Basement Bathroom Reno

It's been a while since we've done anything major with the house.  As most of you know, we bought the place 2 years ago this August.  It was not a regular sale, and the place needed quite a bit of work.  I can't believe it's been almost 2 years, and we've done a TON since then... but we'd taken a bit of a hiatus as of late. When we realized it was almost time for my annual birthday themed bash, we decided we needed to step it up a bit to show folks who were here last year (right after the carpet was put in the basement!) that we were still actively working on making the man cave a better place- namely giving them a working bathroom down there!

We received all the pieces for the bathroom for Christmas from Joey's parents.  I'm not kidding- we got a vanity, mirror, light fixture, towel/toilet paper racks, and a sink fixture.  All we had to do was open the door to that disgusting room and get to work.  I'd started peeling off the ugly wallpaper border sometime last fall, but quickly lost interest.  Joey was waiting for me to peel off the wall paper and clean up the grossness before he could start working.

You guys.  It was DISGUSTING.  Whoever used this bathroom before us clearly was blind and didn't know where the toilet was.  We actually removed the toilet and bought a new one within the first few weeks of owning the house.  But it was so gross in there that we quickly condemned it and closed the door.

A couple weeks ago, we felt motivated and decided to get to work.  Joey did a GREAT job as plumber, electrician, and overall work horse.  I felt I did a good job motivating, watching, holding the light and the fan, and bleaching.  Everything.  Multiple times.  I'm talking pure bleach, people. I probably burned my lungs but after the 5th time I felt OK walking around barefoot in there.

Now I'll share some pictures... this is where I should warn you- some of it is pretty gross.  But, I've always said I want to be real on this blog so here we go!

The first step, after I pulled off all the wallpaper and cleaned up, was to remove the original vanity.  This included quite a bit of plumbing work since the vanity was built with the house, and the plumbing was done afterwards...

Here's a shot I took of the tub before we cleaned, re-caulked, cleaned again, and cleaned again:

Gross dirty walls, broken light.. just nasty all around.

This is what it looked like after Joey removed the vanity.  I told you it was gross.

Time for painting!

Faithful companions guarding our exit

Installing the new toilet

Quick plumbing fix. Maybe someday Joey will let me tell you that story.

Putting the sink together while the pins look on.
You can also see in the left corner of the pic a piece of missing drywall.  This was the cover to the sump pump and that day I finally pulled it out and painted it to match the rest of the walls.

"Watching paint dry"

Before....

AFTER!

 The entire project took us about 24 hours to complete, with some sleeping, IHOP and a couple trips to Lowes.  It also took about a week for everything I ordered online to arrive.  I was soooo excited to put it all together, and now I get to share it with you!!!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU "THE GISH MAN-CAVE BATHROOM":

YAYYYYYYY!!!!

HAPPY MONDAY!

~SG