The Bathroom that Decided Our Fate
Updated: Sep 1, 2017
Okay, the title might be a little dramatic, but I stand by it. One of the main reasons we are moving to Vermont is so that Boris has a chance for a career in renovation/rehabbing and not just a extremely time intensive hobby. I knew he was handy before he renovated our upstairs bathroom - he had built furniture for work, made a built-in bookshelf for our family room, but these were somewhat straightforward projects. A bathroom gut called for plumbing and electrical work and even some structural engineering, as he proposed to rip out our ceiling and build an arch over our new shower/tub. Here are some pics of the old bathroom:
More than a little ugly, right? For the remodel, we couldn't really change the footprint of the bathroom, but wanted to make it feel larger. Boris proposed raising the ceiling and adding the arch, I said sure, with no real idea of what work went into that. We also agreed to subway tile the whole bathroom. Also, just a reminder, Boris did 100% of the work on this bathroom himself, with a very small assist from a very pregnant me. Mostly, I would just sit on a stool in the bathroom and paint plaster on the back of tiles and hand to him while he did the hard work. Here is a progress picture of the arch:
Did you know that's how you made an arch? Yeah, me either. Boris also designed the floor, then sent the design to a tile company. Finally, he added radiant heating underneath the floor tile so we have toasty toes in the winter. Here are the finished photos of our current bathroom (sans baby toys, etc.)
If memory serves, this entire renovation (sans labor of my husband) cost around $7,000. It has hopefully increased our property value at least twice that amount and Boris obviously picked up some valuable skills in taking on this project, which is also why I trusted him to renovate our kitchen (pics and progress coming soon!) So this project, along with additional ones I'll share, has given me faith in my husband's wish to make a career out of this hobby and faith that we can make something of the crumbling farmhouse we're about to purchase!