Kate's Bathroom Take-Two

We started the renovation of Kate’s bathroom the weekend of November 5th. I swore it was sometime in April, but when I searched my blog archives, I was promptly proven wrong. Even worse was the fact that my intention was to complete the renovation the weekend I posted. So, the plan was for it to be completed Nov 7th and we finished it last weekend, May 31st. Instead of explaining the discrepancy, consider yourself forewarned that my deadlines have a 7-month grace window. My husband calls this the Lyndsay-Factor, which means if I say I’ll be ready in 5 minutes, he multiplies it by 7, and viola – I’m ready to go.

In my defense, the bathroom presented many challenges I did not anticipate. I sort of thought attempting to renovate a bathroom was challenge in itself. Couple that with the goal to make it guest and toddler friendly, along with gender neutral, and I thought I had enough to keep me busy.

The drama started with the wallpaper. I hate wallpaper. Obviously people who hate wallpaper and have never used wallpaper are not capable of wallpaper ordering. The one double-roll of paper I ordered wallpapered approximately ¼ of the bathroom. I do not excel in the art of wallpaper and apparently also not in mathematics.
After the wallpaper was reordered and installed, we moved to the next drama. The one thing that I insisted on removing from Kate’s old bathroom was her bathroom vanity. Don’t you judge me, I’ll come install it in your bathroom and see how you like it. The problem was that the vanity was 43” long, which apparently was totally normal circa 1978, but not so much in 2008.

After weeks of searching, we were able to find a 43” vanity, but no 43” vanity top. At that point, I told Craig that Kate could brush her teeth in the tub; sinks are overrated. We finally found a place where we could order a 43” vanity top, it would simply cost us $500. At that moment, I could see Craig mentally jumping on the sink-boycott bandwagon.

Instead, we decided to buy a new vanity, one in a more socially acceptable 37” size. I am using the term “we” a little loosely here. On the surface, replacing a 43” vanity with a 37” one doesn’t sound all that dramatic, does it? I will point out the possibly not so obvious here and fill you in on a little secret: that leaves a 6” gap of subflooring visible on the floor. And what’s the answer to that? Well, a new tile floor of course!

Craig LOVED that project, let me tell you.

So, I ascertain that I had some reasoning behind the project that fell oh-so-slightly behind schedule. But it is done and although it isn’t 100% my style, it’s cute, it’s clean, and it’s fully functioning. Oh and it’s done … D-O-N-E, done.

If you didn’t click the earlier link to view the “before” pictures, I implore you to now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

With that, here is the completed bathroom:



Photographing a bathroom with a blazing vanity light on is horribly difficult, so I apologize for the odd urine-tint to these photos. It has nothing to do with my cute yellow wallpaper.





Aren’t these pieces darling? A colleague’s daughter (who was just accepted into THE Art Center) did these acrylics just for Kate. When she's uber-famous, I'll try to sell them on ebay.

I am sort of missing the whole Wonder Years decorating scheme we had going on here though. I just killed the last piece of the 70's that remainded in this house. Next up, our bathroom, which should be done next weekend. Errr, or possibly next month.