Say goodbye to the circus - a bungalow bathroom renovation

Big project. After contemplating it for several years, we finally found - or were given - the time to rehab our bathroom. It is a limited rehab in that we did not change out the floor tile and we kept the plumbing fixtures but we did change out all of the lighting, wallpaper, accessories and decor. 

To say that things were rough to begin with is an understatement. The bathroom was a sort of mish mosh of thigns that had been added over the years. The over-sized and low-hanging light fixture, the big cabinet over the toilet, and the weird wallpaper choice all made the room a bit full and made me feel claustrophobic. 

The layers of paint and chipping and delaminating plaster were particularly bad in this room and there was some bad cracking and mold on the ceiling that just couldn't be fixxed given the surface texture and years of poor upkeep. 

The fist big part of the project was to remove all of the wallpaper. We were very fortunate that this part was relatively easy. We perforated the surface and sprayed it with warm water and it pealed off without too much work. After getting the paper down, I washed down the walls several times to remove all of the glue. 

There was a significant amount of patching to do in this room before we could paint. The main walls had odd score marks. It looked like the PO's contractor cut the wallpaper in place, scoring all of the original plaster. The lower part of the walls are all original faux tile - a plaster scored to look like tile. 

Thee were some areas where the original finish of the faux tile was visible and it was an incredible finish - as fine as Venetian plaster. Unfrotunately it had been covered with several years of paint to the bestw e could do is to patch areas that had fallen off and then apply another layer of paint. 

 

For the fixtures and accessories and all of the new hardware, we chose a polished nickel finish. This way all of the new stuff matches and it has a classic look. Nothing in the room was original so we figured we could take some liberties with this and get what we like. Unfortunately, with COVID happening, getting orders in has been a bit difficult but we have everything now except a couple towel bars. 

The new ceiling fixture is nice and high but still has some character so the room feels much lighter and larger.  

The colors that we chose for the room are much cooler than what we have around the rest of the house. My wife and daughter chose them all. We used all Sherwin Williams paints and the lower color and trim is "Greek Villa", the ceiling is "Crisp Blue" and the walls are "Debonair". I'd like to say that I miss the circus that was our previous decor but I don't. This is such a welcomed change. 

We are particularly happy with our choice of fixtures over the refurbished medicine cabinet. It is the Davis Double sconce with the faceted turtle shade. It provides a good amount of light and is also very decorative - and doesn't hang down over the cabinet the way our old one did.  

For being almost 100 years old, we are happy with our medicine cabinet. We had to change out the hardware though. A Home Depot white pull and plastic magnet latch just didn't do it justice. New polished nickel hinges and thumb latch fit the look of the historic bathroom and coordinate well with the rest of the room.  

 As we add more details, I'll update with another post but the bathroom is being used again and we are happy with how it came out. 

The Hall Part 1- You would think such a small room wouldn't be such a big project

I don't know why I waited so long to start this project. It is a small room and should be pretty quick, right? The problem is: when I did the wood cleaning and refinishing throughout the rest of the house, I quickly learned how difficult it was to strip doorways. Though this is a small room, it has two doorways. I also knew that I wanted to create a built-in mirror/coat rack in this room so it would take a bit more time. 

 After we moved in, we bought a wardrobe and placed it in the front hall to store coats. Before moving it in, I had taped an outline of where I wanted a future mirror to be. Of course, when I pulled out the wardrobe, the tape, from ten years ago, was still there.

The room had other issues too. There was pealing canvassed walls and cracking plaster that needed repair. I decided not to fuss with these elements all that much and just did a plaster patch and repaint over the papered and plastered areas.

The wood in this room was much like the rest of the wood ocne was in the house: splattered with paint, poorly stripped, dirty and all around crappy-looking. I spent quite a bit of time with the denatured alcohol and steel wool cleaning it all up.

The door was a particular challenge because it has quite a bit of detail. I cleaned out the lambs tongue molding and made some minor repairs to the door. 

I then stained all of the wood and this room in much the same way that I stained the wood throughout the rest of the house. I followed up with a varnish over everything.

Smooth Finish

I am pretty excited.  The plaster work came out great.  In the small before and after pics below, you get an idea of the dramatic change that has happened in just a couple days. 

BEFORE

AFTER

It is hard to depict how smooth the new plaster is.  I asked the guy if I needed to sand it and he looked at me funny - as if I just called his mother a dirty name or something.  But now that I am looking at it closely, the walls are like glass.  Very smooth and almost shiny.  It is difficult to capture on camera.   

I can't wait to start cleaning and finishing the wood so that I can paint.  I have three finishes I am going to try out and then move from there.  I know the original finish had a dark, almost reddish, tint to it and a pretty high sheen.  This isn't typical of most Arts & Crafts bungalows but it seemed like it would have been typical in a place like ours.  A less expensive wood, birch, was used on all of the woodwork and the finish would have tried to approximate the look of mahogany or some other expensive finish.   

Scratch Coat

The plaster guys spent the fist couple hours masking all of the woodwork and removing any previous patches and skim coats. 

They then applied a primer to the walls and began applying a scratch coat over the existing plaster.  They will end up finishing this new skim coat with one more finish layer.

For the most part, the plaster is in good shape so there was not a lot of removal or re-adhering.  Except for one area, where there used to be a wing wall between the living room and dining room (this was long before we moved in.  They decided to demo this area so that it could be smoothed out.

It wasn't a messy process but I can see a few areas where the plaster got on the wood so I will have some cleanup to do as I am refinishing the wood.  Overall, I am happy with things though.  It is a remarkablee improvement already.  I will never understand why folks remove their plaster and put up drywall.  The cost difference is negligible in this part of the country and the quality of the final product just can't be compared.

We also started looking at colors today.  I received several hearty "NO"s to any of the oranges that I proposed.  I am color blind after all so maybe they are a little harsh to someone without my genes.  So how does "acorn" sound? 



We're Moving

No, much to my wife's dismay, we are not leaving the Tiny Bungalow.  Instead, we had to move all of the furniture out of the living and dining rooms because the guys come tomorrow to fix all of the plaster. 

This means that I will be very busy the next few weeks working on woodwork and painting. 

We sure are going to miss the Tuscan restaurant feel of the dining room though. 

As if I didn't have enough to do, I found these fixtures on Craigslist and am going to rehab one for the living room.  I also ordered the hand made art glass globes for the dining room fixture.  There are going to be a lot of changes around here and a lot of activity for once.