Remodeling the bathroom

[YSOSLO]

Well, Jess and I decided it was finally time to remodel our upstairs bathroom...the tiles falling off the wall of the shower was our hint that it was time. So my dad and I spent a whole weekend tearing out the old bathroom and putting up new drywall and then my brother came up the next weekend to help me put in all of the tile. We were rockin' along until the granite vanity top was delayed by about a week and a half, but here are some pics at the midway point. I've got to tackle mudding the drywall and finishing up the wiring. I re-installed the toilet about 2 days after the floor tile went down, so we could seal it and that made Jess a happy momma...having to walk all the way downstairs in the middle of the night wasn't her cup of tea to say the least. Our curved shower rod is supposed to get here Friday and once that's mounted we'll almost be able to use the room again. Anyone have any ideas on a paint color based on the color of the tile? We're clueless as to what would look best, although we picked neutral tile to make it compatible with just about anything. Pics here (http://picasaweb.google.com/ysoslo/Bathroom08#)

[DrWebster]

That's some nice looking tile work. Good job!

All I can offer about paint color is to not be afraid to pick a bold color. My wife and I picked a dark red color (named Roasted Pepper IIRC) for our master bath, and it works well. Based on the color of the tile, a warmer but rich color would look good.

[AJ]

Well done on the tile! That looks hot. I think you should grab some darker colors (browns mostly) and see what that might looks like. That will not only add some really nice setting when candle light gets used, but it should also make the tile 'pop' a bit more in the normal light vs the darker room color.

Like an artist brown on this page: http://www.ralphlaurenhome.com/rlhome/products/paint/items.asp?haid=120&f=lp&start=0

or a desert boot on this page:http://www.ralphlaurenhome.com/rlhome/products/paint/items.asp?haid=48

http://www.ralphlaurenhome.com/rlhome/products/paint/default.asp is the main paint site, HD has this paint, and while it's a bit more $$, it's also held up great for us everytime we've used it.

We also just painted out bathroom with a darker down, with the lighter tiles I love it. Will take a pic tomorrow if you want.

[dmention7]

Sweet! Now when Nanami and I get around to redoing our bathroom, we have a go-to guy ;)

I'll see if I can throw out some color suggestions in the morning when I'm thinking a bit more clearly... lol

[YSOSLO]

Thanks for the compliments on the tile guys. It was a MAJOR job, but we're extremely happy with the results. In case anyone is wondering why the small tiles in the shower are so much darker in the final pic compared with the earlier pic, it's because we used a special sealer/enhancer on just that part of the shower, so it looks like the tiles are always wet to bring out the color of the quartz. We wanted it to look sort of like a framed piece of art, although not quite THAT dramatic..lol

I really like that dark brown AJ, but I'm a little concerned the dark brown vanity might "disappear" if the paint is too dark. I mentioned the idea of a wide horizontal stripe of some sort to Jess and she kind of liked that idea, and perhaps that dark brown would be a great candidate for the stripe. It would pull in the darks, yet if we offset the dark brown with a different color it might be just right.

I forgot to mention, the vanity top is white granite with black and gold veining in it in case that influences anyone's recommendations. Jess showed me a couple of pictures online of bathrooms with dark vanities and it seems like the majority of them had a light color on the walls to give them a "spa" feel. Anyone have any ideas on a lighter color that might work with a dark brown stripe?..or a pic of what your opinion of an AMAZING bathroom would look like? Even if it doesn't look like ours it might give us some great ideas.

And Yes AJ, if you can snap a pic of your bathroom with the brown paint I'd love to see it. Thanks

[mazdaslow3]

Looks nice!! Bathrooms usually suck to remodel.

[dmention7]

After looking at the pics some more, I am kind of thinking a rich warm color would look great. For some reason, a deep red is popping into my head.....

The other option if you're worried about color overload or losing the vanity in the color, would be to go with a more neutral but warm shade of brown (light brown with some red tones?) and then go for the deep color(s) on your shower curtain, towels, and bath mat, etc.

[Big Nate]

I think you should do whatever Jess wants that way you don't have to hear her bitch for the next god knows how long. This coming from a man who knows.

[dmention7]

ha! nate has a point though...

[ZoomZoom Diva]

I could never subvert my tastes to that degree.

I think a warm wine red would also be a great choice.

[YSOSLO]

lol...Jess and I usually go back and forth on colors, but neither one of us has ever forced a color on the other. We're not afraid of color and HGTV.com has some ideas, but tastes vary so much that it's always interesting to get ideas. AJ's site for Ralph Loren paints was pretty good, and I'm leaning more and more toward some sort of golden mustard yellow/light brown to compliment the gold veining in the granite top. Then perhaps a black frame around the mirror over the vanity and some other black accents to bring out the black veining in the vanity top. Our kitchen is a chili-pepper red color, so I didn't want to go red in the bathroom too, but now Jess is talking about changing the color in the kitchen, so we'll see. I'm sure those of you that looked at the pics saw Ella's art on the walls in the hallway (she snagged a pencil we were using to mark the tiles for cutting and climbed a step-stool in the hallway and got creative) so we're going to paint that too now. Fun fun.

