Who’s ready for a raw renovation post?!
This is something that I want to always be sure to add into my blog; information on how you too can make small or larger cosmetic improvements to your house. Now this side of the blog truly comes from the mind of AJ and I’ll be providing his tips throughout this post. He has been building things ever since he was a little boy, and he has carried this throughout his life. From building pieces of furniture to remodeling our home, AJ has been learning and creating every step of the way. This might be a shock to you, but AJ has self-taught himself just about everything he knows. He is able to watch YouTube videos, like tiling a shower, then put those lessons into remodeling our home.
The reason I’m telling you all of this, is simply because you can do this too! All it takes is time, learning and patience, but those three things can save you a heck of a lot of money when it comes to a home renovation. AJ and I added up the cost of what we have spent on all our renovations and we could easily times that cost by 2-3 times, and that’s what we could have spent with contractors. Our upstairs bathroom renovation, also my favorite transformation of the entire home.
Here is a photo of the bathroom from the Fall time where we were finally getting most things installed. Now I’m going to stop and tell you that this renovation was so large that I’m going to have to break it into two posts! Why? Well, you will learn here shortly..
Now that you have a visual of the “pretty, clean view”, prepare yourselves. We took pictures along the way of what the bathroom looked like previously, and you all are about to understand why I love this transformation. This bathroom is definitely a small room, but we had our work cut out for ourselves. This was a complete gut job and everything had to be replaced, except the toilet (which we bought maybe about a year prior to the start of this reno).
So here it goes folks…take a look at where we began!
Okay so a few things before we go any further..
- This was actually a slight improvement from when AJ first moved into this house. He used to live with three other roommates for about the first three years he lived here.
- When I moved in we slapped some paint on the walls and moved our old main floor vanity up to this bathroom.
- Yes, we added the panel board also. There is a HUGE hole in this wall from when we had to fix the plumbing. Instead of re-drywalling we decided to add this. It was a cheap fix because we knew we weren’t going to be using this bathroom for a while.
Alright now that we got that out of the way…let’s get to the demolition.
I’m not kidding you when I say this. We were working on a HUGE project this summer for another family and were getting close to finishing it. AJ told me he would be pulling out the bathroom after we completed that project. This would have been roughly three weeks before demolition timeframe.
Well…AJ got bored one day. See for yourself.
Nasty right? These are definitely the real and raw photos of what was underneath the layers of a much-needed bathroom renovation. All while it was probably 90+ degrees out in the middle of a Nebraskan summer. If you aren’t from Nebraska and you come to visit, we have hot and humid summers. Why is it humid? I guess we just have so much water surrounding us (KIDDING!).
Getting back to the complete gut job part, it really was as you can see. The wood underneath the flooring was in really bad shape and we had to replace almost all of it. AJ even had to replace the sub-floor by adding in additional bracing to support our new tub. Thank the Lord he worked construction in a previous job so he has learned a lot! AJ also started to add in the new framework and insulation for our shower walls.
Finally we got the floors completed, and the insulation and framework installed. All of this pretty insulation and framing completed. Long story short, we went and bought the tub and the plastic shower walls because we decided we weren’t going to do tile in this bathroom. You heard right, we weren’t going to do a tiled shower. We installed the tub and got that all lined up to install the shower walls. Then we realized the inevitable: the shower walls were too big to fit the space available. AKA the shower wall with the shower head was too long. There wasn’t much we could do here but take out the shower walls and cut our losses. The added framework meant for the shower walls was somewhat wasted, but guess what? We learned our lesson: measure, measure, measure!
We lost about 2-3 days of work with trying out the shower walls first, but AJ got the backer board up (and down on the floor) quickly since the tub was already installed. We decided to go with the Delta Classic 400 Curve 5 ft. Right Drain Soaking Tub in White from our local Home Depot store to get the added space with the curve. We are honestly in love with it and so happy we chose to do the curved tub. This post is in no way sponsored by Home Depot, but just a happy customer stating her feelings! I couldn’t have been happier with how the Home Depot team helped us through this renovation. From when we started, to running into the shower wall issues, to getting this room completed. Their customer service was amazing!
Now I’m sure most of you can imagine who did most of the work thus far. My time will come I promise! We took this renovation slowly because of budget and having other projects coinciding with this. I will leave all of my decor ideas for another post, as I’m going to be breaking this renovation up as mentioned, so stay tuned!
Lastly, I want to leave you with some tips from the man himself.
- Only tackle what you are comfortable with.
- If you are doing plumbing work, be prepared to go a couple of days only drinking White Claws. (We didn’t have water for a full 24 hours, and only had these drinks lol). AKA, have some bottled water.
- Triple check how even your walls are and measure their sizes.
- Break the renovation down in stages so you are not overwhelmed. For example, separate the walls, the floors, etc.
I hope you all have enjoyed this post, and stay tuned for my next post on all of the pretty and fun parts of this renovation! Please feel free to comment or share your own renovation stories. I always love to hear the similarities and differences between each renovation!
With Love,
Kristen