Don't Lose Your Marble(s) - Bathroom Counter Top

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Other bathroom remodel posts:

Bye Bye Bye to 80s Tile - How To Remove Trim and Tile, Bathroom Renovation Part 1

She Only Wants Me For My Beadboard - Bathroom Renovation Part 2 

Trimming and Caulking and Painting, Oh My! - Bathroom Renovation Part 3 

Paint That Funky Mirror, White Girl - Bathroom Renovation Part 4

It's official: we are over the hump. The worst is over, the tub is back in place, and the walls are painted, beadboarded, and caulked.

But then there is that nasty countertop...

It actually looks inoffensive with the rest of the bathroom finished, but let me give you a reminder of what that baby looks like up close.

Have you ever tried to clean a tile-and-grout countertop? What about after putting on bronzer and blush powder, which unavoidably spills a bit and ends up - you guessed it - on the grout.

Bust out that toothbrush, my friend. You're gonna be scrubbing.

When we finished the rest of the bathroom, we decided to save the old vanity but replace the countertop with something that fit the room better and made it feel more upscale. 

We looked at marble composites, granite, solid surface, and regular marble. In the end, we liked a honed (i.e. not shiny) carrara marble that is white and gray, and pulls from the whites in the floor tile.

The first step in getting this bad boy in place was to remove the existing countertop. For the most part, this wasn't too difficult. Just a process of pounding upward until it broke free.

You may notice, however, that there are some gaps in the beadboard because we cut it to fit around the old counter. Thankfully, because the wall is beadboard behind and next to the sink, we knew we would be putting in a backsplash, which would cover the gap.

The counter top came pre-cut with the hole for the under-mount sink, which was separate. First, the countertop was glued onto the vanity, and then the back splashes were installed as well. We had free installation from Duca Tile, so they took care of gluing it down and caulking the corners.

They also used a two-part epoxy glue to mount the sink underneath the countertop.

Here is a close up of how the marble backsplash looks next to the beadboard we installed.

And here is a farther away shot that includes the sink along with the beadboard, trim, and mirror. 

And now for the fun part... before-and-afters! 

And another angle...

We still have a few tiny projects left - like replacing the beige outlets (we replaced the outlet plates, but the outlets themselves are still a darker color) and installing the hardware for the vanity. But, the big pieces of this bathroom are finally finished.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• Would you use marble for a bathroom sink, or a different surface?
• Have you ever remodeled a bathroom? Where did you splurge vs save?

Paint That Funky Mirror, White Girl

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Other bathroom remodel posts:

Bye Bye Bye to 80s Tile - How To Remove Trim and Tile, Bathroom Renovation Part 1

She Only Wants Me For My Beadboard - Bathroom Renovation Part 2 

Trimming and Caulking and Painting, Oh My! - Bathroom Renovation Part 3 

When we started remodeling our bathroom, I knew from the get-go that we would be replacing the medicine cabinet mirror. My husband and I are very different heights (1 foot, 3 inches difference), so we need a large enough mirror that will allow each of us to see ourselves.

As it was, I could really only see my collar bones and up in the old mirror. That wasn't going to cut it for me. So, I was on the hunt for something better, and something that would add some more detail to the space. 

Please ignore the mis matched socket plates!

For a while, we considered doing a gilded gold framed mirror. But, over time, I realized it wouldn't quite work. We already have brown, white, and gray going on in that bathroom, and we planned to use silver for the faucet, so I didn't want to throw things off by going a completely new direction with the mirror.

I spotted this gem at Eastown Antiques and was immediately smitten. We have a large mirror above the fireplace that is a similar shape, and the stairwell stained glass window has it, too (see this post for those pictures). So, I liked the idea of pulling that shape into the upstairs.

I took it home and held it up against the beadboard, and was satisfied that it would be a good fit. Unfortunately, with the rest of our bathroom being a grey-tone white ("Satin Snow"), this cream-tone baby was going to stick out. So, I taped her up and, you know, painted her.

Once she was ready, I picked up some high-weight-bearing anchors. The fellas at ACE set me up with this guy:

We measured it out and drilled a hole in the wall, then sent the anchor through (with those wings at the bottom, folded in, going into the wall).

Then, we tightened everything up until just the right amount of hardware was poking through.

And it hung beautifully.

(Note: The trim is not nailed on behind the toilet in this picture, so the shadow looks a little bizarre)

Once the counter and faucet are swapped out, along with the beige light plate covers, we will be in good shape!

(Note: The trim is not nailed on behind the toilet in this picture, so the shadow looks a little bizarre)

Before and after:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• Do you like medicine cabinet mirrors for their storage?
• What would YOU have done for a mirror in this bathroom?

Trimming and Caulking and Painting, Oh My!

