We finally made a commitment about our bathroom redesign. Rather than be traditional 1950s, we went a little more 60s, influenced by this midcentury modern style we liked from this image below. So last week, with the help of our family, we set out to start with phase one: retile the shower.
This is what our bathroom originally looked like. The tiles were a bluish gray and don't go very far up the wall. The room just felt dark and...bleh.
A kind of useless...soap dish...thing?
These old fixtures were really giving us a hard time. Imagine the Inception "waaaaaaamp" every time you turn on the diverter.
Eventually this vanity will go too!
The original aluminum windows.
Sawing off the old wall!
Pulling off some of the loose tiles.
Sometimes we'd get lucky and pull off a whole wall.
Back to Lowe's for some plumbing supplies.
After some troubleshooting and leaving it overnight to make sure there were no leaks, we were good to go!
These braces are apparently usually on exterior walls, not interior walls. Yay for having an extra sturdy house!
Adding the water-proof cement boards (You use these in showers, rather than drywall)
Cement board complete!
Filling in the gaps with caulking.
Starting the mortar!
Working our way up! We were soooo slow (that's what happens when you have two perfectionists.)
My husband, Stefan learned to use the tile saw.
After a day and half, we were finally getting the hang of mortar. But we were so tired already!
Have you ever done pottery? Then you understand that at a certain point of being covered in grime, you just learn to accept it.
Look at this lazy bun, just watching the show!
At this point, we were so exhausted, this was the only image we got of applying the grout. Wipe on, wipe off.
I love this hardware set that we found. It's super streamlined and I thought it gave it kind of mid-century flair. It's a brand you can get a Lowe's called Jacuzzi (the Duncan set).
The window got an upgrade too!
And here is our finished product!
The last thing for this phase was to paint over that green with aqua. For anyone interested, this is Clark + Kensington (an Ace brand) 30C-3U, Fountain of Youth.
This old radio I have doesn't work anymore, but the color was too perfect!
This weekend I also found some 50s curtain hooks at an antique store, and it couldn't have been better timing!
Here's the cute box they came in.
There is a small cabinet behind the bathroom door, and it came with this super cool handle. It's the only one like it in the house and I love it!
I bought these handles awhile back from an Etsy seller. We will eventually use these on the vanity we are going to build to replace this one.
I can't help but keep these around for purely decorative purposes. I love the vintage packaging.
And lastly, this is our scale. It may be hard to tell from the picture, but it's a minty green.
So this is the overall plan. Phase one was the shower tile. Phase two will be the tile along the half wall, phase three: the floor, and phase four: the vanity/sink. We learned a lot and are super proud of what we were able to accomplish. It's a lot of work, but really rewarding. Excited to get to the next step, but also SO ready for a break!
