A few weeks ago I decided that I couldn’t take the honey oak vanity anymore but we aren’t ready to do a real remodel. While I did learn lots of construction skills in theatre school, it’s been 20 something years and I haven’t really used them since. Thank goodness for YouTube and a very kind man named Paul who works at the local hardware store! In the past couple of weeks I have painted the ceiling, walls, and trim (not a new skill but I hate painting), patched a large (8”x17”) hole in the drywall, painted the laminate countertop (thanks, diy bloggers for this one! It won’t last forever but it will last long enough!), stained the honey oak cabinets to a lovely walnut brown and added new hardware, laid peel and stick tile, installed a new toilet, replaced the vanity light fixture, and recaulked everything! Hubby helped with the toilet (more because of the weight than anything else) but the rest I did solo. I need to install some shelves above the toilet but than it’s done!

My folks are coming over tomorrow and I didn’t tell them because my dad is a super handyman and I was worried he would feel obligated to help. Hopefully he isn’t offended that I didn’t ask!

Wow!!!! Congrats, that sounds like a huge amount of work!! Can you share some before and after pics?

That’s great!

You may be surprised at how well the paint on your countertop holds up. I have a unit with a painted countertop in the kitchen that’s been there for 3 years that I know of and it still looks really good. All I had to do was touch up a few knife scratches.

quote:

Originally posted by Lisa:

DITTO!

I don’t really have a before picture, which is so weird. This is actually from a few years ago when we repainted so it’s a disaster but you can get a sense of things.



And here it is this morning…




This one was taken with a wide angle because the bathroom is obviously too small to really get this photo otherwise.


I wasn’t sold on doing the open shelves but I am really glad I did!


It’s amazing what a stain and new hardware can do!

Very nice upgrade!

Wow, looks amazing!!!

How did your father like it?

Looks terrific!

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
Wow, looks amazing!!!

How did your father like it?

Thanks! He was really impressed with all the work I did! All positive reviews!

Wow, what an improvement! I'd say your construction skills are intact. It looks great.

The multiple improvements you made to individual elements of the bathroom add up to a great result. I imagine the biggest investment was your work.

By the way, the camera and glass insulator on the shelf are just the sort of unexpected accents that I really enjoy when I encounter them.

Big Al

quote:

All positive reviews!

Wonderful! And not surprising!

We have two bathrooms on our main level (one with shower only and one with a traditional bathtub/shower unit). We also have a bathroom in the basement that looks like it was created by a complete idiot. There's laminate flooring used for the walls and ceilings (OMG, I know) and other things, the whole thing just looks horrible. But it has a perfectly functional toilet, sink, and shower stall. It's next to Mr SK's studio (also in the basement) so he uses it all the time.

Eventually we want to re-do it. Or if we were selling the house, just making it look nice even if it was all cheap, unit-type materials, would probably be important.

But to me, it looks like we'd need to rip off all the wall and ceiling materials, take out the sink and shower stall, maybe just get everything to the studs? And basically start from scratch.

So, as you might imagine, we haven't done anything to it.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

All positive reviews!

Wonderful! And not surprising!

We have two bathrooms on our main level (one with shower only and one with a traditional bathtub/shower unit). We also have a bathroom in the basement that looks like it was created by a complete idiot. There's laminate flooring used for the walls and ceilings (OMG, I know) and other things, the whole thing just looks horrible. But it has a perfectly functional toilet, sink, and shower stall. It's next to Mr SK's studio (also in the basement) so he uses it all the time.

Eventually we want to re-do it. Or if we were selling the house, just making it look nice even if it was all cheap, unit-type materials, would probably be important.

But to me, it looks like we'd need to rip off all the wall and ceiling materials, take out the sink and shower stall, maybe just get everything to the studs? And basically start from scratch.

So, as you might imagine, we haven't done anything to it.

We have a similar basement bathroom, Shiro. Maybe not quite as bad, but the shower stall they installed doesn’t fit in the room, and the shower head has no choice but to spray water out into the room when the door is open. I didn’t realize how bad it was until we shut down our upstairs bathroom to do the refresh! But our whole basement was done by folks who had no clue what they were doing (less of a clue than I have, anyway) so there’s a lot of work to be done down there!

quote:

Originally posted by big al:

By the way, the camera and glass insulator on the shelf are just the sort of unexpected accents that I really enjoy when I encounter them.

Big Al

Thanks! I love those kinds of things too, Al!