After moving in and having to utilize the master bathroom daily we quickly decided this would be our next renovation to tackle. In going along with the original decor of the master bedroom this room was of course purple as well. In addition to the purple walls the bathroom also had a purple toilet, bathtub, (2) octagon sinks and shower insert. With the combination of the excessive amount of white tile and gold fixtures the bathroom needed serious updating.
Before:
In addition to the master bathroom's decor being unappealing, it was also not functional for Matt at 6'-4". The shower was a single person stall in which his head was at least 1 1/2 feet above the door. So taking a shower for him consisted of squeezing into the stall and ducking his head under the shower head to rinse while looking out above the door into the bathroom. Not optimal. I of course had no troubles! ha ha
Demolition:
Demolition began by removing the vanity, bathtub, shower insert and toilet. The enormous mirror was a bit of a challenge because we wanted to avoid it breaking into a million pieces yet we knew if we got it off of the wall in one piece we would not be able to carry it downstairs to the dumpster in the driveway and would risk it breaking while we attempted to carry it. Oh and there is that whole superstition about 7 years bad luck if you break a mirror. We tapped it all up and Matt attempted to pry it off of the wall, this was unsuccessful because it was thoroughly glued to the sheetrock. So what did Matt do next? He threw a baseball at it to get it to start cracking while still being held together with the tape and glued to the wall. This was also unsuccessful, the baseball hit the mirror and bounced right off, without a single crack. So we were forced to hammer the mirror on the wall to get it to crack into pieces and then pry them off of the sheetrock. We were able to break it into large pieces that then we could carry to the dumpster. There was no way to avoid the bad luck superstition I am afraid.
Next came the dreaded tile floor. Just like the kitchen floor tile this tile was recessed and set in a 2" solid mortar bed. Unlike the main level of the house where we were laying continuous hardwood floors, the master bathroom met up with the master closet and the master bedroom both carpeted. Therefore instead of cutting out the flooring in 2'-0" x 2'-0" pieces we instead hand chiseled out the tiles one by one attempting to preserve the mortar bed as best we could. It was not as easy as it may sound because the porcelain tiles were very brittle and did not come up one by one but instead in a million extremely sharp small pieces. This also included all of the white tile on the walls and around the bathtub.
This is a good picture illustrating the wire mesh, 2" mortar bed and porcelain tile that covered the floor, walls and counter tops.
Construction:
Once demolition was completed and another dumpster filled, we began by first painting the walls. Then we moved on to tiling the floor with 12" x 12" tile in a diagonal brick pattern. Matt first leveled out the existing mortar bed from where we had chiseled a little too much then proceeded.
Next we focused on the shower. We tripled the footprint of the shower and extended the height up to the ceiling. Matt ran new plumbing lines for a rain shower head as well as an adjustable sliding and removable wall shower head. He plumbed it so we could have either one of them on or both on at the same time. Then came the tiling of the shower walls. We used 12" x 24" rectangular slate tiles running vertical for the walls. We also used this same tile for the bathtub surround. We built a seat wall as well as a soap shelf built into the wall.
Next we installed the shower floor tile. For the shower floor we used river rock pebbles that came on 12' x 12" sheets. These were also used as an accent on the walls around the bathtub and in the window seat.
The only item we didn't tear out was the cabinet in the toilet room, we simply painted this to match the new vanities. Matt plumbed the new jacuzzi bathtub and built a custom surround that we stained to match the new vanities and freshly painted cabinet.
We purchased new vanities with glass sinks, new brushed nickel fixtures, individual mirrors and installed new lighting. We also had glass walls installed at the shower bench.
After:
So much purple!
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