life and puppies

In reinventing our entire home (at least it felt that way), one of the priorities was redoing the downstairs bathroom. It really wasn’t that bad, but if it was going to become our main bathroom (which it was and now is) I really wanted some updates. Number one (no pun intended) necessary new item was a toilet. I swear the old one was about six thousand gallons per flush. I also wanted tile flooring (it had vinyl tile) and a new sink. Oh, and a tiled shower. Eeks! I didn’t think this was too crazy, but the contractor we had do some things for us insisted that we did not want a tiled floor or a tiled shower. We didn’t? I really thought we did. Hmm. Upon hearing this, my mom insisted we head out to Nonn’s to see whether they believed us when we said we wanted things tiled. They did. Thanks mom! They took my credit card number and the rest is history.

I took crappy before shots and my after shots aren’t great, either. It’s a small space so it’s kinda hard to photograph. I think you get the sense of the thing, though.

Old toilet and old toilet paper holder

New toilet!

Thanks to Home Depot for the awesome new (and so easy to use) toilet paper holder! Why companies make such craptastically hard-to-use models is beyond me.

I think you get a pretty decent sense of the flooring difference in the above photos, too. Vinyl versus tile. Though our contractor guy insisted “they make really beautiful vinyl these days,” I have to disagree. I’m not against vinyl as an immutable rule, but geesh: it can’t compare to tile in a bath. Plus, because the bath is teeny it seemed the one place in the house we could probably afford to tile. Alright, what’s next? Ah! The shower! There wasn’t really anything wrong with the previous shower stall, but it just wasn’t very welcoming. And as someone who already showers a lot less frequently than she should, I didn’t need yet another excuse not to rinse off. [I had never showered in the downstairs bath — that’s seven years of avoidance — until we got the new shower.]

The previous shower stall

One of the loves of my life: white subway tile

Shower stuff

And let’s have one more, shall we?

From the doorway

And let’s look at some sink-on-sink action:

A very loft-vibe with its exposed piping

And the pedestal sink with its pipes covered up like the Puritan it is

What else? Well, I kinda wanted to glam the space up. I suspected divorce could be in my future if I asked Aaron to paint again, so we kept the wall color (which I actually like even more now), and I just added some bling with chrome-y accessories and some cleanliness with white, ceramic toiletry necessities.

Glass shelf with what-nots

Storage

Deer head

That last piece was just added tonight (it cost me $20, but honestly I think it’s my favorite thing in the room after the tile). We’re still waiting on one light fixture, and we need a little caulk here and there, but this is pretty much our new bathroom. I really hope you like it.