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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).
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!
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.
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...
