Transition

Transition
Progress

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Finally back with new Bathroom pix!

These things take time, so say they, and boy, howdy! are they ever right.  Well, here I am finally, back with some news and pictures.

When I left, I was going to come back and tell you about the nuts and bolts of the new master bath, tile, lighting, shower fixture, and the marriage of old and new tile.

First, we chose to tile the floor with the same creamy pale terra cotta tile used in the rest of the house to blend in with the bedroom.  Once we decided that, I was going to pick the tile for the shower.  I went back and forth, back and forth, retro or  earthy? I wanted to blend it with the original blue accent tile, and the pale gray speckle field tile, plus the new floor color.

I went to Buffkin on Merritt Island, where they have a great selection. I browsed around and chose a lovely retro pinwheel design, white oblong tiles with a sapphire blue center.  I felt this would fit with the retro design and the beautiful sapphire blue dot would go with the blue trim tile.  I planned to have the shower done in this tile.  This was early in the process before we were ready to begin so I did not place an order.


I shopped shower fixtures for quite awhile. I had seen a one piece with jets, shower and hand held shower all in one piece and really loved it.  You only need one hole in the wall and all the plumbing is in the fixture.  Greg Valdyke, the contractor, sent me to Alligator plumbing to check out their selection, and they did have one, by Kohler, I believe, for $7000!  Yikes, that was completely out of my range. So, off I went prospecting on the internet, and what do you know, I found one that I liked at O.co for much less money, the Vigo Soho Stainless Steel Shower Panel and Sprayer.  Here it is:


With that ordered and set, I went away to wait for construction to be finished.  It took a good while what with building the room, installing new drains, pouring new floors, tweaking the floor plans.  Greg took down the original door to the half bath and then half the walls on either side of the door, plus widened the opening to make it accessible.  We were thinking along the lines of aging in place.  The light from the window can now shine into the enlarged former Hobbit room.  Unfortunately, we were not able to salvage enough of the salt and pepper tile or the blue trim tile to finish the opening.  What to do what to do?  The shower pan is poured and Greg is ready to begin tiling, so back to Buffkin I went to order my tile.

I walked in the door and they had a new display of pebble and sea glass tile.  I fell head over heels in love with it. It had the blue, it had the gray, it had cream color, all the colors of the other tiles in the bathroom, so I thought it would blend and bring things together well.  We could use it on the edges of the opening, too. With the tile was a brochure showing it installed on two walls and the floor of a shower, while the third wall was a creamy terra cotta tile, also used on the floor.  I stole that idea and ran with it.  The beautiful pinwheel design tile went out the window.  Here is how it all turned out:


View from the bedroom with new full size door. The washer dryer stack is to the right of the doorway.


We salvaged the original vanity, soap dish and glass holder.  The original tile topper got destroyed removing the broken sink. So sad, but I think this is beautiful.
The fixtures are new from Lowe's. 


 The art glass shade was ordered direct from Elk Lighting
The shades are a more blue, the ones pictured were more white. Oh, well.
See how Greg Valdyke contour decorated the surround to hide the original top of the medicine cabinet, which had an oblong fluorescent fixture.

 The original Saturn and Star door knobs on the salvaged vanity cabinet.  New ones ordered from Rejuvenation.com were too small but fit nicely on the two mirror doors of the medicine cabinet.

 Tile mural I found on eBay from seller Artworkontile. It looks like the river bank east of our house. Also the frameless glass wall and sliding door for the shower.  There is a half wall to the left that is also topped by frameless glass.

This is how we covered the edges of the half walls. On the other side there is a curving section of the pebble rock which looks very beachy and cool.  

Greg had not worked with pebble before and when he cut the tile to fit, the corners were jagged. I asked if he could smooth them out somehow, and he did a beautiful job with his diamond sander.  There were a lot of edges to smooth, here, the edge of the sink, the outside corners of the shower, they all look great done this way.


The Kenmore washer and dryer is one piece with the washer below and the dryer above. We got it from Sears.  It fits nicely in the corner next to the door and leaves room next to the shower for a hamper and some shelves. It sure beats doing laundry out on the back patio.  I don't know about you, but I would really worry about some critter or other being in there when I go to open the washer up.  Eek!

The other bathroom we left as is, only removing the plastic shower surround from the Cinderella tub.  The walls and ceiling are fully tiled, and the grout was coated with 25 years of nicotine and hairspray. It took Greg's son Darrell Valdyke four days to clean the walls and now they look beautiful.  The best readily available cleaner was Zep from Home Depot, let it soak and apply a ton of elbow grease.  Here are some pix of the tile:

 The tile around the tub, and you can just see the window with tile, too.
 Original vanity with original tile on top. The floor matches the counter top.
 This is the very retro Cinderella tub.
This is the crazy tiled ceiling.

My all purpose contractor for this project is Greg Valdyke of Titusville, Florida, 321-863-9520. He has done everything from replacing sewer pipes to tiling to electrical work, and added in painting, removing walls and rearranging kitchen cabinets.

Next time I manage to get in here with some updates, we can talk about painting the outside, landscaping, and a little bit of eye candy in the kitchen.  Big project still looming is the front porch build.  Little projects, weathervane needs to get back on the roof, new mailbox, more plants. It feels so good to bring this house back from the land of Nod.






6 comments:

  1. Your bathroom tiles are really lovely and neat! The shades of blue just made the bathroom appear very refreshing! :) Anyway, did you know that you can use baking soda and water as a homemade cleaner for your tiles? It could help in removing stains without tarnishing the color of your tiles.

    Cody Carini

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is good now that we have them clean, but getting them to that state was a LOT of work. Baking soda and water, toothpaste, bleach, peroxide, many different bathroom cleaners all failed. Finally, Zef worked over a period of time. Luckily we don't smoke or use hairspray which the contractor was convinced made the unbeatable combination on our grout.

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  3. Hi,Brian. I tried to e-mail you but the link is broken, so I couldn't connect with you.

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