Upstairs Bathroom.
One project that I am so happy to be done with is the upstairs bathroom. When I first moved in, I was lucky enough to be offered a claw-footed bathtub and a lovely vanity for next to nothing (a friend of a friend was completely upgrading a new home and getting rid of pretty much everything which was almost new). That tub and vanity moved around my house from front porch to bedroom to hallway and back again for two years awaiting their new home in a renovated bathroom. The time has finally come, folks!
This upstairs bathroom was not in working order when I purchased the house: the toilet was ancient, and the bathtub/shower insert was intolerable. In fact, the hot water tap fell off the first time I tried to get some water running through. The most annoying part: the original baseboards and trim were painted turquoise - a similar colour to the walls. I was afraid of that bathroom. I would quickly mention it while showing the house to friends, and for two years pretended like it wasn't there.
Here are the before and after:
So here's what we did: My father and Jason gutted this thing almost a year ago. They took out the bath/shower insert, toilet, vanity, and vinyl tiling on the walls.
This is what we had afterwards:
We hired Jamie, a former co-worker of Jason's, to tackle the rest. He took down all the drywall that needed replacing and all the floors (I took out the vinyl flooring while removing the upstairs flooring in 2012, and Jamie removed the sub-flooring). He also took care of the plumbing and electrical while the drywall was off (kind of a disaster - turns out this house is full of half-ass work done by previous owners...no job is easy in this house according to Jay who is, as I type, filing down a door because it doesn't fit standard-size doorknobs). We then had porcelain tile put down, and Jaime got the tub, toilet and vanity put in.
Then came our job. We removed all those turquoise baseboards I mentioned and refinished them to match the rest of the house. This was tedious and took days as a result of the many steps required. I also stripped, sanded, stained and finished the trim around the door and window which were also turquoise. A plea to all home owners: please don't paint over your 100 year old wood. You're an ass if you do. As a result of the insert bath/shower, the original baseboards around the tub area were at one time removed or non-existent altogether, so we had nothing to cover the wall which would surround our claw-footed tub. Luckily, Jamie is awesome and made some replicas which totally matched.
Removing the turquoise paint (don't mind the front porch floors which will eventually be redone):
Door before:
Door after:
Unfortunately, I was not able to strip the door - there were like 8 layers of paint on it. I was happy with just using paint. The doorknob was a lucky find at an antique store in Rosseau, ON. It was also stripped and made to match the others in the house.
Another lovely addition to the downstairs: a wood-burning fireplace. The upstairs uses electric heat, so we're trying to cut costs by burning wood instead. And it's awesome to have. It's connected to the original chimney running through the wall between the dining room and the kitchen.