Guh-Lorious.

Finally, I get to show you my favorite room of the house! James says, "Bridgette got everything she wanted inside the house..." and this is the room most evident of this. You should see him, in his ripped jeans, covered in grass clippings, looking all manly-like, under my crystal chandelier in a pale blue room next to a clawfoot tub, surrounded by marble. Tis a study in contradiction.

There is only one photo of the "before". It is dark, and small, and really sad. No one should even had have to go potty in there. When you walked in you walked straight into an acrylic seashell sink (who ever though those were a good idea?), set atop a too-small wooden vanity. Literally the sink was just kind of chilling out right there. To the right was a built in linen-closet. Very cool... but what we did was better. The shower was to the right, with a large useless header above it. The tile floor (which I actually really liked) was a matte black hex. Unfortunately, it was cracked all over. 

We were distraught. Of course we can remodel a bathroom... but this was would have been lipstick on a pig. The plumbing did not work. The tiles were all CEMENTED into the walls and floor. The room was so small and this was the only bathroom in the entire house, that there was no functionality it the way things were. So our trusty ol' plumber came in. He told us it didnt' matter what we did in there, the plumbing all needed re-run anyways. So we got to stewin'. We looked at pictures online, we went to the tile area of Home Depot and Lowe's a million times. I even drew up a layout in powerpoint... nerd. 

I am not sure when I decided that a clawfoot tub was an absolute must, but I am very glad I did. I had also decided that I didn't want one of those tub and shower combos. No ugly shower curtain hanging around this bad boy. We needed a stand up shower, also. So we got to knocking and tearing, smashing and dumping. By the time we were finished the bathroom was not an actual room. There was a gaping hole in the second floor where it used to be. Only floor joists on the bottom, and rafters on the top. At this point in time you were able to stand in the basement, look up through the living room floor (because James' beer chute), see through the second floor where the bathroom was, through the attic, and out the roof. Yes. and yet, we kept working. [You can see more photos of the "during" nightmare here.]

We worked through a million ideas in our heads (should the bath have a separate door to the master bedroom? should we open up another window? Should we move the bathroom down the hall?) and finally landed on one that would work. We were going to turn an old cedar closet into our shower. We stood, each, in the cedar closet and pretended to shower, debating whether or not it was enough room. We were going to go for it. 

Everything went. The tile was attached to the walls with a good 3-4 inches of mortar and cement, along with some serious wire mesh. The bathroom was MY job. I used the killer banana to rip apart the tile and drug, one garbage can at a time, all of the old material to the dumpster. This was my part of the project. I was so excited when everything was gone, but also terrified to see my bathroom. Having "the vision" is sometimes really difficult when there is nothing there to even compare it to.

So we got to building. We moved the toilet to the opposite wall, added a tub drain and had the closet plumbed. The vanity was the only thing that stayed in it's place. We re-enforced the floor joists, and started from the bottom up. We placed and set our heated floor, if you remember, before we did anything else. We built our walls and our built-in shelf above the tub, ordered said tub, and ordered the vanity from Lowe's. 

The tub was glorious. It arrived in a giant crate, like a wild animal, and opening and assembling it was like a dream come true. Guh-lorious. The vanity, on the other hand, was a freaking disaster. I try to be civil... but when you bring me a marble vanity with the base cracked, your going to have to take it back and bring me another, and when that one shows up, and it has a cracked backsplash, you are taking that one back too... Regardless, we went through FIVE vanities before we found one undamaged, but at least Lowe's dealt with me and my insanity. They had someone literally drive their own truck back and forth to the house. This was my project and it was going to work out.

Finally we were able to lay my beautiful marble hex tile. Every single day I walk into this bathroom and sigh. The floors are so beautiful. I am so in love with the marble hex. It is like walking on fabulous little sequins every morning. How could you not have a good day? Luckily the tile came in sheets so we didn't have to lay them each individually. Now, again with my insanity... I actually made our contractor lay it twice. I wasn't happy with the first time. I can't even imagine the guatemalan curse words he had conjured up... But the second time, it was perfect. He had also tiled our shower with white subway tiles and it had turned out beautifully.

Now, we did have to go back, due to the mortar being darker than the tile, and scrape away any mortar that had seeped in between the previous little white pieces. James and I did this with tiny little screwdrivers, while laying on the floor, in the freezing cold. I remember it being frigid, and frustrating, and my knuckles had hit the tiles so many times that they were all bleeding, and I was crying - this had been a very difficult month for me. I laid on the floor, with bloody knuckles crying because I was so grateful that this sucked so bad. So grateful that I could do something like this. So happy and sad at the same time that I was lucky enough to even realize how terribly shitty this menial task was. 

Anyways, the rest of the bathroom was put together without a hitch, thankfully. The walls were painted "Mountain Peak White", by Behr. My tub was installed, the shower finally worked (for a while it was just a pipe sticking out of the wall that water-boarded you every morning - I called it "prison shower"). My $23 chandelier was rewired (James will insist it cost quite a bit more to have that done so it isn't really a "$23 crystal chandelier") and hung above my tub. After about a month or two I was able to find a mirror I liked and ordered it. We are still waiting on a few minor details - we need to hang a light fixture above the mirror, cover the bathroom vent, and eventually we would like to get a frameless glass door for the shower, but there it is. My glorious bathroom.

Every day I wake up and step onto my sequin marble floor and apply my makeup by the light of a crystal chandelier. I think it is an experience that every girl should have.  We were able to take a terrible, dark, sad space and turn it into something inspirational. It functions, it is comfortable, and it is beautiful. I am in love. 

It doesn't hurt that the tub rim is *just* wide enough to fit a glass of wine!