Monday, May 5, 2014

A "NEW" 1914 bathroom

Way back in January on a freezing cold Sunday, our middle child was showering for church in the second floor bathroom, when suddenly it began to rain on the first floor breakfast room.   After some careful research that involved cutting a giant hole in my breakfast room ceiling, we discovered that the pipes had been leaking for some time and that a wise repair man had stuck a metal coffee can under said leak and towels had been stuffed under the toilet.   Now I'm not sure what decade this occurred in, but I am going to guess the 1980's.   Finally the can gave way or the pipes just finally gave out completely.  Faced with rotting and broken pipes everywhere we decided it was time to gut the 1950's and restore 1914.

About a year ago, I had picked up a claw foot tub that has just been taking up space in our storage garage.  Once the weather stopped gifting us with snow storms, the tub was pulled out, cleaned and the exterior spray painted black.


Before...bask in the watermelon rind 1950's bathroom. 
Custom Vanity Circa 1950's
Bathroom door circa 1950's
Look a Bathroom Window to an interior room!!! ? 

I am not even sure why my great grandparents decided to put in a window to an interior sun room, but I am sure glad grandad covered it up in the 1950's.


Subway Tile from Home Depot...Loving the Dark Gray
Subway tile = cheap and period appropriate for a 1914 home.  I cannot say enough how much I love the subway tile.  We used a dark gray mortar and grout from Home Depot to get the effect we wanted.   My only issue was the spacers, trying to get "T" spacers in South Dakota is darn near impossible, I ended up cutting one side off of every single spacer.    We also ran into an issue with a week long warm up that ended up shifting the house and creating a huge gap between the subway tile and the floor.  DH nearly had a conniption!





3/4 inch Merola Hex Tile with Dark Gray Grout 

Adventures in Merola Hex Tile. Installing the Hex Tile was an exercise in frustration.  While the tile from Home Depot is period appropriate and affordable, it is not the greatest quality for spacing.  Try as we might, we could not get this product to align.   End results are still "ok", not stellar.  I will opt for a higher quality tile next time.   We did not use a wet saw to trim down the edges, just quarter round to match the subway tile which created a nice finished look.

My lucky find! Door Molding, found during City Wide Clean up
Done! Color is "Ancient Stone" from the Valspar Paint collection.  This is a favorite of the "Rehab Addict" Nicole Curtis.

On Sale Toilet from Menards (cheap) with a fancy handle from Lowes, and grandma's mason jars.  All this is missing are more of my insulators. 
Home Depot vanity with blue milk glass knobs, from D. Lawless Hardware




Restored!

http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/   Blue Milk Glass Cabinet Knobs
http://www.kohls.com/ Sonoma Life + Style towels in Light Aqua and shower curtain
Basket: TJ Maxx
Bathroom accessories: Glenshire by Moen. 
Valspar Paint:  Ancient Stone, 347-2
Lowes: Universal Chrome Toilet Handle: Item 247903