Well, after much too long a hiatus, I am finally posting the finished pictures of the bathroom renovation. I should say almost finished as Heidi is still looking for the perfect grey towel set to go with the room. All the important stuff is in place though so I feel confident sharing the pictures.

One thing to note is that unlike the earlier photos that were taken with my phone, these pictures were taken by a bonafide photographer as a result of an article that is being published in the our contractors magazine.

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The Before…

After the Renovation…

The room is bright – very bright – and clean looking but still in keeping with the an aesthetic that is appropriate to an 1886 Victorian home. It has quite clean lines but still some more fanciful accents such as the towel hooks that are placed in various strategic positions around the room.

I’d like to say that I have a favorite thing about the finished renovation but, in truth, there are many.

Fixtures

The fixtures are a mixture of Grohe and Sign of the Crab. Although they are from different manufacturers, the styles and the chrome finishes are extremely compatible. I’m not sure that you’d be able to tell they are not from the same suite unless they were sitting right side by side.

Tiling

The Tiling is a combination of 3″x6″ subway on the walls and 1″ hexagonal on the floor. The grout is Mapei Pearl Grey on both the walls and floor. While the floor is all standard tile, the walls incorporate specialty tiles such as chair rail at the top and baseboard at the bottom.

We used curved edge tiles on edges and corners as metal border edging would not be in keeping with the age of the house.

Vanity

The vanity and the matching mirror are custom builds from Olympia cabinets utilizing traditional line maple doors with “Cigar” stain.

Finally, the counter top is a cultured marble top by Caesarstone. Not real marble but, as a result, will be much lower maintenance given it is being used by 3 soon to be teenage girls.

Lighting

The lighting in the bathroom is handled by fixtures by Seagull Lighting with schoolhouse style shades.

Well, I think that is about it for the new and improved bathroom. Now on to the 50+ other things that need to be done with the house. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

It has been a while since I’ve updated. We took a week to go to a cottage up in the Kawarthas (north of Peterborough Ontario). It is a wonderful area full of lakes, forests, and generally beautiful scenery. The vacation time was much needed but now it’s back to the real world and telling you about the new shower curtain.

In terms of the bathroom, we are up and running now. I finally installed the shower curtain rod and, with the help of the girls, we’ve decided on a curtain to hang on it. The pattern is quite whimsical. It goes well with the room and pays homage to Ralphie and Canada all at the same time.

The toques are a nice touch too!

As for the bar, we decided that, although it is not strictly traditional, curved was the way to go. The extra space that it provides is too much of a benefit to ignore. The bar is a Moen. While very sturdy, it does seem to have a slightly different chrome finish than the other fixtures in the room. Not a big deal and likely something only we notice as we’re looking at everything so critically.

Now all we need to do is put up the extra hooks that we picked up, settle on the towels, and find a suitable waste basket. Who would have thought that finding the accessories would be such a challenge? In any case, for the towels, we have something in the “perfect” shade of grey that we think will work. They match the grout and are just slightly darker than the bath mat in the pictures.

The contractor that did the work for us is sending a professional photographer over to take pictures of the finished product to use in their marketing. The up side is that, in exchange, they have agreed to give us access to the photos as well. I’ll be able to post some professional shots of the room rather than the cell phone photos I’ve been using so far. The shoot is scheduled for next week so stay tuned for the final before and after pictures at that point.

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.

Just a quick post here to show a couple of the bathroom accessories that have now gone in. The towel bars and toilet paper holder were actually installed a couple of days ago but I didn’t get around to posting any pictures. The laundry basket we just picked up today but are not 100% sure we are going to hang onto it. Still going to be some additional hooks going up on the wall above the laundry basket.

The accessories so far are all from the Modona Viola series. Not the most expensive stuff but seems to be good quality and really matches well with the light fixtures and such.

Now if we can just find the right shade of grey towels, we’ll be all set.

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.

As we’re down to the final strokes with the bathroom, it is time to start putting things back together. One of the things that needed to be done was getting the mechanical fan timer replaced with an electronic one.

The electrician was here on Friday to do that. Much cleaner looking and no more ratcheting noise turning it on.

To complete the installation, I checked to make sure that the fan was still behaving as expected but although it was running, there was almost no air being drawn through it. So I popped my head up into the attic space to see if I could figure out what was going on.

There was the duct from the fan, not attached to anything! Now there are two problems:

• The duct was not attached to the exhaust vent to the outside.
• No air was getting through anyway, likely due to a kink in the duct itself.

So, no alternative but to crawl into the attic about 5 or 6 feet to see if I could figure out what was going on and reconnect the duct. Now while this doesn’t sound like that big a deal, it is when you consider it is the middle of summer heat and there is not much space to work in… and I mean really not much space – only 11 inches at most.

So I put on my coveralls (it is amazingly dirty in the attic of a 130 year old house though the pictures don’t show it) and wriggled my way on my stomach up to the vent area. After only about 15 minutes of fiddling to un-kink the duct and get it re-clamped on the external vent, I was able to work my way back out again. Funny, it was much harder getting out of the space than getting in – go figure.

