The Beginning of the End of the Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower - The Reveal Part I

Happy days, friends of Isthmus House! The bathroom has made progress and is finally ready for Part I of The Reveal!

To do justice to a reveal, I've decided this has to be done in two parts. One, so that you lovely readers don't just have to listen to the chronicle repeated and two, because there's so much wonderfulness that I want you to be able to enjoy it as much as The Roommates and I.

To recap, we started with wood paneling pretty much everywhere in this bathroom. The shower surround, the wall between the shower and toilet, and the "wainscoating." I'm pretty sure the only thing that wasn't paneled was the 60s grasscloth wallpaper and the fixtures themselves (I'm mostly sure about the fixtures).

In Part I, we pulled out quite literally everything from the bathroom and found some unpleasant surprises (read: my floor sloped two inches in places). In Part II, we replaced two walls that were full of mold with new cement board, greenboard and Red Gard for waterproofing. My sister and I tiled those walls with subway tile in Part III and I (and, I suppose, my plumber :)) continued my saga by putting in a beautiful, new-to-us clawfoot tub that I lovingly restored. For 9 hours. After dealing with lots of tiling troubles in Part V, I pulled down the tile ceiling to learn that there are different definitions of all new electrical before getting new, bright lighting and a ceiling. Last week, Isthmus House's first major project started to get refinished walls and the electrical was finished.

This week, we got walls completed, baseboards, chair rail and beadboard up, and the walls got painted! And so, it's time for a reveal.

 

 

The aforementioned clawfoot was a bear. It was a pain to find, sand, paint, plumb, etc, etc. But it's AMAZING now that it's complete. We'll be putting a curtain around it but it seemed silly to cover up the tile for the sake of The Reveal. The toilet was original-to-me and the beadboard you can see to the right of it is new and makes the room.

 

The Roommate had a friend visit a while back that also works on restorations. Best compliment ever: he asked if the subway or marble basket weave were original. Mission accomplished!  



 

 

 

The window stayed despite a contractor's recommendation to remove it. There wasn't a reason to remove it since it's going to be covered with a wrap-around curtain (and I added a fan)! This is also the first time we're showing the detail at the top of the subway tile wall! It's black hex tile with the same dark grey grout the subway tile shows off that gives the room just a little extra detail and interest and every tile is perfectly spaced.

 

You can also see the black pencil tile that frames the wall (and took lots of trial, error, the occasional broken tile and eventually retiling 15 subway tiles to work). The wall color turned out to be perfect. The Roommates agree, the original color was too blue for the room but this one is soothing, period appropriate and it makes the room.

 

 

 

This bathroom has been the project that just won't end but it's ending. Get ready for the second half of the room - and the end of the Saga!