Archive for category bathroom
Before & After Photos
Posted by Brian in bathroom, bedroom, decorating, diy, finished, floor plans, interior, kitchen, living room, photos, renovations, small spaces on May 25, 2012
It’s been a long time since we’ve done some updates, we’ve been living comfortable for over a year now since the major renovations took place. Â In that time we’ve put the house on the market for 2 weeks showed it to 20+ potential buyers, decided not to sell, then put our apartment up for rent on Kijiji, showed it to several potential tenants then decided not to move, and finally decided to do some more renovations. Â We’re sticking it out a while longer and have some smaller renovations to do this coming summer. Â The next couple of weeks will involve building a small backyard, and new deck with roof for the back entrance (our main entrance), this will provide us a bit of outdoor space to relax in the summer. Â Following those renovations we’re planning to finish up the kitchen (backsplash and pot rack). Â Here are some before & after photos of our apartment, not everything is finished, but pretty close. Â Thanks to everyone that helped us get to this!
Kitchen floors and a new desk
We moved in exactly a week ago, and have been working away on small projects as we go, trying to tie up all the loose ends. Â The ends.. they’re still pretty loose, but we hit some pretty good milestones this weekend. Â My parents and Ilona put down the kitchen floor, while my friend Colin came over to give me a hand with my desk in the hallway. Â I had wanted to go with a floating desk but it just wasn’t feasible, the butchers block counter top from Ikea that I used as a surface was really heavy. Â I still need to fix up the baseboards under/behind the desk, and stain the desk a couple of times, but for now, I at least have somewhere to work!
The kitchen floor looks amazing, we just have to get the plumbing done for the washer/dryer and build a couple more cabinets, then we should be ready for the granite templaters to come in and measure the counter tops.  Definitely looking forward to it!  We also finished off the bathroom last weekend, with my uncle putting in our robot shower, I have to admit, my showers this week have been about 5-10 minutes longer than normal because it’s just soo cozy, heated floors,  tons of pressure, all kinds of different jets and settings  = awesome shower.
Bathroom tiling complete and the toilet is back
Finally, after almost 2 months of visiting McNabb to use the bathrooms, we have our toilet back. Â It’s been a super big push for the past week and a half, by my parents, uncle, Ilona and I. Â We have to especially thank my uncle Roger and my mom who spent hours at the house putting in all the tiles, it looks fantastic. Â We still have some grouting to do, the plumbing for the sink to attach, and finally get some glass fitted for the door, but at least we have a toilet! Â My dad spent the week prepping the floors for the hardwood repairs that start tomorrow. Â We also finished painting the bedroom, the studio room and the hallway. Â Can’t wait to see how the floors look on Friday, and it will be really nice to not have to go to the house everyday after work this week. Â Here are some photos of the almost done bathroom:
finished bathroom.
Painting and Tiling!
We had a big push over the new years long weekend, and most of Christmas break, which resulted in getting a lot of work done! It’s so time consuming every little detail takes about 3x longer than you would expect it to, if not more! Â We started tiling in the bathroom, my mom and uncle roger got a couple of the granite pieces down as well as one of the walls of subway tile, and a start on another 2 walls. Â In the other rooms, Ilona, Rob, my sister and myself got to work painting the master bedroom and the hallway. Â We decided to go with hot pink for our closet, believe it or not I actually like it, I think it will look pretty cool as a colour that peeks through our closet organizer and clothes. Â Next Monday the hardwood guys come in to do the floors, after that we’ll have the kitchen floor to lay, the cabinet for the washer dryer to build, and to get the granite guys in to measure for the counter tops. Â I think we might actually be in by the end of the month!
So what do you think of the closet? Â (and no jokes about me coming out of it)
End of year update – bathroom tiling and hallway updates
Posted by Brian in bathroom, photos, renovations on December 31, 2010
It’s been a good year, and we’ve got a lot of work done on the house. Â We both honestly thought we’d be moved in and settled by now, but obviously that is not the case. Â We started the tiling in the bathroom this week, and have pretty much finished up with the drywall in the hallway/desk nook. Â The hardwood floor refinishing starts on January 10th, so we still have a lot of work to do in the next 10 days to get it ready. Â We both wanted to thank everyone that has helped us at the house over the past couple of months, and everyone reading our blog and posting comments. Â Happy new year.
Christmas break update
Not too much has been going on over the holidays, we’ve been out of town for most of it, however we came back for work today (Tuesday) , and I managed to get back to the house around 4 this afternoon to start painting. Â Lucky for us, my dad was able to do a skim coat of the plaster the day before christmas, so today I went over, sanded the bathroom down and did 2 coats of paint on the ceiling and walls, including the cutting. Â We only had to paint halfway up since our subway tiles will be about 5′ up on the wall. Â We’d already primed before the skim coat so there wasn’t a need to prime again. Â Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be starting the tiling on the bathroom and shower floor, then move on to the shower and walls. Â We picked up our granite shelves/sill on Friday the 24th, unfortunately not everything fits, so we need to bring a few pieces back to get them cut a bit more. Â Thats all for now.
