We've been on a roll lately with bathroom renovations... and I've one more still to photograph. This one is in Marin for a couple who requested a door a while back. It's been a fun project, but fitting everything in (including life with a 3-year-old) has been tough, especially when coupled with a commute across a busy 2-lane bridge.
However, having great* clients makes it worthwhile and the end result is also great... featuring a few neat touches that I'll detail with the full post after I complete the custom vanity (and bring my camera on-site). Until then, here are some preliminary pictures.
* What makes a great client? This is worthy of a blog post itself, but a combination of patience, understanding, trust-in-the-process, and positivity... it also helps that you're willing to take a chance on a few things along the way which I can detail here.
But first, the before photos, starting with the photo from the real estate listing and ending with the one after Nicola ripped out the vanity after she got sick of looking at it.
Since doors are my jamb (sic: pun intended), it made sense to replace the bathroom door with a new luan door rather than spend 3X more on stripper and time trying to refinish the old one. This was one of the many "we'd be best served to do it this way" bits throughout the project. Nicola figured out how to get the original Sargent knob off and cleaned it up like new.
The ceiling was the same way. It'd have taken more time to tape off the existing ceiling vs. spraying with primer and paint from the top-down along the way — and now, there's a fresh new (sealed/primed) ceiling. We'll match the stain on the door during the next stage/project which involves new baseboards and other mahogany in the house.
They chose matte gray subway tile for the walls and Behr's "Silver Drop" for the walls which make the white porcelain (and ceiling) pop a good bit more. The floor is a seamless continuation of what is running throughout the house — a charcoal porcelain slate-like tile. It's really nice.
The vanity light and medicine cabinet are the same that we used in Diane and Greg's bathroom — in fact, the footprint of the bath (as well as a good bit of the house) is nearly identical even having been built a "generation" earlier in 1958 (sans grounded electrical which necessitated code-compliant modifications). Again, in the "trust in the process" (and the "if it's not broken") idea, most anyone's goals are going to be to get you the best (and safest) for the least — in this case, both the light and the medicine cabinet are very cost effective for the overall quality and ease of installation (which equates to end-costs). No one — even a builder — wants to spend more on less. And everyone wants to be safe.
A unique detail is the addition of all-aluminum trim in the shower which continues from the tile edge strip all the way to the window. In many cases, this edge transition would be either tile — or painted wood. In this case, since we were installing a new Milgard aluminum window (always worth the few hundred dollars) as well as a new exterior sill and new trim (again, part of the "while we're in there" as it made more sense to cut a new one rather than take time to strip the old one) the continuation of aluminum was a calculated risk that worked out really well and creates a seamless flow of material. Being light gray it's kind of hard to photograph, but trust me: it's rad — and probably cheaper than primer and paint (and re-paint) over time.
Otherwise, the old window was a terrible 90s replacement installed within the frame of the original/existing Rusco window — I'd never seen such a thing. I hope I never do again.
Wilson is a secret fan of Michael and Iris' house and we used the same fixtures as we did there — the Grohe Essence line. The tub spout is a bit different after we learned that the standing water on the top of the flat tub spout prompted water spots on otherwise shiny chrome.
Meanwhile, I've been a secret fan of IKEA's Lillangen sink. Its squared format and parts kit make it the lego set of bathroom sinks. However, like a lot of IKEA products, you can never use is straight out of the box with 100% success. With some ingenuity, we've brokered a peace between metric and SAE plumbing and a custom vanity will be replacing the white melamine one in a few weeks. At one point, we even had it wall-mounted on a tiny shelf with success. This sink is really quite amazing.
The new bathroom also features a new Toto Ultramax2 long-front toilet which I'll now insist on with any bathroom project I tackle. It seems odd, but after installing too many toilets that do not to the one thing they're supposed to do — flush what you put in them and fit what you sit on them — I swear by this model. If you're not going to do it right, then why do it at all?
... to quote Wilson:
"I had my doubts, but I have to say: It actually is a good looking toilet... and I find it odd saying that about a toilet."
(FYI // There were many potty jokes that week... and this toilet flushes really, really well.)
The bathtub is Bootz' Mauicast soaking tub. You can spend a lot on a bathtub and have to put a lot into the infrastructure in framing out a soaking tub. The Mauicast is a bit of the best of all worlds: it's as easy to install as a normal slip-in, it's a few inches taller for soaking (but not so tall that you can't get into it for the shower), and it's lined for thermal and soundproofing — and it's not terribly more expensive... or a better way to say it: the value you get is more than the price you pay.
What you don't see is the work behind the walls which takes the most time: code-compliant plumbing and electrical, insulation and bracing (in the bathrooms I build, I install plywood backing within the studs to make hanging towel bars easy and long-lasting). After 50+ years and a few improvements in building materials, some things need to be replaced and reworked.
[Update] In the meantime, the vanity was replaced with a custom piece that was created with existing IKEA panels. You can see more of the photos here.
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