It is surely fun to scroll through beautiful home photos and imagine yourself there. It's a different thing to go through an actual renovation process. This fall I experienced my first ever home renovation—the humble bathroom. It is no home renovation feature story but I'm interested in documenting the planning and renovation process as a way of appreciating how much effort it really takes. I'll share the before and after, then get into the details.
Before
After
What I didn’t like about the existing bathroom was mainly aethetics. There was a full wall mirror and the vanity extended narrowly over the toilet in an awkward way. The floor tiles were really scuffed up and the toilet was leaking too. Overall, the whole bathroom was very outdated. Nothing had been updated since the building was built in 1999 (that's 24 years ago)!
The process began around January 2022 with some general information gathering mixed with procrastination. I decided to aim for a summer renovation and finish by the fall of 2022. My main worries at first were around contractors (because of all the bad stories I've heard) and dealing with condo rules and restrictions. I did some general online research for process tips and emailed common questions to the building management. They said I’d have to fill in a renovation form describing all the work I planned to do. If I was doing any plumbing/electrical work, I would need to provide all the insurnace information for them. Then the request would be reviewed and approved by the condo board.
Meanwhile, I had been starting the actual fun part of looking for inspiration and created a mood board. I didn't worry too much about the realities of cost and sourcing at this point. The only negative part about this was how much time it took to scroll through images on the Internet. I started to feel drained always wondering if there was something more to find.
Mood Board
After spending too much time on the inspiration part, I had to stop dragging my feet on finding a contractor. I contacted three companies for quotes. I should have done a lot more extended research but I was fatigued by the process. It's a disruption because each quote required making appointments to meet so that the contractor could see the space and give an estimate. It was a lot of back and forths and ultimately what I was looking for was considered a pretty standard “3 piece bathroom”.
Once I picked a contractor and had a very rough estimate of cost and time, I started to actually source the materials. For the most part the contractor doesn't promise an actual start date until you have the materials delivered otherwise they risk waiting around. But it's hard to plan on both sides. I learned that I did not enjoy this part of the process. When you actually try to source things, you have to deal with terrible websites, limited stock, and unpredictable delivery timelines. You have to make a lot of compromises too. The bathroom vanity in particular was really hard to source for the small space and configuration of the bathroom. A detailed spreadsheet helped keep track of options.
Sourcing Products
Then came the part of waiting for deliveries. For almost two months I had boxes piling up week by week behind me. My video calls started to be a topic of conversation. You can't hide a mess in a small space and I felt stressed constantly being surrounded by boxes.
When construction time FINALLY begain in September 2022 I wasn’t able to live at home because there was only one bathroom. It was supposed to be a 2-3 week job that ended up being six weeks. The progress seemed so fast at first because the demo only took a day. But inevitably there would be delays in the process.
Seeing the metal framing and where all the pipes were in the wall was interesting. I'm embarrassed to say that I had no clue what it looked like behind the dry wall.
The image above shows the dry wall starting to go up, it looks like a real room again.
One day I visited and saw that the room was now red. I wanted to know what the red paint was and Googled "bathroom renovation red layer". Apparently it's a product called RedGard which helps with waterproofing and crack prevention.
Now the tiles are mostly laid out and its looking shiny. I was worried about the choice of dark wall and floor tiles but I think it provides a nice contrast. I knew the glossy tile had a chance of being too slippery but given how small the space was and the fact that there would be a bat mat covering part of it plus the vanity and toilet, there was only a very small footprint for slipping. It hasn't been an issue.
Now things are near finished. The toilet is missing but you can see it coming together. The electrical outlet by the toilet area was one of the "extra" fees to allow for a bidet toilet seat.
Here's the final bathroom once again with the glass, light, toilet, vanity, mirror, and accessories all installed. It is simple and contemporary. Nothing here is very custom or niche. So far everything has been functional and for such a small bathroom that can be hard to do! I'm glad it's all over now.