Shore Files: Mod Beach Bathroom Renovation Part 1

So its time to do the big reveal of the bathroom. (I should warn you I'm breaking this up into two posts because I don't have enough time to write out the full explanation today but I hope you find it worth waiting for!)

Let's start off at the beginning - the before photos. From afar it doesn't look so bad really. Kind of sad and dull but not terrible. But photos have a way of glossing over all that is nasty in person. Like a rusted tub that won't get white no matter what you try. Or craked tiles over an uneven floor. Or shoddy workmanship in general.

But honestly, if it were just those things we would have probably left it alone for another few years. Sure its been a few years since we've wrapped up the reno on the limestone but I wasn't looking forward to having to deal with it again - even in minature. Despite wishes to put it off, we got some indication that there was water leaking from somewhere beneath the tiles. Once we heard that we knew we had to do SOMETHING. We could have ripped around in there looking for the leak and just fix whatever it was but we figured we might as well just do the whole thing the right way now. We also happened upon a contractor who was doing work in the complex already so the stars were aligned I guess.

With that decision made, I had to get thinking about what I wanted it to look like. We wanted to keep the bill down so we left the layout exactly as is. As for the finishes, I struggled a bit at first. I could have went with the obvious choice - beachy cottage. You know the style well - beadboard, pale blues, cottagey woodwork, etc. I was sure I didn't want that (not that there is anything wrong with it, its just not what I wanted) but I didn't want to totally ignore the setting either. So I set out to do a style I'd like to call "Mod Polished Beach" - deeper blues, lots of clean white with a splash of sparkle and grey to punch it up. Here is a sneak peek of my selections but more to come on that.


After I had decided what I wanted, the whole thing was gutted save the toilet (which we just installed ourselves 2 years ago so there was no reason to junk that)


New plumbing and electrical were first to get, natch. And then the other essentials including a new subfloor, sheetrock and tub.


After a brand spanking new window complete with frosted glass (hooray - no more gross blinds in here!) , the floor went down.



Finally it was time for the magic to happen - the wall tiles. I toyed with the idea of having some kind of basketweave pattern on the tub wall but I ended up scrapping it. I luvrve me some basketweave but it wasn't going to work with the concept I had in my head for the room.


I won't lie - I wasn't 100% sure about that decision. I was worried it might look a little flat. But once I saw the tiles in, I felt so much better. It was coming together exactly as I imagined it. Of course, we weren't there yet.


Time to paint!


So close! It was just a matter of adding the fixtures, hardware and lighting before we were at the finish line. But this post is already too long so I'm going to stop here. I promise you'll see how it all turned out along with a source list in my next post.