My accountant Clarkie approves of the frugal marble job
Dear fellow renovators, demo-ers, builders, pros and fans of reading about it all like me, thanks for inviting me into the group and to blog the Bass-Ackward Bath Reno. It’s sort of a BFD because I'm older and haven’t been too inspired to launch a project since painting and faux finishing the kitchen cabinet boxes with water-based stain. That took forever. I was worried this would, too, but it was only 2 months or so of mess. That’s fast.
I haven't really done a thing to our house since I last painted it, inside and out. That was many/several years ago and I won't do the exterior again because, well, look at this monster. Twenty-four feet at the peaks, the roof is a 10/12 pitch and I had to hire out the dormers. The reno bath is at center in the dormer.
Our 1.5-story 40-year-old house by the Indian River in Melbourne, FL
I want it to look like a river house but not blatantly nautical, although what would be totally radical for the upper deck is ship's cables with a teak top rail instead of pickets (left, over the garage, obscured by old oaks and Spanish moss). The Indian River is to the right.
Here’s a view looking north along the eastern river side of the house to Melbourne Causeway. Plants from front are night-blooming Cereus, split-leaf philodendron, Plumeria (frangipani) and cardboard palm.
The house is a unique style for the area — we seriously have no comps for it — and it has its own Zillow page because why not? In case you’re curious, Zillow page
Walk straight east through the Grand Tetons to the mailbox. We sit on the walk, look north and watch rockets go up.
We'll have owned the place for 30 years in 2017, up from Pompano Beach in ‘87 and lived there back to ‘72. Time flies but we don't move too quickly, must admit. It took ten years to place the sofa correctly and a bunch of other things took forever, like faux finishing the wrought iron stair railing to look like it’s on fire.
A few months ago I'd finally had it with the south-facing upstairs bathroom. I'd tried to make the best of it but it had gotten real ugly. Harvest gold sink, lav and towel knobs, come on, man. White tile baseboard with Trumpian gold veins, ooooh, on the windowsill, too. Dollar 12"x12" stick-on tiles (my bad) in green "marble" that faded in the sun. Year-One vanity from hunger.
The Old Horrible
The old "baseboard" GOLD. Byooteeful. You’ll love it, it’s fabulous, the greatest.
My attorney Clarkie solicits Louie the other inspector’s oipinion. Blecchh, iz kondenmd
Fair’s fair, I guess
It all had to go. I started with the idea of ZENovation: just take my time because work hurts and gently chip away at it. First I took out the tile baseboard with a razor blade knife and a scraper. The stuff was brittle and dry so it popped off pretty well. Then I started on the green stick-on tiles. That was my exercise for the week, wearing gloves, peeling and pulling those junky tiles straight up. I forgot I'd used mastic on them 15 years before because the self-stick wouldn't stick. OHD assisted with a long-handled flat scraper. We put a very thin foam down that he got at a garage sale for $1 and it all immediately stuck to the glue residue. It was a good surface to work on but then we bass-ackwards afterward, naturally, read the vinyl flooring package and it warned not to "vertically compromise" the snap-lock vinyl planks.
Happily, it worked out, though, because the foam was really thin, and the vinyl planks fairly heavy. We’d mashed it down pretty good by working and walking on it and the vinyl weighed it all the way down to the floor.
Last stick-ons off. Black foam sticking to tons of glue residue
I went to Lumber Liquidators to scope out the place. My local store was a major sponsor of HGTV's Dream Home in Merritt Island, for which I registered every single day and didn't win. Unfrknbelievable!
The lead installer who worked on the Dream Home happened to be there when I said I'd like strand bamboo on the floor, naif that I am. They guy said I'd never be happy with it because where it meets the toilet it would swell, buckle or otherwise screw up. OK, no argument, I wanted to be happy with everything so I looked at their vinyl.
The maple-look snap-together floating floor was my choice. I ordered and we had to wait about 2 weeks for it. In the meantime, I kept doing prep. The paper coating on the ceiling wallboard had a. been painted about 6 times and b. got wet from the attic during the 'canes of 04 and had bubbled and sagged, so I cut the bubbles away and scraped the loose primer.
Sagging ceiling bubbles cut away and cleaned up
The most disgusting thing on earth to me is a wall-mounted ceramic toothbrush holder. I mean, WTH? I never used one, gross, they get incredibly filthy and they look awful. So I cut away the caulk and carefully pried it out so you don’t have to see it, which left a nice hole in the wallboard.
Harvest Gold toothbrush holder gone. Damage from vanity sidesplash
I layered the hole with drywall mud, gradually building it up with several layers flush with the rest of the wall, then sanding. Any and all repairs to the walls had to be texturized with orange peel spray like the rest of the walls.
The flooring arrived and me and OHD sat down one day and installed it. Didn't take too long, either, once we got the hang of it. There are a few pattern placement aesthetic errors, but hey, area rugs. Then the wall paint went on, two coats of Navajo White in satin.
Clarkie the building inspector approves of the new maple vinyl snap-lock floor
The damage after removing the baseboard tile meant finding at least 6-inch-high real baseboard. Big box had nothing nice...MDF or thin, finger-jointed wood with crummy profiles. No.
