, and front door. I want it to match that. That way it’ll also tie in the wood on the mirror and few wood elements I plan on adding to the room in accessories.
I painted this room the color Ice cube from Sherwin Williams, you know like most of the house….It’s a really really light grey. I love grey. The original wainscoting was painted to match the rest of the trim in the home. It’s fresh and bright and clean, and you’d never know it used to be a moldy rotten stinky bathroom with pink woodwork.
Surrounding yourself with beauty brings joy. I like simplicity and I like things to be beautiful. I’ve had some people ask me “but what about storage?” Since I’ve come to love the minimalist lifestyle, I don’t really need much storage anymore. I use only a few things for makeup and hair products. I don’t over indulge in these things anymore, which truly makes my life so much easier. I do plan on putting some sort of built in shelf when I find the right thing to build in, but until then It’s staying plain and simple in this bathroom. I really believe all things that are old can be beautiful again.It just needs a little love and a vision. Oh and a really handy husband.
5 Comments