Before Before: When we bought the house (2016) a lot of mint green.
I’ve lived with an outdated master bathroom since we bought our house 7 years ago. I haven’t really minded it since we actually have a master bathroom, whereas we lived in our house in Westminster for 18 years with 6 kids and 2 bathrooms, and no sign of a master bathroom at all. Where we are now, the bathroom is in fine condition, just a few decades ‘off’–specifically the floor. I’ve alternated between being overwhelmed with the concept of coordinating any project related to that bathroom, while also thinking it’d be good to just go for it in the name of a home improvement project and increasing the value of our home. Also, it’s a little stressful making all the selections and implementing the steps needed.
I’ve thought about hiring someone to take over from design to finish on this bathroom, but we have other bathrooms that need updating more than this one does–so it’s not a priority. I can justify spending the money in the name of increasing our property value with certain improvements, but this particular bathroom is not near the top of the list for big projects. And the floor hurts my eyes, and recently has begun to chip. I saw that as my sign to just do it.
When we bought the house in 2016, the walls, trim and recessed medicine cabinet in this bathroom were all a light mint green. Within the first year, we re-painted anything minty with Benjamin Moore Simply White, we had the ceiling retextured and painted the walls in Aura Bath and Spa (color Balboa Mist), which is a light tan.
Before: Shortly after we moved in 7 years ago, we redid the ceiling and painted the walls, trim and medicine cabinet, but still too many towel bars–2 on the wall you can see, and two more 36″ long ones on the opposite wall (visible in the mirror), plus another on the shower door. This floor has been hurting my eyes since we first toured the house.
After a few more years, we switched out the movie star dressing room vanity light, and then just continued to stare at the bathroom floor and try to come up with a material that would work adjacent to the parquet floor in our bedroom. I don’t actually mind the parquet in our bedroom. It color-matches nicely to the wood flooring in the hallway, but it definitely didn’t go with the current mint plaid vinyl stick-tiles in the bathroom.
Inspired by our middle son Max and his partner Christina‘s recent visit as they were planning a renovation on their own property in California, we decided to identify the areas for improvement that would have the most visual impact, and more bang for the buck. Fortunately, in this bathroom, the mechanicals are all functioning just fine and the fixtures are a neutral beige. In the case of this bathroom, there’s really minimal heavy lifting.
We decided to treat ourselves to having the floor professionally tiled. On a whim, while in Shrewsbury, we went in to Floor & Decor. We picked out two ‘definite maybes’ and bought a box of each. As soon as we got home I got the samples laid out on the floor, to decide on facing direction and which of the two I liked more. This turned out to be a fail because the blue I was sure I was going to love had a clouded look to them that, to me, would always look dirty. The gray, which was my backup that I thought I liked almost as much as the blue, just looked too stark and cold in this setting.
The next day I went to Once Upon A Tile in Fitchburg. I met with Ashley and we talked about my love of patterns, colors and textures. I brought samples of three tiles home, and went back the next day and ordered my soulmate tile. The pricing was comparable to the big box tile store. I had to pay shipping because they are a tile showroom, but the bonus of them being a showroom was the amazing selection of tile.
As I write this, my bathroom is pulled apart, with tiling about to start. And because we’re all friends, I’ll say it’s SO confusing to have half a bathroom, a bathroom in progress. If we wake up in the night and have to pee, there’s a different bathroom for that–kids’ bath, down the hall. Shower? Still right here.
As my lucky timing had it, the handyman who was going to take up the floor could only come on the weekend, which was no problem other than I also had a short-notice listing that needed open houses that same weekend, so I had to give very specific instructions on what was to stay, and what had to go. When I came back that afternoon I was so excited to see the progress, and immediately made this video below. You’ve got to watch it to the end, to see what I found in the demo.
I’ll be back with an update in the next newsletter, with an update. I’m SO glad we finally followed through with this project.
Before: The floor