So OHD went to a lumberyard a few blocks away called East Coast Lumber just off US1 and found some gorgeous thick wood baseboard. We had a friend with a nail gun come over and cut and install the baseboards and quarter-round for us with OHD's help. It was an OK job, at least I didn't have to do it. I heavily caulked all the 45-degree corner cuts. I rounded the corners where they met the door trim woodwork and shower. Once it was all prepped, I painted the trim with bright white semigloss.
Baseboard and new flooring meet shower and trough. Trough. Arggh.
Uh, oh. Forgot to cut the first skinny piece of flooring to meet the outside shower tile. Figures. I'd just butted the first piece of floor up to the protruding shower bottom side edges. Dayum. Now there was a 1/2-inch trough. Bass-ackwards, we tried to retrofit a piece but no go, it would have had to be the first piece to snap in properly. Perfection offends the gods anyway.
OK, so beach glass, stones, glass pencil tile, porcelain bullnose? No. Nothing fit there. The trough wasn't a uniform width. One shower tile was sticking forward, narrowing the trough at that spot. I just kept thinking and working, cleaned the glass pottery shelves and towel shelf and painted them both brilliant gleaming white, like white holes in the universe. Freaky. I decided not to use the picture frame that fits perfectly around the pottery shelf. Too fussy a dustcatcher for my new look.
McCoy pottery collection shelf. Odd, eh? It was for towels till I cut a new hole for them
Then we trekked to Home Despot for a new toilet. We got a tall Biscuit color 1.1 - 1.6 gallon flush with a top button and installed it without any problems. We'd already installed a new one downstairs, so experience, we haz some. It could be tightened up some more, imo, bottom to floor and tank to bowl, but that’s nerve wracking, You don’t wanna crack anything.
New Biscuit commode. Woo hoo
Formerly Harvest Gold towel bar holder sprayed with Biscuit appliance paint
I cleaned all three towel bars and put them back in the newly sprayed holders. Only one towel bar knob screwed up. The one behind the door orange peeled a bit on top.
Then I was ready for the empty trough between the floor and shower tile. That's when OHD said "Marbles!" like "Plastics!" in Mrs. Robinson. He whipped out a huge jar of cats-eye marbles and I picked out all the blues and greens and glue caulked them into the trough, let them dry and grouted them in with Bone color sanded grout. I'm practicing grouting for the windowsill project.
Closeup grouted marbles
Clarkie my attorney inspected everything bery closely
So what went up last? Two beaded ceiling panels, naturally! Bass-ackwards but what are you gonna do? Our neighbor Rick with a nail gun helped us out as soon as he could. He'd just finished putting in flooring and a new kitchen in his place across the street on the river. OHD cleaned and sprayed layers of white enamel on the aluminum fan vent and AC vent. He had to lengthen the center post connections for both vents and we bought new, longer machine bolts for the light because the ceiling was now thicker.
Bead board ceiling panels and light
Now I'll take you on a roundabout tour of the mostly finished project.
South window and shelf wall
West shower wall
West wall with suit-hanging rack using the old shower hooks
North door wall with Tiffany poster of his stained glass “Oyster Bay,” where my Gramps took me fishing in a rowboat for flounder
Poster shot in dark using phone flash
and last but most,
East sink and toilet wall with my dear Nana’s mirror from the 1930s and the garage sale vanity with vessel sink. OHD PVC plumbed it. He was a pool man for years. Also, that’s a small Highwaymen painting from a garage sale.
Vanity shot with phone flash
For all the work, there's one project left. The south-facing window is still laid with the old Trumpy gold-veined white tile with apron.
Future beach glass mosaic window sill project
Best view in the house
I put anaglypta raised pattern wallpaper on the window ceiling and walls. They're deep and a great pootie lookout, and one of my kitties a long time ago stretched out and scratched the paper's raised surface. It looks sort of old fashioned and like pressed tin. I'll peel off the old and replace the damaged paper with the same paper I have left over because I save everything <gloat>.
The anaglypta paper
The sill will be a beach glass mosaic in white, pale blues and greens in a stylized nautilus spiral or maybe random, depending on my ambition at the time. The wall has to be repaired where the old tile apron ism then orange peel textured. The view from that window is gorgeous and deserves to be framed out beautifully.
So there you have the second big reno at the OleHippie house (after the fence, spa and patio, none of which was done by us).
I hope you all think it came out nicely for a not-pro and like it as much as I do. I am sooo happy with it I'm just goofy. I sit and stare.
I’ll also diary the beach glass mosaic window and rewallpapering, if you’d all like to see it.
<3
Budget
| Flooring |
135 |
| Toilet |
130 |
| Baseboard, 1/4 round |
85 |
| Bead board 2 panels |
45 |
| Paint, supplies, caulk, caulk glue |
85 |
| Beach glass, mastic and grout |
60 |
| Vanity w vessel and faucet |
65 |
| Plumbing parts, misc. |
35 |
Total so far $640
I’d really like to go wild and get an obscured glass panel door with “Le Bain” etched on it. They’re about $225 and up. Maybe by end of year. ;-D
PS: The glass vessel sink, like designer furniture that you cannot comfortably sit on, is more for looking than for using. Have to keep a dishtowel handy to mop up the oversplash. LOL I will suffer for style.
Mo-ommm, when does OUR condo reno start? Never, boyboys, never.
