Bathroom Pics - Before and During

I don't have time to type up a witty and hilarious post for you right now (I gotta get back to work!) but here are some bathroom pictures, as promised.... 

BEFORE:  See, just as I described in my last post... Ugly.

And this is how the vanity looked about 10 minutes after walking into the house on Saturday morning.  I don't mess around....

In true DIY form, I'm attempting to resurface/refurbish/reuse as many of the original materials as I can... So, I painted the cabinets (twice!) first a dark/blu-ish gray, and then decided I didn't like it so I repainted the entire thing chocolate brown.  Much better.  Unfortunately, that is gonna happen a lot throughout this whole remodel... I'm a super picky perfectionist.  

I also PAINTED (yes, painted) the tacky formica counter top to resemble granite using 4 different colors and a big sea sponge...and I topped it off with three coats of poly to protect it and to also make it shiny like granite.  The pictures don't do it justice...I'm super happy with how it turned out.  I'll be posting a whole tutorial on how I did it in the near-ish future... 

COUNTER AFTER PAINTING:

I also added a backsplash without using goopy mud or a tile saw!  Again, I'm gonna post a how-to... It was super easy.

And this is how the vanity currently looks.  Oh, and I painted the shiny chrome light fixture with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint...while it was still on the wall.  Bam!  A five dollar light fixture upgrade...

All I have left to do, is grout the tile and add cabinet hardware.  Ahhh....I'm in love.

Keys!!!

We got the house keys on Friday night but I haven't put down my hammer and/or paintbrush long enough to bore my loyal blogger fans with the fantastic news... We decided not to move in until Memorial Day weekend and to spend a couple weeks tackling a couple of projects first.  My original plan was just to "paint the walls without our boxes and furniture in the way"...but I hadn't even had the keys in my hand for 24 hours before the bathroom and kitchen were totally destroyed. Oooooooops.

I got to the house super early on Saturday morning (after a sleepless night compiling a to-do list in my head) and I immediately started ripping stuff out of the bathroom... I planned to reuse/refurbish the cabinets and counter, but almost everything else had to go.  Most of the finishes are original to the 1950's house but the tacky Formica counter is probably the product of an 80's remodel...along with my matching kitchen.  Blah. The 80's were a very dark time for interior design...and just ugly in general. 

What the bathroom has going for it:

• The size doesn't totally suck (it's not big by any means, but it's big enough.)
• It has good lighting (big window.)
• Lots of storage (cabinets and a linen closet.)

What I must change about the bathroom immediately otherwise risk scratching my eyes out every time I enter the room:

• the counter (pale blue Formica.)
• the back splash (or lack thereof.)
• the sink (just nasty.)
• the faucet (the kind with the big, single, plastic/crystaly knob on top of it...you know the kind.)
• the flooring (oatmeal-colored Marmoleum.)
• the shower surround (besides being nasty, it's riddled with holes and unusable.)
• the tub and shower fixtures (nasty, nasty, nasty.)
• the towel bars and toilet paper holder (shiny gold?  Um, pass.)
• the light fixtures (super shiny chrome...to go with the shiny gold.)
• the wall color (white with accents of dirt.)
• the cabinet color (boring, grimy oak or something.)
• the cabinet hardware (more gold.)
• every other square inch I haven't mentioned yet (I have my work cut out for me.)

I ripped up the boring Marmoleum flooring only to find a lovely layer of linoleum underneath.  I was afraid of that...but I kept ripping.  It wasn't until I got to the THIRRRRD friggen layer of flooring that I started to get angry.  Like, really angry.  It was like I was peeling back the layers of a linoleum time capsule.  Each layer kept getting uglier and uglier.  Plus, whoever invented linoleum glue is an EVIL VILLAIN trying to rid the world of DIY-ers one pissed off woman at a time.  

I ripped and chipped and chiseled at that crap for hours and barely made a dent.  My hands were cut and achy and I was already feeling defeated.  I wasn't even three hours into my remodel and I wanted to give up already.  "What have I gotten myself into!?!?"  But, after feeling sorry for myself for a while, I went to Home Depot, bought a big ass floor chisel and came back and waled on that blasted floor some more.  That was five days ago and I still have a nasty blister on my right hand.  But guess who won that battle?  Alissa - ONE, linoleum glue - ZERO.  Take that.