Guest Bath Redo

When I first bought the house in 2005, the guest bathroom was used by the owner’s two children, one of which was a typical little girl that loved bright colors.  The bathroom was painted a bright lime green.  I lived with it for quite a while like that, but then changed it to a shade of orange to match some marble bath accessories.

Well, it’s time to change it up again.  When I changed the hardware on the cabinets, I went with an antique bronze color, which was a better look against the plum-colored cabinets than nickel.  I have matching Adorne plates for the switches and outlets as well.  But the wall color is going to be brighter, the popcorn ceiling is going to get removed, and I’ll probably convert the florescent light fixture to LED.

I have a pretty tight schedule for completion and after the first day, I’m already behind.  Day 1 was supposed to end with the popcorn off the ceiling and letting the ceiling dry.  It actually ended up with all the hardware removed off the wall and prepped for patching.  This is an example of poor planning.

*Weeks go by*

And now I have the ceiling done and painted, and the walls painted, which involved removing the toilet to paint behind it.  I still have to swap out the power outlet and switches with bronze Adone pieces, install a new curved shower rod, and I also now want to change out the faucet and shower hardware to matching bronze.

For the lighting, I did leave the soffit in place, unlike the master bath where I pulled it out.  This meant I could replace the florescent light fixture with a simple LED shop light fixture.  That may be solution in other places where florescent lights are used, like maybe the kitchen.

I’m going to learn a new skill with this project, mixing and applying grout.  The toilet was secured with a grout base, which was all broken out when I pulled it off.  Without that base, the toilet wobbles just a little bit.  It should be easy, but doing anything the first time always leaves the opportunity for mistakes.

With the grout applied, the toilet is solid.  However, the color of the paint isn’t as good as expected, so the room needs repainted.  On the plus side, when I replaced the toilet, I used a new rubber seal instead of a wax ring.  They claim it can be repositioned, and I’m guessing it can be reused, which is great since the toilet needs to come back off for repainting.

After another night of painting, which included removing and replacing the toilet, I’m now ready to replace the outlet and switches.  The outlet is GFCI protected, so it was convenient that I could change out all the switches with the breaker off while having a work light powered by the outlet.  Then I turned the breaker back on and cut the GFCI circuit to change the outlet.  I flew through the changes so fast, I didn’t realize the outlet plate was made for 3 modules, while means there was a gap.  So the next day, I pulled it apart and swapped the GFCI outlet with a standard outlet and put a USB module in the bottom so it all fit.  That saved me about $30 instead of buying a new metal wall plate.

So, aside from wall hardware like towel and paper holders, this project is complete.