Guest Bath Remodel: Take Two

Let the Spring One Room Challenge begin. If you are unfamiliar with the One Room Challenge, it is a bi-annual, eight-week design challenge started by designer/blogger Linda Weinstein. The ORC is a wacky crush of camaraderie, deadlines, and stress, but I have always benefitted from the focus required to get a lot done in a short amount of time. 2022 is the 10th anniversary of the ORC. To celebrate, the team has partnered with Apartment Therapy to showcase the greatest number of guest participants possible. It is my understanding that there are no featured designers this round.

During the next eight weeks, I will be finishing the guest bath. Ugh! How do I even begin to fill you in on what’s happened so far? The short of it is that I hired a contractor to renovate the guest bath, and it was a giant fail. So now, I am doing it myself. This is take two.

When it comes to talking about the first take, my process on the blog is type type type, delete, delete delete, type, type, type, delete, delete, delete because I am still so sad and angry that I spend thousands of dollars and have almost nothing to show for it. However, instead of rehashing everything that went down between November and the end of February, it will become apparent as the One Room Challenge unfolds.

A Quick Intro

If this is your first time here, welcome! I am Stacy, a devoted old house lover, window restoration educator, DIYer, and host of the True Tales From Old Houses podcast. This is my 11th One Room Challenge project.

Some of them have gone very well:

• Cabin Vibes Bedroom
• Blank Slate Laundry/Office
• The Scary Bathroom
• The Breakfast Nook (featured in This Old House magazine!)

Others? Well…The Street Side Front Porch missed the six-week mark, but with my friend Dale’s help, it all came together by mid-summer.

Something else to know is that I try to leave original features intact, and as much as possible, I preserve, rehab, and restore vs. renovate. However, BHH is not a museum. We live here. We make messes here, and we accidentally break stuff sometimes too.

The Guest Bathroom Today

Since this project has been in the works for some time, there are already several blog posts with extensive before photos. So, I’ll simply begin with today and the plans moving forward.

Although the photos show that work has been done, I have zero faith in the waterproofing. The floor slopes and dips at the corners and edges, and the tile spacing is all messed up in several sections.

After thinking about it for the last month, I’ve decided that the best course of action is to remove all the tile and cement board down to the sub-floor and start over. Type type type, delete, delete delete, type, type, type, delete, delete, delete.

Renovating a full bathroom is a pretty big job for me. So, to stay centered, I created a to-do list similar to the one I made for the front entry project. That list helped keep me from spinning out over all of my responsibilities, and I think this one will too.

I copied the list into my notebook and broke each line item into additional tasks. I will share those in the coming weeks.

The only thing in the guest bathroom that is done right now is the drywall. The contractor hung it, and after he told me he planned to caulk the seams, I told him that I would finish it myself. Never mind that caulk is not appropriate for drywall seams. Some of the gaps were nearly 3/4″ wide. Type type type, delete, delete delete, type, type, type, delete, delete, delete.

The Moodboard and Plan

To bring everyone up to speed, Andy and I did a cash-out refi last fall. We set aside a chunk of that money to renovate the two bathrooms upstairs. The guest bath was never meant to be a design masterpiece. Instead, it was supposed to be a quick, budget-friendly project with classic finishes so I could spend the bulk of the budget on the main bathroom, formerly known as The Scary Bathroom.

Since I love the corner sink and the beadboard, The original plans were to keep both. That is still happening. I also intended to keep the wallpaper since it was only four years old, but during the first phase, I realized that would not be possible. To be clear, I expected that we might lose the wallpaper, and I fault no one for that. Truthfully, while I liked the pattern just fine, I won’t miss it.

Measuring 5’x8′, the guest bathroom is tiny, and there is very little room for anything fancy. To keep the room light and airy, most of the finishes are white. I hear how boring that sounds. However, I will be sewing a brightly-colored skirt for the sink and a small curtain for the window. The skirt will create some much-needed storage since nearly every square inch of the floor is spoken for, and vertical space is at a premium too.

The guest bath is attached to the Cabin Vibes Bedroom, which you may remember from 2019. The bathroom design will complement the bedroom mural and adhere to the overall theme of BHH, which is casual summer house.

I have never started a One Room Challenge feeling this sad, but I know my sense of humor will be back soon. So, please stick around for that. My typical personality isn’t that of a cranky, depressed, and bitter woman.

While you are in the ORC mood, I invite you to check out the other One Room Challenge projects. There are plenty of good ones to follow, and the next eight weeks will be a lot of fun.

Thank you for being here!