Bathroom Renovation

I'm pretty excited to share this post with you because so far it's been one of the biggest renovations we've done at The Rusted Ranch. Here are some before pics of our 1970s guest bathroom in all its yellow tile glory! 

 

The vanity and built in cabinets had this lovely "dripping paint" technique that must have been cool at some point in the last 40 years...

 

I've always wanted to say, "It's demo day"! I've never completed gutted a room before so I felt a little like Chip Gaines but on a Lissa Hackney budget. Oh how I wished many a times along the way I could have had Chip here with, oh say a $10,000 budget! But, back to reality. 

 

The first thing we did is removed the shower doors and tracks and began the tedious project of removing and old caulk. Taking off the tracks did pull a few tiles off the wall but I just used tile adhesive and set them back in place. I filled the holes from screws with silicone. 

 

 

It took forever to get this all scraped away, cleaned and prepped for the painting of the tub and tile surround. This was the only tile that would stay in the bathroom. The yellow tub was hideous but was original cast iron so we were excited to save it. I used the Rustoleum Tub & Tile refinishing kit. I'll write another post more about the specific process, the ridiculous smell that made some friends vacate the premises, and my thoughts on it. But, after the tub was prepped and ready I painted it. 

 

3 coats and a wee bit of a nightmare later it was painted! Again, I'll post more on this later.

I ripped out all the remaining yellow wall tile, towel bars, bathroom vanity, and mirror.

 

I didn't take many photos of the next steps. I promise to get better about that! I measured and cut enough plywood planks to cover the walls a little higher than the original tile. My girl, Courtney came over and we planked the walls and painted em up all chippy and rusty white! I love the shiplap look but also wanted something a bit different and more rusted. I sealed them with a couple of coats of polycrylic. 

Courtney had a great idea to keep the existing brass light and just spray it black. I replaced the globes and now it's perfect! 

 

My buddy Paul aka "Handy Hamby" aka HH helped bring my vanity to life. I finished the piece before we moved in. I ordered the sink and faucet off Amazon and of course none of the new plumbing fit with the old plumbing so after several failed trips to Lowe's, I finally got what he needed to make it work. Can you believe that we didn't even have to cut the back of either drawer to fit around plumbing? It's like it was meant to go there! He also cut all the wall trim pieces and floor shoe since he's good at that and I'm not! Not at all. I need to learn but math, angles, degrees, patience...none of these are qualities I possess. 

Thankfully HH does.

We ripped out the linoleum floor and replaced with the gray distressed plank we used in other parts of the house. My friend Julie came over and helped me with the toilet. She didn't know she was coming to help with the toilet. This was more of a dare from HH as he and my hubby were replacing the other 2 toilets in the house and he said something along the lines of  "this one sounds like a good project for you girls". Done. Julie and I removed the toilet (spilling not a drop of water mind you!) 

 

You know it's true friendship when someone will dig out a toilet wax ring with a plastic spoon! 

Remember the "dripping paint" effect? Well when I started to sand it away, it revealed neon colors that were not coming off! 

 

I did not feel like chemically stripping them at this point. So I used some left over flooring to plank over it and I painted it! 

 

 

And here's the finished bathroom:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe someday I'll invest in a really nice camera but for now all photos on this blog are just taken from my phone as I'm sure you can tell. The Lighting isn't perfect and they're not all cropped and pretty. But you know what? My bathroom is done! So much work went into this with the help of several friends and we just love it. We're proud of it. It's an amazing feeling to have a vision and actually make it happen. Sometimes I just walk in here just to look at it! Would you look at that?! Would you just look at it? (Ha remember the viral video?!) 

Comment below with any questions and I'll answer more specific than I did in the post. Thanks for stopping by!