Primary Bath Reno

Alongside the Rough Ranch reno, I’ve been working through a reno of the shower in our own Primary Bath. It’s been an issue for a couple of years now, first beginning with mold and mildew around the top and bottom that seemed unusual (you can see it in the pics below). When we noticed some softness in our floors right outside the opening to the doorless shower, we realized we needed to get the floors fixed. Then, the marble threshold popped up and cracked, we had some leaking through to the ceiling of of our living room downstairs, and last, but certainly not least, my husband stepped through the tile. Thankfully, no one was hurt! But it was a sign that we needed to get this taken care of sooner rather than later. The problem was finding someone we could trust to fix it right.

Inspiration and the Original Plan

First, we can back up 20 years. That’s when I toured the home of the architect who designed the renovations on my parent’s American Foursquare farmhouse. He had this crazy big walk in shower that felt so luxurious and was like nothing I’d ever seen. I knew I wanted a nice big shower “someday” if I ever got to design my own house. All the new houses at the time had the big jacuzzi tubs, but to me, I just wanted a big shower. Being able to walk in without a step and no door to clean seemed like the ultimate luxury.

So when we began planning our home in 2012, many many of iterations of this bathroom were sketched out. The shower was the focus of the entire bathroom as I tried to figure out its ultimate size and set up while also fitting into the space, reducing draftiness, and NOT having a shower door to clean. This layout here was the result.

The key was a smaller room within the bathroom so that although I didn’t have a shower door to clean, there was a smaller space for the heater and shower to warm up so I didn’t have goosebumps, the brutal enemy of a clean shave. This entire area (the shower, the drying area, and the linen closet) were raised up about 6″ from the main floor of the bathroom. Additionally, we had good natural light with both a skylight and a higher window on the wall.

So back to today, it seems like everyone has very open showers. Not only have frameless shower doors exploded in popularity but also have showers that are simply part of the bathroom itself. Somehow in its rudimentary design it feels surprisingly luxurious. Surely, 9 years later with much more available experience in this type of design, our shower could definitely be done better than before. As we went from realizing it was going to take more than repairing the floor (I had been living in denial hoping we wouldn’t have to retile the whole shower), we began thinking about any other changes we may want to make if we had to redo the whole shower. And from that point the plans kept evolving.

Finding a Contractor

Part of the delay here had been my desire to avoid hiring a contractor. I hate it. Setting up appointments, having them cancel or no-show, or actually finding someone you think could really do a great job only to have them ghost you. It’s annoying, infuriating, and time consuming. The hole through the floor was what finally caused me to have to face the music. That was in February.

We came up with a plan that didn’t involve a ton of changes, but it did involve giving the linen closet a bit of a more built-in look, converting the glass pocket door to a hinged door, lowering the shower area as much as possible, and adding in a frosted glass window to the right of the glass door. I hoped this window would help make the area feel larger and let allow more light from one area to the next. We had called a GC who had done work for us before and who we knew would get the job done right. After an initial meeting, he paraded in a plumber, an electrician, and a tile guy (whose name I often kicked myself for not remembering). Finally, he called us to see if he could come over with his proposal. I thought I was prepared for the cost.

Apparently, I was not.

We sat in a bit of shock as we didn’t sign the contract that night. I know the price of everything has gone up. But this number was just… crazy. On one hand, I could taste the finish line, as he would be able to start in a couple of weeks. Everything would be done by summer. A huge part of me wanted to just swallow hard and get it done. Maybe I was naïve to the cost.

So had a few more contractors come through, thinking that maybe they would make that crazy number seem more reasonable. But they didn’t. And only a couple of days later, I saw this post from Jen at jenwoodhouse.com (seriously, check out her swoon worthy bathroom – I can’t get over the vanity she made and its beautiful marble top). It’s unbelievably awesome that she shared a budget breakdown for her project because it confirmed my belief that the number we had been given was indeed astronomical. They redid the ENTIRE bathroom: moved plumbing and installed an all new vanity, fixtures, and floor. And it was still less than the number we were given. (I know regional markets vary, but that couldn’t begin to account for it).

Moving On

At that point, I knew I had to move on. I decided that tiling was the sticking point. I needed someone who we could trust to do the tile job, because I didn’t want any more water leaking into our living room. I had enough contacts through flipping that we could get the other contractors hired on our own.

I contacted a LOT of people. A lot of them paraded through. One GC we called was so responsive and got us an incredibly detailed estimate only days later. I would have hired them except they did mud bed showers rather than a Schluter- type system.

Another guy came. My husband was home for this visit, and after he left, we both agreed that if he came back with a reasonable number, he was hired. He told me a week later he had all of his numbers but was just waiting on a cost from his carpenter for the linen closet doors. Still a week after that, I asked him to just send the numbers without the carpenter’s so we could move forward.

“Yes ma’am I will send it right over” is the last I heard from him. I got tired of asking.

Still another guy had tons to tell me about how he knew how to do things the right way, but he kept looking down at my chest. I couldn’t wait for him to leave.

Maybe, finally, hopefully?

Finally, in early May, a friend posted her own shower that had just gotten done. I asked her who she used, and he was able to stop by that evening. It was Friday night, and before he showed up I just wanted to chill with a drink and some pizza. As we talked through ideas about how to proceed, we again approached the idea of moving our toilet to the current linen closet (this was a pie-in-the-sky idea we pondered earlier in the process but had deemed it to not be worth it). When he brought up demo, the lightbulb went off above my head: We had just stopped using the shower altogether earlier that week… I could start the demo myself. As soon as he left, I grabbed a hammer, my pry-bar, ear protection and safety goggles and went to work.

Pizza-schmizza. Here is where I ended night 1. I have to laugh at myself at the little bucket I had grabbed to hold trash.

A Fresh Start

That meeting was just what I needed to kickstart me back into gear. After all of the contractor frustration, I was in a rut with no bathroom and could see no way forward. Being able to make progress myself, and take frustration out on that tile, helped me feel so much better about the project. We were finally making some progress.

We ended up hiring that tiler who came that Friday night, even though he was booking 4 months out. Yikes. We got on his calendar for mid-September, and I set to work pulling everything out… and brainstorming new ideas.

I left literal blood and sweat (I don’t have tears) in that rubble. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

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