End of weekend update
We’ve had a pretty busy week, and got lots of work done on the house. Â Today was a little bit of a milestone, we put up the last piece of drywall, apart from a few sections of the sub-floor that we need to repair before the hardwood guys come in on the 4th of January, we’re pretty much done with construction. Â My uncle Roger gained a lot of ground on the shower this past week, and we should be tiling it just before Christmas. Â We ordered some custom granite, 1 1/4″ Â black titanium for the shelves and sill in the shower, I can’t wait to see it all done! Â Apart from that we’ve started with the taping and mudding, and will hopefully be painting over the Christmas break. Â Here’s some photos from the week:
Bathroom Update
We’ve had a lot of work done on the bathroom over the past couple of weeks, mostly by my uncle Roger. Â Roger started out building up a new raised floor for the shower and toilet area, we had to do this to avoid cutting in to the original cast iron stack. Â Since the stack was being used for all 3 apartments and could potentially be brittle, it was too much risk at this point to risk cutting it. Â So we reused the pipes were the toilet already was, to get the right slope we had to elevate it a bit to place it where we wanted.
After the floors, we ended up framing over all the walls, framing in the shower and making sure everything was very solid. Â If we had tiled over what was there, the swaying walls and squishy floor would have resulted in broken tiles within the first couple of weeks. Â This past weekend my dad and I insulated the washroom, and started installing the cement board and ceiling.
Also we’ve picked out our shower unit, this crazy robot looking thing that steams, and rains and all sorts of fun. Â It’s pretty crazy that the bathroom is around 30 square feet.. tiny! Â Hopefully the next update we have some tiling to show.
Faucet ordered & Bathroom tiles & vanity purchased
Ilona and I decided to find our kitchen faucet online, since we didn’t like anything under $700 at the local stores. Â It’s pretty incredible that you can purchase a faucet for over $1,000, actually it’s more ridiculous than incredible. Â We went on EBay and found this gem for $160 shipping included.
On Saturday Ilona also headed to Rona with my mom to pick out some tiles for the bathroom and a small vanity (to save space). Â Ilona ended up picking out some white subway tiles for the bathroom and shower walls, a large dark grey square tile for the floors, and small square grey tiles for the bottom of the shower. Â She also purchased these really small cool glass tiles to use as borders.
Since our bathroom is so small, Ilona found this vanity which is less deep than your average one, which should allow us to have a normal sized door on the washroom, and have a bit more wiggle room. Â It will be another couple of weeks to see photos of the ceramics tho, so check back.
End of weekend update
Posted by Brian in bathroom, interior, photos, renovations on October 24, 2010
Well there’s not a lot to show this week, but there has definitely been a lot of work accomplished this past week.  On Wednesday Danny came over and we got all of the pot light boxes installed in the kitchen.  On Saturday my uncle roger came over and we got started on the bathroom, and continued to work Sunday on it.  Tyler also came over on Saturday and we built some shelving units in the basement as well as the column that will separate the living room and kitchen. Our plumbing is now set up, and going to work for moving the bathroom around as planned, Ilona picked out our selection of tiles for the ceramic shower, floors and walls in the bathroom, the colours are great.  Our friends Bob and Michelle came over as well as Rob today and we managed to get the kitchen wired properly, the ceiling insulated, more tar stripped off the wood floors,  and a lot of the paint stripped off the window in our living room.  Last weekend Rob and I also wired the living room for the home theatre, and finished insulating the ceilings for fire and sound.  Things are definitely taking a little bit longer than we expected, we have to move out of our current condo on Wednesday and will be shacking up with my parents for a couple of weeks.  It’s hard to believe we thought we’d be moving in this week a month ago.  One thing we’ve learned is everything takes twice as long as you would think it does, and every project you start in an old home inevitably starts another project that you hadn’t anticipated on doing.  We’re glad we’re doing things properly, and the extra couple weeks of waiting should pay off.
Mid weekend update
Posted by Brian in bathroom, bedroom, decorating, interior, kitchen, photos, renovations on October 16, 2010
We’re a little behind schedule, but things are still moving along. Â We had a contractor come in last week to put up a beam to support our tenants kitchen, which was above ours, and was being supported by a wall resting directly on unsupported floor joists beneath our kitchen. Â We took down that extra wall which was the plan all along and it really opened up the space. Â We spent 12 hours at the house today, finished gutting the living room, and we’re finally starting some construction in there. Â At 8pm tonight my dad and I finished putting up roxul sound/fire proof insulation in the ceiling. Â The bathroom is completely gutted and hopefully this week we’ll get to work building that out. Â Really too tired, and still feeling under the weather to have much more to say. Â One nice note is the wood trim around the doors/windows appears to have beautiful wood underneath as you can see from one of the photos in this post. Â Also we ordered our cabinets today, and tomorrow we’ll start wiring the internet/home theatre etc.
Recent Comments