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The bathroom is finally wrapping up, and you'll notice in this post that it's actually starting to look somewhat finished. 

After we finished putting up the beadboard, the next step was to put some trim up. We considered adding the old trim back in (which you can see in the image above), but ultimately we decided it would be too conspicuous. We didn't want to break up what would otherwise be a completely white wall.

We found some trim at Lowes that was real wood and already had a notch in it so that it would be flush against the wall and the beadboard. 

First, we measured it and cut each piece to size.

Next, we painted it with two coats of the same color as the walls (satin snow). I didn't prime it because at this point, I just wanted it to be finished and I was pretty sure that since it was untreated, raw wood, it would easily soak up the color.

Then, we brought it into the bathroom and put it in place. Because it was a tight fit and it has a ledge cut into it, it simply sat on top of the beadboard and would hold itself in place.

For the first few days, it wasn't even nailed in, because we were waiting to borrow our neighbor's nail gun. You might notice that, behind the toilet, there is a bit of a shadow under the trim. That's because the wall is curved out behind the toilet, and since the trim wasn't nailed in, it actually  left the wall there for a bit.

Once we nailed it in, we pushed it into place so that it was attached tot he wall all the way around. Since we needed to bend it a bit behind the toilet, we used thicker nails. This left us with somewhat large holes in the trim.

I used leftover caulk to fill the holes. One at a time, I would squeeze the caulk onto my finger and putty up the hole, making sure to fill it. Then, I used a wet rag to gently go over the hole and clean up and remove any excess caulk.

As you can see in the image above, it looks pretty good, but you can still see the holes a little bit.

Once the caulk had dried, I touched it up with paint. This helped disguise where the holes were. Also,  caulk tends to attract dirt, and I didn't want to end up with some dark spots where the caulk was. So, painting helped to solve that problem.

I used pretty much the same process on the corners, using caulk to fill the gaps where there was some darkness visible between pieces of trim.

It is by no means perfect, but for someone who is not a professional and has never really done a home renovation before, I am pretty satisfied with it.

I got a little caulk-crazy and also used it to fill a hole underneath one of the electricity plates. We had cut the hole in the bead board just a little bit too low, so there was a dark area underneath the plate where you could see through to the wall. I filled it in with caulk and then used a flat head screw driver to make lines in it so that it matched the beadboard. Then, I painted it just like the other areas. 

Yet again, it is not perfect, but it is pretty darn close, considering the circumstances.

Lastly, I also caulked where the beadboard met the door trim. Before caulking, this was a dark spot because there was a little crevice there. Now, it's smooth and white.

And that, my friends, is how you trim and caulk beadboard. Up next is some marbley countertop beauty...

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

• Have you ever done trim? Did you find it difficult to cut or easy?
• What about caulking? I had an easier time since everything was white, but if I were trying to caulk something that was not white on the background, I think it would have been awful!

She Only Wants Me For My Beadboard (Bathroom Renovation, Part Two)

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I know you all are curious to see how this bathroom renovation has turned out.

...so am I.

When it came to what to remove from the bathroom, it was a pretty easy answer. Everything 1980s, beige-y and salmon-y, had to go (GOODBYE TILE!). But, then we had a few options for what to do once that was out.

Original plan:
At first, we planned on removing all of the tile in the entire room (including the floor tile) and doing a white hexagonal penny tile on the walls with a white-and-black basket weave penny tile on the floor (floor like this image). It would have been true to the era of this house (1910s = penny tile and marble all over the place).

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A change of heart:
But, after removing the wall tile, we took a good look at the floor and realized we really didn't dislike it so much. It was recently put in by the previous owners, so it is in great shape, and it has some white and gray in it, so we know we will be able to brighten things up by whitening the walls. By keeping it, we could make our bathroom renovation significantly shorter/cheaper, and avoid having to remove the tub and toilet.

So, we decided to keep the floor tile. Huzzah for slightly less renovation work!

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But what about the walls?
Next, we debated the wall tile idea. As it turns out, "penny tile" is much more expensive than its name suggests. We realized we would be shelling out four to six hundred dollars on the wall tile, alone. We didn't have a specific budget in mind, but we did want to be as price-conscious as possible at every turn, because this isn't a "forever home," so we want to be smart about how much we invest into it.

So, when the idea of beadboard popped into my head, it was really the price and time factors that confirmed it as a brilliant idea. For $80, we could get enough beadboard to do the bathroom with extra to spare, and it would take us less time because we found large pre-fabricated slabs of imitation beadboard at Lowes.

$80 vs $600... there was really no contest. So, we revised the plan.

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Getting down to business!
Once the walls had been patched and smoothed, we picked up the beadboard and started cutting it. We still had a large piece of the drywall that the old tile was attached to, so here's picture that show the color difference. I was immediately satisfied that this change would brighten and visually "clean up" the bathroom.

