Category: Glimpses of Life

Alright so, although this post says Day 10, keep in mind that there were two weekends and 3-4 days when the contractor wasn’t working at the house.  Also, the closet doors came in 3/8 inches “off” and had some other minor problems so he called the company and had them re-made.  Another 2 weeks before those were installed.

Overall, the remodel was stress-less.  Our contractor, Jackson Construction, was professional, offered lots of suggestions and kept all his commitments.  Today, he called Kohler for us as the tub has quite aggressive bubbles and the “low, medium and high” for the bubbles don’t work.  Kohler will be having someone contact me to have that taken care of.

Our contractor’s motto?  “Anything to make the customer happy.”

So ~ here are the before and after pictures I promised you.

Okay ~ ready to see the transformation?  This first picture was taken in the evening (I was playing with the flash on the camera.)

Here’s a picture of the tub area taken during the day.

Seamless shower doors … very nice!

Maple vanity (custom made by our contractor) and matching maple closet doors.  The mirrors are from the West Elm store.

A different view of the onyx counter top.

Tub surround mosaic detail …

This turned out almost perfect.  Looking back I would have added a double towel bar instead of an 18″one.  We did have a robe hook added to the shower glass so it makes it okay.

I absolutely love the frame-less shower door and the contractor added an additional 5 inches to the shower area so it’s quite roomy.

The heated floor, especially in Minnesota, is wonderful to have.

Next year I have two more projects for our contractor ~ an upgrade (albeit much smaller) to the guest bathroom and a new front door.

I must say, it was well worth the money and working with Jackson Construction.

Today was an exciting day!!!  Our contractor had taken a couple of days “off” from working at our house so he could build our maple vanity and today was the day he would install it along with the onyx counter top and faucets.  Woohoo!!!

Are you wondering why there is a tarp over the walls, tile and vanity?

Well, the last time the contractor was here he sanded and re-textured the knockdown ceiling so that it could all match since we removed the soffit. Unfortunately, it was the ABSOLUTE UGLIEST texture I had ever seen.  I thought that once the texture dried perhaps (one could only wish) it would look nicer, but that was not to be.

So, because our contractor is “almost” a perfectionist, when he saw it he came downstairs and said “Norma, I’m not happy with the ceiling texture and we’re going to re-do it.”  I breathed a sigh of relief when he told me that.

Fortunately when he re-did the ceiling it came out perfect.

By now we’re at the end of week three including days off for medical, drying time, vanity building, etc.  There are paint touch-ups, mirrors and sconce decisions to be made but mostly the bathroom is finished.

My next post will show the completed project with before and after pictures.  The bathroom looks totally different ~ light an airy now.!

By the end of day 8 things are looking as if the bathroom will be completed tomorrow but that is not the case as there are quite a few “little” things that need to be done.

Today our contractor brought along, not only his one worker but his wife also.  She is a professional cleaner and helped with cleaning as the grout was being added to the tiles.

We still hadn’t made up our minds on what we wanted to do regarding the sconce “problem.”

We were very pleased with the way the mosaic tile looked around the tub.

We used the same tile for the tub wall that we used on the shower wall.

Our contractor suggested tiling the heat register.  What a great idea!  It matches perfectly.

With day 8 completed, we had a few more decisions to make.

So by now, we’ve had a weekend go by along with one day when our contractor couldn’t work due to health reasons.

I really like my contractor.  He comes up with creative ideas to help save us money without the project looking “dumbed down.”  He also takes much pride in his work.

Day 6 was a continuation of preparing the walls so they could be painted.  We decided to use the same color that we have on the bedroom walls and purchased the paint at Sherwin Williams.

Sherwin Williams paint is EXPENSIVE. But, the paint rolls on so smoothly and covers a lot better than other paint I’ve purchased so it normally needs only one coat ~ even over a dark color.

Besides painting today, tiling began.

And, two of the sconces were installed which is when I noticed the problem we were going to have.

There was simply not enough room for two mirrors to go between the middle scone and the other two sconces.  It would have been quite a tight fit for sure.

This all came about because our contractor wanted to give me an additional 5 inches of space on right of the lavatory which made sense to me.  However, we didn’t realize the problems it would create as the mirrors can’t be centered over the lavatories now.  So, we decided to give ourselves time to think about this problem.

On day 7 all of the tile, with the exception of the tub surround, was installed.

We were given strict instructions NOT to enter the bathroom to allow the tiles to set.  Seems the contractor meant business!

Installed Bathroom Floor Tile

Things are going quite smoothly.

When I peeked into the bathroom this morning, the liquid cement that was poured last night has finally dried.

When the contractor arrived he took me upstairs to the bathroom and said “Now you have to make a decision on where you want your shower niche to go.” My two choices were in the middle of the shower wall or offset to the right which would put it between two studs.

Which do you think I chose?

If you said offset to the right then you are right!!!

Today was also prep day for the walls with new sheet rock being installed and the bathroom walls being skim coated for painting.  The previous owner of our house put some kind of a texture on the wall which looked and felt quite ugly.

Notice that the shower plumbing is already installed also.

We made a very good decision to remove the soffit over the now-removed corner jetted tub.  This looks so much better ~ as if this is the way it should have always been.

