Sunday, October 12, 2008

A Change in Plans

We've been shopping for more bathroom stuff as it comes on sale, and as a result have tweaked our master plan here and there. The biggest change is in the sinks. We realized how expensive faucets and large cabinets are and downsized our sink to a single. Here's the modified layout...

It's largely the same with a few small changes. Other than the vanity being smaller, we also opted for a bi-fold door on the east closet. I also found that there was more headroom than I anticipated, so we were able the shift the tub/shower more to the east and give ourselves a little more open floor space. This discovery also allowed us to purchase the pre-fab walls that went with our new tub. We were planning on tiling the wall inside the tub because we thought the pitched roof line would interfere with the height on the pre-fab walls. They were a little pricey, but it will save us a lot of work in the long run.

Here's what our garage looks like now...

My squat rack has been overtaken by PVC, doors, insulation, and tub walls.
We've also already got the tub, vanity cabinets, light fixtures, faucets, replacement window, and a new entry door.
The door was a steal. I found it in the scratch and dent pile. It was the right size and type but it had a small 2" chip on one corner. We're going to try a little wood putty and some strategic placement of the bad area. I think we can make it work. If not we got a $30 door for $2 so who cares! We went "unfinished" with a lot of our wood stuff...
We got the vanity and all the doors in unfinished oak to save a little money, but also so we can stain them with our trim and have an exact color match. Speaking of color, we also took our tile to town and Liv started working on our color palette. She got some accessories and also narrowed the wall color down.

She's leaning toward the lightest brown on the color swatch there. I think this bathroom will go from being called "Ugly Bathroom #2" to "The Chocolate Bathroom." Mmmm, chocolate. Anyway, she asked for my advice but all I was able to come up with was "We need something halfway dark because our tub, tile, and toilet are all white." I'm a guy so I automatically remove myself from color decisions due to ignorance. The only guys I know that are very color-savvy are those guys on HGTV that are a little light in the loafers. But that's a topic for another post. So since I was little help to Liv with her color questions, she is still looking for feedback on her color choice. Please feel free to comment! If you want to compare the color to the tile, see "Kermitt Turns 100" from 9-25-08 for a picture of the tile.

As it becomes increasingly difficult to park or even walk in my garage, I'm finally starting to grasp the fact that this is really going to happen. We've talked about this project since before we were married and it feels good to finally be working towards it. Gotta go check the Menards flier for this week!

4 comments:

Shauna said...

EXCELLENT color choice, Liv! Me likey! It looks to be a shade or two darker than the tan we used in our bathroom ("spinning wheel"). That'll really pop with all the white fixtures in there.

Brandon, maybe you mentioned this in a previous post already...where is the duct work going to be? Are you going to do floor registers or come through a wall?

Onebigdud said...

The upstairs air comes up through a hole immediately west of the existing chimney (dashed rectangle). It's then split 3 ways and sent to the existing bathroom and 2 adjacent bedrooms. It would take some tricky ductwork to maintain the air to the bedrooms, so we're just going to vent the whole thing directly into a bathroom wall. It doesn't put out enough air to adequately heat or cool the bedrooms now, so we don't figure we're losing much. The bathroom door will be open for the most part anyway, so if we leave the bedroom doors open too the air should end up similar to what we have now.

Shauna said...

We had the same problem (inadequate air flow) until Tom installed some booster fans in our ductwork. It made a big difference in how much air makes it to the upstairs.

The bathroom wall will be north-facing, right? That's how our bathroom is, and it gets COLD. But I think a lot of our problem is that there's just basement underneath the floor...not a heated room. Your kitchen will help the new bathroom stay warm. How formidable is the insulation on that north wall? Any point to using a small amount of something with a higher R-value there?

Onebigdud said...

There is zero insulation on the north wall right now (see the picture on the 9-25-08 post). The existing studs there are on 24" centers and R-13 was the best I could find in a 23" wide roll. We're planning on managing the heat upstairs primarily with space heaters since we basically just sleep up there and it doesn't have to be warm all the time.