Bathroom Remodel Complete.

So, remember how a few months back I was moaning and complaining about the gigantic headache of a project that was going on in our master bathroom?  Well, aside from a little caulk/touch up of trim (that actually needs to be done to the whole house, but that's another project for another day...) it is finally DONE!!!!

I thought that since enough time has passed I can objectively tell the story of our bathroom and not get all worked up about the beginning of it;)  

Our story begins early one morning when we had a day of nothing to do...aka labor day.  Andrew asked me if I wanted to go to home depot and pick up the bathtub/shower that we had scoped out a few months earlier that day.  I told him that I didn't want to go pick it up so that it could sit in our garage for 6 months.  (I'm just keepin' it real here folks!)  I think I hurt his ego a bit and he got the idea that if he demo'd out the shower then we would have to get the new one and it would have to be installed so it wouldn't sit in the garage.

The process all started so fast that I didn't get a before of the master bathroom, so you will just have to accept a picture of the other bathroom.  It is exactly the same just facing the opposite direction:

The nightmare started early and it all should have been a sign of things to come...Since we couldn't locate a water shut-off for the bathroom Andrew just decided to take it slow with the saws-all.  Umm, yeah.  Bad idea #1.  I was sitting on the floor of our bedroom playing with the little ones when I heard the saw stop and the sound of water under high pressure spraying.  The "uh-oh" that accompanied it was not a good sign.  I was freaking out just a little bit when I opened the bathroom door to find my husband trying to control the geyser spewing from our bathroom wall.  I ran to the garage to see if there was something to turn off the water in there.  Andrew followed and annoyingly said to me "honey, calm down.  The kids are freaking out because you are freaking out.  You need to just breathe and calm down."  He said this in an extremely calm way.  I did not respond in an equally calm manner.  I may have used a few expletives unbecoming of a lady......I should mention that Andrew and I are perfect for each other since I am wound really tight and he is ultra laid back.  Normally we balance each other out.  This situation was out of control though.  I ended up calling a friend and going down to turn off the water to the whole house at the street.  Since this whole project was unplanned we were totally unprepared to go for any length of time without water.  I loaded the little ones in the car and took them to my parent's for the day.

 I'm pretty sure that Adrian was thinking "my parent's have lost their minds.  I have no idea what the heck is going on around here."

While Andrew and Adrian worked on demo I was on water clean-up.  The brand new carpet in our bedroom was soaked outside the bathroom.  I used the shop vac to get up a lot of it after soaking up a ton with pretty much every available towel.  The water mess eventually got cleaned up and the shower parts were all removed.  Now we were faced with two big problems: 1) we no longer had a shower in our bathroom and instead had a giant mess. 2) There was no longer any water coming into our house.  At all.  Ever try to flush a toilet without running water? Lame.
Our first order of business was a trip to home depot.  This was an event all its own since the main shower panel didn't actually fit inside our van.  I still don't really understand how we managed to get home with that thing strapped to our roof.
The second thing was figuring out how to get the water turned back on.  Andrew and a couple of his buddies tried to fix it correctly, but didn't have the right supplies and the local hardware store was already closed.  So, they rigged up a hose.  The thing of it is, this does not really work so well to have your hot water feed into your cold water.  We had luke warm water in the house as a result.  But, at least we had running water!

I found these cute little monkeys and decided to keep them;)

When the guys were able to get to work on the plumbing situation we realized that the new parts weren't compatible with the old so another trip to the hardware store was in order.  Did I mention that we made waaaaay to many trips to the hardware store throughout this whole ordeal? Cause we did.

The plumbing is done!

 The tub is in!

The shower walls are going in!

 "Mommy! Stop ignoring me!"
(Notice where the edge of the new bathtub is?  Your eyes are not deceiving you.  The floor does not meet up with the edge of the tub.  New set of problems...)

Then one day while I was at work Andrew and his awesome friend, Jared, hung the drywall.  I have to be honest.  For a while there I didn't think we were ever going to have a bathroom that looked like a real bathroom again.

Then the mudding began and they added texture (which got everywhere).

As soon as I could I got to painting and hanging the shower curtain.  I decided to do something I had never done before: I painted the ceiling the same color as the walls.  And...I love it!

We took out the old towel bar and hung this new shelf (I still have to decide what type of organization I want to use for it...) And I scored an awesome magnification mirror from Ikea for less than $5.  I've always wanted one and now I have one!

While they were going around repairing walls and adding texture I had them fix something that has been a thorn in my side for years.  In our bathroom the hand towel ring by the sink was positioned just so that you couldn't have a hand towel hanging and have a scentsy plugin plugged into the outlet at the same time.  So we just moved over the towel ring and fixed up the hole in the wall.  Finally!  I have decided that builders don't always pay that much attention to the details that make a house a home.

In tearing out the old tub we destroyed some of the linoleum.  Linoleum that I hated anyways.  There were grand plans to rip out the floor and install a heated tile floor, but wait.  We're poor so that wasn't gonna happen;)  I decided that peel and stick tile was the way to go and it turned out perfect.

We have these really awkward spaces under the bathroom counters that I have tried several different things with.  I really wanted to rip out the counter and install a cabinet in this area.  Then replace the gigantic mirror and get new lights too.  But, all those things cost money and we were so done spending money on this project!  I found these awesome drawer systems at Ikea and they have worked perfectly (for $20 apiece!)  I still haven't quite decided how I want to organize all the stuff in there, but my brain was done thinking bathroom stuff so the fact that everything is put away is progress.

While our bathroom was being destroyed we were all sharing one bathroom.  It was a chaotic mess for a long time and my crazy clean/organized self was literally going crazy.  These pictures are mild compared to the real chaos that was going on in there.

I got another one of those drawer systems for this bathroom.  I also decided to go with toilet paper holders that are free standing for both bathrooms.  The one in the wall had been ripped out and "repaired" and the other one was getting loose.  Since they were fixing walls anyways why not switch things out.  Love the result.

The last thing that we did was get a new towel rack for the kids' bathroom.  I made their monogrammed towels for Christmas last year with the idea that there would be a place to hang them and now there really finally is!  This is a rack from Ikea (can you guess where I like to shop?) and although it isn't what I originally pictured, the price was right for the project and it works out.  Andrew says that we have 6 hooks so that means we should have 6 kids.  Easy for the guy who doesn't have to be pregnant or give birth to say!

 I know this was a really long post, but it was a really long project.  I am so happy with how it all turned out.   One of my favorite parts is the fact that the counters have pretty much stayed clear of all the stuff that never seemed to have a place.  Now I want to do the floor in their bathroom and due to a slight addiction to pinterest there are about a half dozen other projects in the workings of my mind.  If only the budget was as big as my dreams;)