Start Wizard of Oz Voice:
People. The Curbly House now has a functioning toilet!
End Wizard of Oz Voice.
Yeah, I bet you were wondering how we were getting along all this time in house with no bathroom. Fact is, the bathroom has been gutted for weeks, and those of us working on the project have been making runs (hah) to the nearby gas station for nature’s calls. No longer! Read on to watch my video journal, find out how our new bathroom started coming together, and see if you can spot a special surprise that we’ve been expecting…
First, here’s my weekly video journal, except that this week it’s Alicia, not me! If you watch the whole thing carefully, you might spot the surprise I’m talking about. First person to post it in the comments gets a free copy of all three of our eBooks!
Listen: Our bathroom remodel has been supported by our awesome sponsors, Kohler and ModWalls.com. I can’t say enough about both of these companies; great, quality products … you can tell as soon as you hold them. But more on that later.
So, as you recall, the original Curbly House bathroom looked passable, but was, in fact, crapulous. The floor was raised, meaning you had to step up five inches every time you walked in, or, alternative, trip and flail embarrassingly.
Also, it was muy small. Like, 30 square feet or so. That was because the chimney ran through half of it, generously boxed in by a wall and some ventilation stuff. It had a cute little rounded corner bathtub, but that, too, was teensy, and had the drain on the wrong side (there was no interior wall under it to run plumbing down; thus the raised floor … the tub drain ran under there).
And, for the best part, the toilet drain had a four-inch hole in it. Yes. A hole, dear Liza, a hole. Granted, it was on the top side of the pipe, so sewage probably wasn’t sloshing out, but fumes sure were.
Finally, it turned out there was a Squirrely Curbly House stashed away in one of the walls. Complete with their own bathroom, if you know what I mean.
I mean droppings. Squirrel droppings, folks.
Early on we decided we’d have to gut the room. I did that:
And then, once the chimney was exposed, we realized it just made more sense to get rid of it. It was crumbling at the top anyway, and we don’t love wood-burning fires (messy, inefficient, pollution), so we figured we’d get a gas-burning insert and reclaim about 30 square feet in the bathroom.
With a blank slate in the bathroom, it was time to start making some design choices.
We started on the Kohler Web site. If you’re doing a bathroom, I’d suggest checking it out (even if you aren’t going to use Kohler); it’s easy to navigate and has some great photos for inspiration.
We based our choices around the Purist collection. Here’s an example:
We wanted something clean and modern, but not quite so minimalist. So we used the Purist sink, bath and shower fixtures, but mixed in some other lines as well.
The vanity was the next big choice. For that one we went with the Traverse (instead of the Purist). Here’s the product shot:
We added the corresponding vanity-top sink:
Dude. This thing is beautiful. It’s wall-mounted, so it just kind of hovers there, but the giant sink is more like a countertop than a sink, and there’s lots of built-in-storage.
At our old house, one thing we always hated was the super-shallow bathtub. It was fine for kids, but an adult taking a bath in there looked like a beached whale. I think I took three baths in ten years.
So we searched the Kohler site for DEEP TUBS! The site has a feature where you can save ideas to various folders (called, sensibly, My Kohler folders). So we created a few configurations with different tubs and vanities. We ended up going with the Underscore tub:
Finally, we added the Cimarron toilet and, my favorite thing in the whole universe, the C3 Toilet Seat with Bidet:
Perhaps you read my rant on bidets earlier this year? I won’t re-state the whole argument (just go read it, if you’re curious). But a bidet is a MUST HAVE in our bathroom. And this one is really great. The coolest feature: it has a glowing LED light that comes on in the dark, making the toilet a perfect bathroom nightlight. It’s the future!
Next, we started thinking about tile. Our friend and fellow Curblier Capree did an awesome kitchen makeover this spring, and she went with ModWalls.com for her tile, so we thought we’d check them out. Here’s Capree’s kitchen:
Yowza! That’s a good lookin’ kitchen. So we got in touch with ModWalls, and asked for a few samples. We asked to look at these:
– ModDotzâ„¢ “Gray” penny tile
– Lush® 1×2 subway tile “Cloud”
– Brio® “White Linen” tile blend
– Lush® 1×4 subway tile “Vapor”
Samples are just $6.95 each. That’s money well spent if you’re ordering tile online. We ended up choosing the Lush Cloud 1×2 subway tile for the shower surround, and the Brio White linen blend for the bathroom floor:
Honestly, at this point I would have just been happy with any bathroom (that gas station one was getting a little too comfortable), but this room is looking tremendous. Obviously, it’s not quite done yet (that’s why I’m only showing close-ups). We still have lots of little finishing things to do, and we have to get it cleaned up and decorated. But we can already tell that once it’s done, it could end up being our favorite room in the house.
Have you re-done a bathroom recently? Share your stories (and photos) in the comments! And check back next week as we get started with the BIG P: painting!
This is a post in the Curbly House series! Follow along as we document every step of our complete home makeover, from gutting the walls to putting up the finishing touches. And don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments!
Still, all opinions in this post are mine alone.
