New Bathroom!

After about a month living on just one tiny bathroom, all of us are glad that we finally have our other bathroom back! It's by far my biggest DIY project, and we absolutely love how it looks now. Everything except the bath tub and fixtures was replaced. Looking at it now, we sorta want the bath tub replaced..... Oh well, we'll survive.

There goes the old sink and most of the vinyl floor.

New floor being installed

Through the project, Benji has shown a keen interest in helping. It's actually quite amusing watching him imitate me. I would normally have a hurried pace as I move in and out between the bathroom and the garage. Benji would follow right behind me and imitated my hurried pace. He enjoyed doing the little tasks I gave him, although he would typically declare needing a break after about 5 minutes on the job! He does come back to work some more, but it's peppered with breaks constantly. Here he is with Grandpa and me putting the cement board down; prepping the wall for painting. He also got to do some mudding, hammering, sweeping and painting. So helpful. Best of all, he kept me company.

Here are some pics of the new bathroom. I've yet to finish caulking and reinstalling the door, but otherwise is usable at this time. We'll possibly need a new vanity mirror. The boys took their first bath in the new bathroom last night.

So what are some of the lesson learned from this project? For one, IKEA products assume you have a perfectly flat and 90-degree angled walls. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. So we have a bit of a gap along the right side of the counter. Second, I'm glad that Grandpa has tools. Boy, I can't imagine how much money I would have to sink into this project if I had to get all the tools myself. Thank you Grandpa for the tools and the help. Third, save yourself some trouble and rent a wet saw to cut porcelain tiles! It's worth it.

We also want to thank all the playgroup ladies for giving their valuable input and ideas toward this project.... and others to come I'm sure.