My in-laws came over to help us cut the beadboard to size. We measured each wall and cut it to size as best we could.

Then, we would bring it up to the bathroom and put it in place. If it wasn't a perfect fit, we went back downstairs to trim a little off.

Once we were satisfied with the fit, we glued the back with Locktite Binding Glue. We did a line around the edges and then every 4-6 inches in between.

We continued this process around the room, matching the pieces up as best we could. We tried to keep the pattern continuous by cutting the pieces so that the vertical "grooves"were always the same distance apart, even when moving from one piece to the next.

Once every piece was in place, we could still see some edges where the pieces met up.

Finishing touches:

The next step was to caulk all of the places where the pieces met up, including corners and one spot on each of the longer walls. We also painted all of the walls and beadboard, so that the everything would be wipable. The beadboard came pre-finished, but it did scratch during the installation process. I also read in reviews that it would smudge easily if it hadn't been sealed well with a few coats of paint. So, paint we did. We used Satin Snow (a white with cool, gray tones) and got to work. 

Once this process was finished, we could already see some major change in the bathroom. Next up was finding the right trim to put on top of the beadboard, cutting it to size and painting it, and dealing with the mirror and countertop! More to come... 

Bye Bye Bye to 80s Tile - Bathroom Renovation Part 1

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If you saw my upstairs house tour, you know there was one room, in particular, that needed some serious help. The upstairs bathroom, while technically functional, had been renovated (maybe in the 80s or 90s?) in a way that made it totally stand out from the rest of the house. From the fat upper trim to the pink-and-cream tile everywhere, we were determined to tackle this early on so that we could enjoy the bathroom.

Here is what we were working with at first:

For some reason, this tile simply looks dirty to me. Even after I'd given it a good old fashioned scrubbing, it had a grungy, grime-covered look to me. Not exactly what you want to see in a bathroom, where you're supposed to be getting clean.

On top of just being dirty looking, awfully colored tile, it was put everywhere. Even the countertop was tiled, which is one of my pet peeves in homes because it is so dang difficult to clean, and it's really easy to stain tile grout with makeup. They also brought this tile all the way around the walls of the room.

So, stage one of this bathroom remodel was to get rid of everything bad in the room, i.e. wall tile.

First, I removed the medicine cabinet/mirror that was hung above the sink. This was pretty simple - just a process of removing all visible screws and pulling the medicine cabinet out of the wall to reveal the lathe behind it.

The next step was to remove the trim. It had been caulked on top, so I used a box cutter to score a line in the caulk. This loosens the grip there so that the trim can be pulled off more easily.

Then, I used a chisel and hammer to get underneath the trim from above until it was a bit removed from the wall.

Occasionally, switching to a bar helped me get more leverage against the wall.

Once there was a visible gap between the trim and wall, I pulled it off with my gloves on.

We weren't sure if we were going to re-use this trim or not, so we wanted to keep it intact and orderly - just in case. I used a permanent marker to write the location of each piece on the back, to avoid confusion later on if we decided to use them.

Once the trim was off, we also removed the light plates so that we could get to the tile underneath them. Then, we got to work on the tile, itself.

We used a chisel and hammer (and occasionally the bar) to remove the tile from the wall. The chisel was placed at a very slight angle, almost flat against the wall, and pushed up against the side or top of a piece of tile. We hit the end of the chisel with a hammer until the tile pieces came loose.

Note: If you are doing this, wear gloves! Chipped tile can be very sharp, and it's easy to get cuts all over your hands, so wear some leather work gloves for protection.

The first wall (above) was fairly easy to remove the tile from. Pieces fell off easily, and some even fell off in pairs.

As we worked our way around the room, however, we ran into some problems. Whoever did this bathroom remodel (clearly quite a while ago) had done each wall a little differently.

In some areas, the "1980s remodelers" put a piece of drywall up against the plaster wall and glued the tile to the drywall. Where this was the case, the tile was ripping the drywall, but this wasn't much of an issue - we simply removed the drywall piece along with the tile, revealing the smooth, intact plaster wall behind it (see photo above).

In other places, the "1980s remodelers" skipped the drywall and simply glued the tile directly to the plaster. Where this was the case, removing the tile caused the plaster to rip and crumble, revealing the lathe behind it (see photo below, and my terrified face).

So, we ended up with a mostly clean break where there had been drywall, but one wall looked awful and would clearly need to be repaired (hmm... guess which wall?).

We considered doing this ourselves, but ended up calling someone to come help us hang and screw in the drywall. After completely botching the removal, it seemed wise to get a little help. He hung the drywall and then mudded and sanded around them to make the patching look smooth.

Next, we got started on installing what would be covering up those walls. 

What do you think it was?!