We’ve never been too pleased with the bathroom in our tiny house. The previous owners remodeled it immediately before selling. As a matter of fact, we first viewed the house when the room was under construction. In retrospect, I should have asked them to give us an allowance in lieu of finishing the room. They did some good structural work beneath the floor, but everything else was done on the cheap. Here’s what the room looked like when we bought the house. We tried to dress it up a bit with fixtures, but it was like putting lipstick on a pig.
I can’t really blame the former owners for wanting to spend as little as possible on a house they were preparing to leave, but I would have been too embarrassed to attach my name to such shoddy craftsmanship. For example, fake wainscoting graces the lower part of the walls. They could have bought real bead board for a few dollars more, but they took the cheap route so they wouldn’t have to cut it. This is emblematic of most of their work on the house. Whoever cut the bead board messed up the math and missed the outlet. A bad patch job covers over their mistake. An off-white outlet on a pure white wall accentuates the error. Ironically, they could have hidden the mistake with wood filler if they had used real bead board.
The bathroom vanity is cheap, but nice-looking. The sink neither matches nor fits the base. I’m guessing they got it for next to nothing because the porcelain was chipped. We moved the light fixture to the kitchen and replaced it with a nicer one, so that dilemma has already been addressed. The tub area has brownish-yellow tile that’s been cracked and caulked many times. When the previous owners reframed the closet door and window, they broke several tiles and glued them back on. That’s just lazy.
There used to be a built-in cabinet and mirror attached to the wall, and they just painted over the old glue and damaged plaster. The ceiling was worse. They mudded over cracks and holes and never sanded. They just painted it all with white wall paint. And they never reported (nor addressed) a leak in the roof that waterlogged and ate through the plaster. That’s illegal. Since we’ve owned the house, the crack has gotten bigger and finally started to open.
We recently got a free roof for the house and garage thanks to a 30 second hailstorm back around Easter. Once the leak was permanently fixed, we decided it was time to fix the ceiling. And since the bathroom is going to be covered in drywall dust anyway, I figure I’ll go ahead and put a skim coat of mud on the walls to smooth them out.
As usual, one domino knocks over the next and we’ve been out pricing tile for the shower area and floor. We ordered small, hexagonal black and white tile for the floor and six inch, white subway tiles for the bath tub area. I’ll put white bead board on the walls up to about five feet and we’ll paint the area above it light gray. The finished room should look bright and airy, which is important for a small, single bathroom house.
We’re hiring out the tile work. They show up on July 12th. Here’s the plan:
- Remove everything that’s not necessary or nailed down
- Scrape the walls and ceiling
- Skim coat the walls
- Patch the ceiling
- Remove the old tile (down to the studs)
- Remove the sink and vanity
- Prime and install the new beadboard
- Remove the toilet
- Tile work done
- Install a new toilet
- Prime the walls and ceiling
- Paint the walls and ceiling
- Buy and install a new sink
- Return everything to the room
- Bathtub refinished
There’s a local company that refinishes old cast-iron bathtubs. When we call them to come to our house, it means we’re done.
UPDATE: Bathroom Remodel 2: It Begins
