We had many project brewing in 2012 (mainly Miss Marion!) but last February, on a random snowy weekend, we took our sledge hammer and began a major home improvement project on our bathroom. We had a strange configuration in our master bedroom that included a teeny tiny bathroom and a smallish closet and a large “dressing area”. It was an annoying waste of space. What followed was about 10 months of mess, labor, mistakes, victories and lots of good learning.
The above icky pictures are how it looked for many months as we made small bits of progress and grumbled about the dust and work. A good friend helped to frame out the walk in closet (thank you Adam!) and another friend, David, whose has the best work ethic EVER, came to help with the bathroom and gave us the kick start needed to make some serious progress.
Most of that progress happened last spring and it wasn’t until last month that our bathroom was finally finished. Why? I think my husband and I both work best under pressure and arrival of the baby finally gave us the push to push each other and get this project done! Honestly, as you can imagine since I was PG, he did most of the work. And a bathroom is A LOT of work! My work was mostly decision making and cleaning up! Now I know why they cost so much to redo- it is a labor of love to redo your own bathroom and neither of us much loved this project while it was in progress.
Of course, we are thrilled with our bathroom now. You really appreciate home improvement when you do it yourself! Especially with all the ups and downs that we had- from unknown dust allergies and injuries, to plumbing leaks and paint spills, we were relieved when it was finally finished. We splurged on our vanity and stone top, but the rest is middle range big home store purchases. I wish I could have added a white pendant light to the ceiling! Most of my creative original ideas for the redo were crushed by cost restrictions but compromising is part of the work when doing this type of project, right? I’ll save all those ideas for when we do the kitchen soon- HAHA! That comment was just to freak my husband out 🙂 How do you manage to get through home improvement? Are you a do it yourselfer or a save up and hire someone? Thank you to my husband for all his hard work!