But the fan was reconnected and now drawing air so all is good. Hopefully I don’t need to climb up there again any time soon!

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.

Well things are moving along right on schedule, or even a bit ahead of schedule! The plumbers were in today to hook everything back up including the faucets, toilet, and the crazy shower.

It really is coming together. All that is left is a bit of finishing on the tiles, the outstanding timer for the fan, and the accessories (towel bars and toilet paper holder) – for the trades that is. I still have a significant amount of work to get the window wrangled into shape, trim painted, and the final touch-ups completed on the wall paint that is already in place. But that is for later. Right now I want to focus on the plumbing.

First, is the toilet – not much to say here as we are reusing the Toto that we had in place before.

It was in the house when we bought it so I can’t tell you what model it is. May be buried in some of the paperwork that was left behind but I’m not inclined to go looking. Suffice to say that we’ve been very happy with it so no need to fix what ain’t broken. Beside, with the style of tank cover and the porcelain flush lever, it just looks like it belongs.

I know that I put a post up of the faucets before they were installed but here is how they look in place – exactly what we were looking for.

They are from the Grohe Seabury line in StarLight Chrome (very poetic). I think they definitely capture the Victorian sensibility of the room.  But, as much as much as I like the faucets, it is the Sign of the Crab shower fixture that is my favorite part.

It is as much a piece of sculpture as it is a functional shower unit (complete with thermostatic temperature control). No need to compromise form for function here as was the case with the counter top – this is ticks of all the boxes. Also very much in keeping with the Victorian ethos of making even the ordinary look extraordinary as I’ve written about before. I really want to give it a try though that will have to wait until the silicon goes in for the corners of the tile and we get a shower rod and curtain.

Speaking of the shower curtain rod, we’ve been putting off its purchase because it is another place where we are struggling with form and function. On one hand, a curved shower rod provides a feeling of space in the shower that may otherwise feel a touch cramped. On the other hand, the curved rod definitely has a modern feel to it and will go against the traditional approach we took to the room. That said, we’re at the breaking point and will need to make a decision on that tonight so stay tuned.

Now to just get the window completed…

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.

We now have light! Actually, we have, in a more general sense, electricity. There was apparently a hole in their schedule so the electrician showed up a day early to put in the lights and wire up the switches, outlets, and timer.

Heidi and I both really like the look of the schoolhouse style glass globes so even though they were originally used in kitchens, libraries, and, I assume schoolhouses in the 1920’s we are using them in the bathroom of our 1886 Victorian.

We spent a lot of time looking at different suppliers to try and find a 5 light bar for above the mirror and a matching ceiling fixture but were only able to get a 4 light version. Looking at it now, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. Given the size of the globes, I think that a 5 light version may have been too much.

For those that are interested, the fixtures are from Sea Gull Lighting‘s Academy line and are remarkably inexpensive compared to other options. We selected the chrome finish as this, along with the details of the metal work, will be mirrored nicely in the faucet and shower hardware once they are in place.

Combined with the white tile and satin white ceiling, they throw a lot of light. Either fixture alone is enough to light the entire room and the two together make it glow!

There was only one small issue that still needed to be dealt with. It seems that the original mechanical fan timer that we had in the room functioned without needing a neutral wire. Unfortunately the electronic replacement that was supposed to replace it does require a neutral – something that wasn’t picked up during the electrical rough-in.

After 10 minutes, or so, of considering where we would need to open a wall to get the appropriate wiring in place (not having a timer is not an option), our electrician suggested that they will try and source a timer that doesn’t need a neutral. Brilliant – not sure why it didn’t even cross my mind to think of that. A quick look on the internet confirms that such a beast exists and is easily available so should have something that doesn’t require so much twisting and noise shortly. In the meantime, the original mechanical timer is back in place.

Finally, just a note on the light switch. Some of you may wonder why we didn’t choose the more modern “Decora” style flat switches. It is really just a preference on our part and Heidi leans strongly to the traditional toggle style. Neither is remotely appropriate for a house of our era.

In our last house, also an 1880’s build, we started to replace some of the light switches with modern push button replicas by Classic Accents. They are CSA approved and UL listed so you get all of the cool period appropriate feel without any safety concerns. They’re great but we just haven’t gotten to doing anything like that here yet. Not sure that it would work for this bathroom anyway as we would have an ultra-modern fan timer next to a push button switch. Could be a bit of discord there.

One unexpected challenge with all this new light is how it highlights clearly the incomplete window trim. But that needs a post of its own.

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.

Some side entries on the window can be found here.

The tiles are done! The tiles guys were here today to finish the last of the tiles and do the grouting. Things look great! Not much else to say so here are some pictures of where it stands as of today.

Just the final parts to finish up. Electrical and plumbing then paint clean up and trim!

The next entry for the renovation can be found here.