The closet door was removed as we’re having a new maple bi-fold door to match the vanity.

We’re prepared to install three sconces although, spoiler alert, we eventually took two of them out and only stayed with the middle one as otherwise the mirrors would not fit squarely over the lavatories.

Now all this has to dry.  Seems like we spend a lot of time waiting for things to dry.

And the weekend arrived … it was a very pretty autumn in Minnesota.

I’m a little behind in posting the master bathroom remodel project that we’ve had as I was sidetracked with 1) painting the basement which took me 5 days and 2) problems with Chrome loading my pictures.  I finally decided to use Firefox and so far, cross my fingers, things are going smoothly.

So …

It was a little unnerving to have our contractor tell us, at the end of Day 3, that his blood pressure was 180/120 so he would have to take the day off to go to the doctor to figure out what was wrong.  My response to him was “What are you doing here?”

Come to find out he’s one of those people who don’t have medical insurance and doesn’t like to go to the doctor.

When he returned after his day off he told us the doctor gave him blood pressure medication and advised him to find a primary care doctor and go for a follow-up in 30 days.

For now, all is well and we continue with the remodel.

On day 3, the Nuheat heating system was installed.  I’ve also heard this called radiant heat.

All the old tiles from the floor were removed in preparation to have this heat system added.

The contractor filled any gaps in the floor, i.e. between the tub and the sub floor, next to the heat register, next to the shower, etc.  This was so that when he spread cement like liquid it would not leak into the floor below.

The cement had to be allowed to dry overnight.

We decided to use a regular thermostat instead of a programmable one for our radiant heated floor since we just leave it on all the time.

And the end of Day 4 was completed.

I sometimes wonder why it costs so much to remodel a bathroom when it seems like things go quickly and doesn’t appear to take much time.

On day 3 of the remodel, the electrician arrived. We had them put three outlets where the large mirror used to be so that, instead of one large mirror, we could have three sconces and two mirrors. We thought that would look nice.

We also had the socket installed for the radiant heat that we’re putting in under the floor tile.

The electricians were here a little more than a half a day as we also had them prepare for new LED lights on the ceiling.

Next the area was covered where the old soffit was.  We originally thought that the soffit that ran along the wall could also be replaced but we found out it’s an actual beam so it had to stay there.

And look what was installed on day 3 ~ the Kohler bubble bathtub. Can’t wait to get in this!

The previous owner two exhaust fans in this bathroom.  One was an exhaust over the toilet and the other was a heat lamp with an exhaust in the middle of the room.

We decided to remove the exhaust over the toilet and have a large quieter one installed in the middle of the room.

So far, everything is stress-less.  Well, okay, everything except my husband.  (laughing)

The first day of the bathroom remodel went seamlessly.  One whole day to gut a large bathroom.  Quite amazing.

By the end of day two we had the rough-in for the tub installed along with the onyx shower pan.

The pipes for the shower have also been set in place although not completely hooked up.

Today we went and looked at mosaic tiles and finally decided on the one below that we found at Home Depot.  It’s called Emperador Bamboo Blend and costs $14.97 for a sheet that’s 12×12.  It goes pretty well with the shower wall tile that we’ve picked.

The tile on the left is the floor tile and the one above the mosaic is for the shower wall.

When we first moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago, I knew that the master bathroom needed updating.  And for the last 3 1/2 years, we have had many contractors come to our house to give us estimates but we didn’t feel comfortable with any of them nor with their estimates.

Basically what we wanted done was to have everything taken out and and all new items put in.  Simple enough, no? The problem we kept having was that the estimates we received ran from $34K to $40K. For that, we could have bought half a house in St. Paul.

Then last year, the jacuzzi tub started leaking into the downstairs family room.  Not good. After the insurance company came out and assured us the ceiling was dry, we decided to wait until we remodeled the bathroom to have the problem fixed.

And  so our remodel project begins.

The dumpster arrived first thing Monday morning and within an hour our contractor, Tom, showed up.

Here are some “before” pictures of the bathroom ~

Originally we received estimates to have the soffit over the tub removed but were told it would cost $5k to do that. So, instead we decided to put in a rectangular tub but at an angle to match the soffit. But in comes our contractor Tom who told us previous contractors’ estimates were way off.  The large soffit could come down but the long one on the side would have to stay as it’s a beam.

And thus Day One of the bathroom remodel began which mostly consisted of gutting the room.

The closet door on the right will also be replaced.

Vanity, sink, faucets, lights … all gone.

Then we came upon two surprises.  The first was tucked away underneath the bathtub in a corner.  It was a duct that provides heat underneath the tub.  A little odd, no?  Our contractor decided to leave it there.

Next, I was called upstairs to take a look at a small thin tube that ran from underneath the tub to under the shower to … ??? We’re not quite sure, but the tube looks like one that attaches to our hot water heater in the basement. When we had the water heater replaced, those contractors didn’t know what the tube was for either so they just kept it there.

(Not the best picture … )

I was surprised how quickly two men were able to gut a bathroom.

Hopefully this will be a painless remodel.

Day 2 of the bathroom remodel.