Hornfan attempts inexpensive bathroom remodel

[Scooter]

Someday we'll knock down a wall and make our masterbath much bigger. But for now we decided to do a minor redo.

The bathroom is ugly. Popcorn ceilings and paint the color of old bananas. Six, that's right six, different colors of metal finishes on the fixtures.

So we started by:
Scraping popcorn off ceiling
Adding light over shower
Replacing vent fan assembly
Replacing shower doors

Then we textured and painted the ceiling
Added wainscoting
Painted walls
Added crown molding

Final steps included
new light fixture
new toilet
new sink faucet
new mirrow
new hinges, cabinet handles, door knob, hinges

Here's some after pics:

The mirror came from Hobby Lobby for about $125. The 3-bulb light fixture was hard to find but came from Target on-line for $150.

The wainscoting came from Home Depot. the base and chair molding are part of the kit. Very easy to do, except for an outside corner where we glued a 1/4" dowel rod (see lower left).

The new shower doors cost $279 but were not hard to install. The shower light is made for wet locations. And you can buy kits to upgrade many of the shower knobs, escutcheons, etc. So our old Delta shower knob now looks brand new. Notice the crown molding. Instead of those crazy double-angled cuts, you can buy corner and end blocks that only require a single-angled cut and makes it tons easier (I do not own a compound mitre saw). I won't tell you how much crown molding I wasted until I found these corner blocks.

Pictured here is the motion detector switch I added to the light in the vent fan. So now when I stagger in to go to the bathroom at 3 in the morning, i don't have to turn on a light. Instead a little 7-watt bulb comes on automatically.

Under the window we added a shelf for towels and junk.

Even though we did not touch the existing floor and shower tile, the total cost was around $1800.

 

[Gardner Barnes]

That looks amazing man. I wish I had confidence in my making and fixin stuff abilities to do that kind of thing.

How long did it take?

 

[hullabelew]

Those black cabinets look fantastic, especially with the hardware.

 

[Scooter]

Thanks. It took about a week. My wife's an at-home mom, but with 3 preschoolers she didn't have much free time to work on it during the day. Had I not wasted so much time on the crown moulding it might have taken a couple days less.

 

[Anastasis]

DO you any pre pcitures?

 

[gsoda3]

great job. where'd you get the cabinets from?

 

[GhostOfTomJoad]

Nice work. I really like your idea of the motion detector in the vent light. I might have to steal that idea when I redo the upstairs guest bathroom (maybe this year).

Is your new toilet a Kohler? It looks identical to the one I just installed when I re-modeled our downstairs bath.

 

[Scooter]

I could not find any pre-pics. I should learn to take before pics by now.

The cabinets were existing, we just painted them black.

The toilet is Kohler. Got it at HD.

 

[midtown]

That looks very nice. We are about to redo our master bath. We are going down to the studs. Planning on taking out our garden tub and going with a double shower.

 

[Scooter]

a few more thoughts:

The doofus who did the tile when the house was built put a porcelein soap-dish right under the shower head (you can see it in the first pic). I put a new one on the other side of the shower. We'll actually save money on soap because it won't disinegrate in a few days sitting in a soap dish that has water in it.

I was reluctant to put a vent fan in the ceiling that included a heater. The original vent fan had a heater but it looked like a fire hazard to me. The new one has a much better and safer design. However, I would recommend using a timer switch instead of a toggle switch on those heaters. I'll change mine one of these days.

The old shower doors were frosted glass. The new ones are clear. Makes the bathroom look a lot bigger.

 

[gecko]

What is the list eater doing in your new bathroom?

 

[Horn Chick]

You said you repainted your cabinets. Did you have to sand them first or could you just paint over the old ones? I have some cabinets that I need to repaint. They're just dark wood with some varnish on them and I've heard some say I need to sand them first and some say just paint them.

 

[Scooter]

We lightly sanded the cabinets and primed with Kilz before painting.

Listeater appears in our bathroom occasionally and eats all the toilet paper.

 

[SAChick]

Looks great! We just redid our bathroom this weekend too. Nothing drastic, paint, mirror and fixtures. I thought about painting the cabinets black too but I was scared. Seeing yours maybe I'll get brave and we'll paint them.