Welp guys, it's official, I have lost my mind! I don't know if I am crazy or stupid maybe both for thinking that I can pull off a bathroom reno in only 6 weeks. There is so much that goes into a reno that people don't think about or even see. The coordination between vendors, the sourcing, scheduling...there are just so many moving parts. But you guys know renos are my jam so lets do it!
Back in January, I wrote down my goals for the year and one of them was to "participate in the One Room Challenge" so here I am, making that goal a reality. Am I scared, YES. Am I nervous, YES. Me giving myself an internal pep talk here...what's the worst that can happen, right?!
Our house has always been known as "the pink house". In fact, our neighbors still refer to it as the pink house even after 6 years. I mean I can't really blame them because it was quite literally a pink house. I mean everything was pink including the exterior. *YUCK* You all know I love my pink but there is a time and a place and a Spanish-Mediterranean can't pull of a pink exterior. You know what is funny is that we actually still refer to the guest bath as "the pink bathroom" so I guess its here to stay.
Since this is our main bath and the bath that everyone uses when they come over I really want this room to be an experience. To be honest when I decided to do this challenge I realized how much I hated the fact that it was a full bath and not a half. In fact my biggest struggle so far was whether or not to do wild wallpaper. If it was a half bath I would not think twice and would absolutely do some wild wallpaper. In fact, my husband, Sean, and I had initially decided to go with this black Votus lips wallpaper.
But since it is a full bath I am worried that we are going to tire of the busyness very quickly. Tile is very permanent whereas wallpaper is fairly easy to change but because of that I did not want to make our selections based on wallpaper. Are you seeing my dilemma yet?! Also, my style is always a battle between really bold and very over the top vs glam and slightly romantic with an almost slightly Parisian feel. And let me tell you it's a struggle! I want our home to truly be an extension of ourselves but to also be timeless and not too trendy - I want it to be truly curated.
Ok back to the actual current condition of the bathroom. I wish I had a picture but the toilet matched the sink when we moved in, it was the same pepto bismol pink color. Sean, wanted to change it immediately but I convinced him not to waste our money because we were going to gut it anyways. Fast forward to about a year and half ago he had finally had it with the pink toilet and swapped it out for a traditional white one and man did that simple change make a HUGE difference. It really is the little things and I mean toilets aren't expensive so I can't really figure out why I couldn't justify it all along. But also I never fathomed 6 years later we would still have the original bath.
There is a LOT to do and since we both have full time jobs (some might argue that I have multiple full time jobs but we will save that for another day) we unfortunately wont be able to do a ton of DIY. We are going to do as much as we can ourselves but we also have to be realistic with only a 6 week timeframe. Actually 5 weeks because did I mention that we have a vacation planned for the last week of the challenge? Yikes! It was planned long before I signed up and we've already paid for it so we are going.
Here is my initial design/mood board:
Of course there were a few iterations prior but once we decided to scrap the wallpaper, this is where we landed. And I am bound to change my mind on a lot of this so I am sure there will still be major changes as we move through this challenge.
Demo has officially started but we still have a lot to do. And because of COVID I have already run into a ton or hurdles - mostly lead times but also everyone in the industry is busier than ever right now. It's truly going to take a village to pull this off, so wish us luck!
Here is our VERY long to-do list:
- Gut the entire bathroom
- Schedule and complete the hot mop
- Move the plumbing in the shower
- Move the electrical
- Install new electrical
- Install the vanity
- Schedule the templating for the vanity top
- Lay the shower tile
- Grout the tile
- Install the new shower enclosure
- Install the baseboards
- Crown Moulding
- Paint the walls
- Paint the door
- Paint the trim
- Change the door hardware
- Change the door hinges
- Wallpaper
- Hang Mirror
- Hang the lights
- Hang the art
- Style
- Photograph
Make sure to check out the other Fall ORC participants here!