[Workdawg]

I say screw the painting and just let Ella loose with a pencil in there. Maybe upgrade her to some paint after there's some solid pencil marks.

[ZoomZoom Diva]

I could see bringing in gold via the shower curtain and other bathroom accessories as another option. I would be concerned a light brown would be a bit drab, and my personal taste is rather anti-yellow.

[YSOSLO]

Yeah, I definitely want to bring in the gold in some way, but I'm not a fan of gold accessories or fixtures...seems a little too gold-emblem-on-a-Previa for me.

[ZoomZoom Diva]

That's cool... we all have our biases. :D

[Jana]

Can I hire you to come re-tile our bathroom? :D

We repainted ours dark brown, because we have an insane amount of white tile, but then there's an ugly peach accent tile that I absolutely hate. I do not know enough about tile work to take it out & put in something more of our own taste. However, the dark brown is better, than the matching peach the walls were before.

[YSOSLO]

It's actually a lot easier than I expected it to be. The major tough part is making sure you have all of the tools necessary to do the work, which I didn't. Fortunately my brother used to do tile for a living and hooked me up with a wet saw, scorer and a few other necessities. I'd be willing to help anyone that wanted to tackle a tile job after living through this one.

[AJ]

photos of our pee room.

[YSOSLO]

That looks like the color Jess was describing to me...kind of a warm mushroom color. Nice. Now I can see why Jana isn't a big fan of the peach-colored tile. Something you two might want to look into would be a glazing kit. They make them to re-glaze a tub (what Jess and I are going), but they can also be used to re-glaze tile. You could buy a black glazing kit at Home Depot or Menards or whatever, for around $30 or so and just follow the directions. I can't describe what it's like to apply yet, because I'm going to be doing our tub this weekend, but my mom did it to a friend's tub and said it was pretty simple. The reason I mentioned black is because it would be an accent color that would look really nice in your bathroom IMO, but also because the color selection is pretty much limited to the colors you could by for a standard tub or toilet. You could certainly go with white too, if you wanted to just get the peach-colored tiles to blend in with the rest of the white, although they look smaller than the rest of the tile so it might look a little funny. Just an idea.

[YSOSLO]

We're nearing completion of the bathroom. It's been a long road (especially with my dragging out of the drywall sanding throughout the holidays), but we're almost there. My father-in-law did the attic work to remove the ceiling fixture form the vanity area and the attic part of replacing the ceiling fan in the toilet/shower area, which helped a lot. I did the rest of the install on the fan and the new timer switch for it, and wired the new light fixtures up. There's still some wall patching to do, because the granite counter was such a tight fit, and because I was a dumbass and tried to install Jess' make-up mirror where the towel holder was supposed to go. We also (and by we I mean 'I') need to get a new mirror for over the vanity that'll have a dark brown frame around it to tie in with the colors on the shower curtain, replace the bathroom closet doors (we're considering replacing the half louvered doors with 6-panel doors and haven't decided yet), replace the trim around the doors and the window and finish replacing the rest of the switches. Probably another 10-15 hours of work left, but it'll probably take another month or so putzing here and there at it. I've added some new pics to the Bathroom '08 gallery on our Picasa page here (http://picasaweb.google.com/ysoslo/Bathroom08#). Please check it out and see what you think.

[Jana]

It looks like it's coming together nicely! :D

[DrWebster]

We redid the floor in our master bath over the long weekend; when we moved in 2 years ago, we replaced the peeling vinyl floor with peel-and-stick tiles temporarily. Finally got sick of the temporary floor and decided to lay down some nice porcelain tiles:

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee298/DrWebster/tilefloor.jpg

This was the first tile floor I ever installed all by myself, and I f'd up in a few places (hint: look at the toilet flange), but overall I think it's decent for a first-timer. Going with Ditra over Hardiebacker as an underlayment was a really good idea. Since I took the photo, I've gotten new baseboards installed, but still don't have the toilet in (turns out we have a 10" rough-in, instead of the standard 12", so we have to re-use our old toilet until we decide to special order a new one).

[YSOSLO]

Looks good Colin. Congrats! I like the color of the grout you chose...it really blends well with the tile color. Is there any way you can replace the 10" toilet flange to allow you to install a standard toilet? I thought replacing a flange was pretty simple stuff, but the 10" thing was totally throwing me off, because a normal plumbed toilet has a 4" pipe going down from the floor.

[DrWebster]

Well, the 10" refers to the distance from the middle of the outlet pipe in the flange to the wall. I could replace the flange, but that would involve cutting out part of the floor and replacing a section of the drain pipe...do not want.

[YSOSLO]

That makes sense....so a shorter distance from the hole in the floor to the wall. Sucks that you need to special order for that, but I suppose it also gives you a little more room in front of the tub with 2" less toilet bowl sticking out. Any pics after the moulding went back in?

[DrWebster]

Yeah, I'll take some more pictures when I get the toilet back in...hopefully by the middle of the week. I have to do yet another Home Depot run today to pick up some more grout (to fill in the gaps where I installed some filler tile pieces around the toilet flange) and some toilet parts (new float, flapper, bolts, etc.).