Our first renovation!

When Mr. Pal & I first looked at our town home, one of the things I personally loved was the half bath on the first floor.  I liked that it was located where guests would most likely be hanging out and that it was just a half bath.  No extra tub to clean. (I kind of have a love-hate relationship with tubs. I hate cleaning them because of the effort, but love when it's all nice and clean.)

The looks of the half bath was really nothing to write home about.  It was screaming 1970's and the beige color made me nauseous.  I hate beige; it reminds me of apartments and offices. I need color in my life. I did like the shape of the floor tiles, but again, the beige was just not right.

As soon as we moved in we painted it blue, changed out the mirror and added art. (The previous mirror was a hideous medicine cabinet). It was livable for the time being, but we knew we wanted to do a complete overhaul.  The floor and the cabinets were just too ugly for the serene blue on the walls.

There are a lot of rooms that needed updated in our townhome, but being first time home buyers, and first time renovators, we were a little hesitant to get our feet soaking wet. We figured the half bath would probably be a good place to start since it was small. (unlike the kitchen, which is also stuck in the 70's.)
So I looked online for some inspiration and boy did I find some great ideas!

Via here

Via here

 Mr. Pal and I both agreed we wanted to keep the blue walls. We both loved the look of wainscoting and agreed that a pedestal sink would be perfect for the tiny half bath. It would free up the floor space unlike that hunk of a formica cabinet we had in there now.

We took a weekend and priced out toilets, sinks, tile and wainscoting at our local home stores to find the best prices. Once we found the best prices we went shopping! That's my favorite part!! We got a beautiful pedestal sink, a white toilet (hello new millennium!) and this tile that we both fell in love with.  The blue in the tile really tied into the blue walls, but if we get tired of blue walls, the tile is neutral enough to switch out the bathroom color.

Please excuse the horrible cell phone pic. I couldn't find the tile on-line.

We brought home our goodies and I called my dad for his help.  Growing up my dad had gutted and redid just about every room in the house I grew up in so I knew he'd be perfect to help us out with our half bath renovation.  I was so excited to start I could hardly sit still!

Once we knew when my dad would be coming to help us, we decided to get a head start and do the demo work ourselves.  Love demoing all the old, ugly stuff! Here's Mr. Pal getting rid of the beige toilet.

All gone!  There was still a little bit of water in the toilet that we couldn't get out which is why there are towels on the floor.  Also, we needed to make sure that we cover the hole in the floor due to gasses released.

Next it was time to kiss that formica cabinet and beige sink good bye!!

Our bathroom looks so much bigger without that formica cabinet taking up half the room. I just want to mention here that I didn't play a big part in this part of the demo.  Our toilet & sink came out pretty easily so Mr. Pal just plowed right through it.  I was a little upset I couldn't get my hands dirty/frustrations out, but we still had that beige floor to remove.

Here's our shell of a half bath.  I got to participate in the demoing of the floor.  It totally made my day!! The tiles came up pretty easily. I guess they knew they were ugly and needed to go! haha!  The glue was another story though. I think Mr. Pal & I scraped the glue for about three days.  When we had a free moment we would just go in there and scrape away.  We need the floor to be smooth for our new floor.

Now it was time to lay down the law tile. Here I am putting down the tile in our bathroom.  I was so excited that we had completed the floor with our own hands...with the help of my dad of course.  I'm sure if Mr. Pal & I attempted this on our own the tile would not be in a straight line. haha

And here is where I totally slacked off.  We moved so quickly with putting up the wainscoting and installing the sink and toilet that I totally forgot to take pictures along the way.  So, without further ado, here is the finished product.  Our very first renovation!

I'm in love with the wainscoting  the floor, the white appliances, I just love the whole room!   I'm just so happy with how our little bathroom came out.  See that toilet? That was one expensive toilet! We tried to keep our renovation under 500 bucks, but because the rough in for the toilet was 10" instead of the normal 12", we had to special order it, which cost more.  It also set us back a few days since we had to wait I think a week or so for it to be delivered to the store. I think when we move I'm going to measure all the toilets in the new place to make sure they have a normal rough in!

Here's our first "expensive" purchase from HomeGoods.  It was about $75, but it was the most we've ever spent in that store. I usually run in there to get small items, like hand towels or decor stuff, all of which never came to more than $20.  It was nice to finally use HomeGoods for what it's supposed to be for, which is discount furniture! I love this cabinet. It's the perfect size for this corner and holds our spare toilet paper and other bathroom necessities. 

And I can't show the bathroom without the best part.  And why is the light the best part?? Because it was F-R-E-E!!!  Yup, I totally love free and I'm not ashamed to take hand me downs.  This was from Mr. Pal's mom. She was completely gutting her own bathroom and was upgrading her lighting, so we got her old one. It fits perfectly in the room and the price always makes me smile!

So that's our first renovation.  I'm sure there's more to come. We learned so much and were so happy to have my dad lend us a hand and for Mr. Pal's mom to supply the lighting. On to the next reno!! :)