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Home Improvement Projects

May 19, 2012

 

Bathroom Renovation Pages: 1 , 2

This is a project that had been ongoing for more than a year. Having just finished it, I thought I would show some of the more unconventional methods I used to renovate this room.
Here's how it looked shortly after I started:

I had just taken the 3' x 4' smoked mirror (yes, smoked) off the wall above the double vanity to expose the flower print wallpaper underneath. The vanity top was removed and sinks taken out.
The tub and tile surround were in rough shape - the tub was chipped and scratched, the tiles were... well, they were ugly! I'm picturing the room in its earlier state, with those tiles and that wallpaper - wow.

When I opened the wall to reroute the plumbing, I found two Coke cans from the late 70's, perfectly preserved:

 

I changed the plumbing to a single sink. There's no need to have two sinks in a washroom this small. I then stripped out the ceiling to frame in the skylight that I had installed in the roof earlier. This is the second location of the "tube light" that these skylights replaced. I covered this in the other skylight installation. A lot of the details are similar for both:

 

On this one, I did something that makes this skylight a lot harder to do: I flared it out on four sides. What this does is makes the sloped sides twisted slightly (the side with "Styrospan" clearly written) and makes them very difficult to finish the drywall on.

 

It took many pounds of mud and much sanding to get the sides looking good, but I think it was worth the extra work in the end:

 

Inspired by the concrete top on my table saw, I thought I'd do the vanity top for this washroom with concrete as well. The buck in the middle of the form is for the sink and the drill has a piece of bent threaded rod as a counterweight to use as a vibrator to work the concrete:

With the form stripped off, it's ready for some grinding to smooth the edge.

 

Finished, with two coats of sealer and the glass bowl set in to check the fit. To block the view of the edge of the concrete top where the bowl goes through, I would have to paint the glass black up to the surface of the concrete top.

 

Although in rough shape, I decided to keep the original tub. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that it was a fairly high quality tub to start with. I repaired the chips and deep scratches with auto body filler, then used two part epoxy paint to paint it the original colour:

 

The paint is specially made for painting tubs and extremely hard and durable after it has cured. When sprayed on, it comes out very smooth - virtually a brand new tub.

Reinstalled:

To prep the walls for tiles, I trowelled on a 1/8" coat of thinset mortar and let this dry.

Pages: 1 , 2

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