Details On The New And Improved, Beautiful New Powder Room

I’m going to pretend I’m giving you a tour of the new space and then give you all the how-we-did-it details.

If I really were giving you a tour, I’d have to start from the beginning, when it flooded, and we had no water.  Our water supply came across the bridge, just like our road…that floated down stream….Remeber this photo I showed y’all from the day of the great flood?  

Then when the city was able to get our water supply rerouted, and turned back on, the pressure busted a pipe in the wall of the powder room.

That weekend, this happened:

First the vanity and things that were salvageable were removed.

Then Andrew went along the top of the tile cutting the sheet rock… And without a ton of effort, was able to pull down the tiled walls… This is how thick the old sheet rock + concrete + tile was…#impressive  #theydon’tmakethemlikethatanymore We ended up with a lot of tiles that didn’t even break?! Panoramic 🙂 This one is blurry, but we lived with plastic up for several days to keep the dust from spreading through other parts of the house {I can be a bit of a clean-freak…} All the shelves in the laundry room were wrapped in plastic too!

Ok.  So.  Once the demo was done we had to figure out how to put everything back together.  We knew we wanted to get free of the fake laminate Pergo floor, desperately.  and that whatever flooring we chose, it would run into the new bathroom.

We went to Lowe’s {have I ever told y’all before that we love Lowe’s?  We do.}  We loaded up one night and went to our local Lowe’s – that was also flooded, but after being closed about a week, reopened.  According to a manager we met from Georgia {yay!} who was here for a few weeks helping with the recovery efforts, they lost about a million or so in inventory…

While Andrew contemplated prices…

The kids entertained themselves…

And I debated tiles..

I really liked the BIG one but figured it would look odd in our space.

We purchased 2 tiles that night and brought them home to debate.  Mine was more “traditional” and Andrew’s a little more “modern”.

Guess who won?

No, it wasn’t me.

I called my dad…I think it was on a Wednesday {the week after the flood} and the conversation went something like this:

“AHOY!” →my dad often thinks he is on a boat!

“Hey Dad!…..so, what are you and mom up to this weekend?”

“Well, I was thinking about going down to your Aunt Mary Alice’s to go deer hunting…”

“Oh.  Ok, well, I was going to see if you would want to come up and help Andrew lay tile in the laundry and powder room…?”

“Oh yeah?  Yeah.  That sounds like fun!”

Er…”REALLY?!  So you’ll come help?”

“Yeah!  That sounds great!”

My dad loves a good project.  With the births of both of our children, I have had bags packed for us and list made for my dad of projects for him to complete.   I’m not kidding.  When Reynolds was born he completely redid the railing on our front porch {old house} and in this house, he did this upstairs project for me →upstairs hallway.

So, with all of his enthusiasm…He and Andrew started their project on Saturday morning.

In literally EIGHT grueling hours…it was completed.  Well, all but the grout.  But this was a major endeavor and they did it! It already looked amazing!

The next week the grout was done.

This is what we do after work, when the kids go to bed, just in case anyone is wondering.

So now that I’ve shown y’all all about the new floor {we LOVE it!}, we’ll move into the actual room.

Standing outside, looking in…this room is really oddly shaped.  So the door that was there originally was just sort of awkward and in our planning the whole thing out decided that it would be a grand idea to install a pocket door.

I left the following Sunday afternoon, while the kids were napping, to run errands.  I came home and found this:

First of all, the wall here was gone.  I guess in my mind I hadn’t thought that through, in that he would have to take out the entire wall….

But then we also had to rerun some wiring so that the light switch could now be on the right wall when you walk in, not the left.  I thought it made more sense, to slide the door open, or just walk in and naturally flip a switch on the right side of the wall {maybe because I’m right-handed?}, so Andrew rewired everything so that the switches were on a different wall.  He also gave us two switches – one for the light and another for the fan.

This is the new pocket door frame, ready to be installed.

Do you see Andrew? 😉With his head in the ceiling, working on the wiring, the door was in.

From here, we needed a sheet rock person to come in and put up the walls.  Andrew of course stated his case for why he should do it, but I knew the time and mess it would create, and we just didn’t have the luxury of time mostly….  So I won that debate.  Our friend Marcus came in and in about a day and a half, put up the new walls, also added a thin sheet rock layer to the ceilings {we originally had pop corn ceilings, but wanted them to be smooth…this was the easier option} and mud it all up for us.

I painted the walls just a basic white from Sherwin Williams {my go-to paint store}, after we painted the ceilings.

My aunt {who has a great eye for all things home decor} told me a year or so ago that black doors were {are} in.  I was skeptical.  Once I saw it, I was all in.  Andrew was skeptical until I showed him a few pics I’d saved on Pinterest and he became intrigued.   He sanded down the original door and quickly decided that it was boring.  It was plain.  Flat.  No mouldings, no panels, nothing.  So he went to Lowe’s and the doors were inexpensive enough that he purchased a new one.  I painted it one Sunday afternoon.  Andrew installed it, and added the lock.  {For that fun little incident we had last weekend, where I got locked into the bathroom – click here!}

In the room, what’s new:

The wall paper {Thibaut – Tanzania} was purchased from a local shop {Wallpaper Additions for my Columbia peeps}.  And was put up in about two hours by a great guy named George.

The shelf {Pottery Barn Kids} came in about three days…all put together AND with a little template to help us hang it level!

A few little things on the shelf: My Great Uncle Carl’s coin bank from Cordele, GA, a Camellia from my yard, a potpourri elephant that I found at Home Goods last Sunday that was just too cute!  Also, a clock {previous purchase from Hobby Lobby}, a black and white photo from Eliza Jane’s newborn session….and a new little addition I found at World Market today! {see my Instagram!}

At Home Goods last weekend, I also found the toilet paper holder; I didn’t want anything mounted anywhere so I found this one that stands.  I also picked up a little stool that coordinated with the vanity for the kiddos to use for either the potty or to wash their hands.

That’s it!

Oh, wait!  The coolest feature probably is the new toilet seat.  Sounds weird but it’s true!  Andrew found it one Saturday…

It has the kid seat BUILT IN!!!  Reynolds LOVES it.  As in, at bed time last night, he flipped out because he wanted to use  “my NEW toilet!”.

Andrew worked so hard on all of this. He put back all the light fixtures.  He reinstalled that toilet.

He put down all the moulding.  Then we realized that before, since the entire wall was tiled, there was no baseboard, so he had to go back in and cut out pieces for the vanity to slide totally into place, and flush against the wall.

It’s been a doozy of a three month period to get all of this done, but it’s done.

And it’s probably my favorite room in our whole house! 🙂