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February 27, 2008

Small Space, Big Work

So while T and I are renovating the small kitchen in the 3rd rental ourselves, we had to hire some professional help for the bathroom. The job was just too big for us, involving plumbing, electrical, carpentry, tiling, the whole nine. Early on in the reno, we discovered a wicked leak where the bathtub connected to the drain and once we pulled out the tub, sink, and toilet, and scraped off most of the linoleum tiles we discovered that it had been a problem for a while. YIKES.

They ripped through the floor in a couple of places to get at the plumbing for the toilet and to move the tub drain in order to build an entirely new shower. The new wall is framed with 2x3 studs; it will hide the plumbing and make up the few inches we need for the 48" shower base to fit correctly. The vanity we bought months ago at Ikea on the advice of our first contractor won't actually fit into this bathroom, so T built a top for it (where the sink would've gone) and we're mounting it into the new wall above the toilet as a storage cabinet. The floor is getting retiled, as are the walls in the shower area, though we will be keeping some of the 1930s subway tile from when the building was converted into a five-family. Some electrical wiring is getting moved so everything is up to code. And we're changing the door so that it swings out, since you won't actually be able to step in and close the door if it swings into the bathroom. New York, baby.

Basically there is very little that isn't being done in this little room.

Because we know enough to know what we're not ready to do ourselves, and we don't have the time to spend the next several weeks or couple months learning how to do most of it ourselves (all but the plumbing and electrical, that is), and mostly because we simply didn't want to screw it up, we brought in a number of contractors over the last couple weeks to get estimates. And of course, they were all over the map in price and plan. But we settled on one and he started yesterday and even showed up again today (I'm right now listening to the sweet sounds of him and his guy drilling the hell out of something upstairs), so here's hoping for the best.

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Comments

Yea ! I dont like it NUFF SAID

Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 8:04 PM

Good luck! Redoing a bathroom can be really satisfying because you see results right away. Hope everything works smoothly and you're renting this apartment really soon.

What did you choose for the fixtures/tiles/finishes?

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at February 27, 2008 9:04 PM

There has already been progress and its really exciting. We chose simple nickel finish fixtures. We are going shopping for black subway tile and black and white hex tile this weekend. We plan to border the black hex floor with a white stripe and the new white subway tiles with black stripes. We are hoping this will help blend the old subway tile which has a lovely pantina (some would say discolored but I think that has a negative vibe) with the new.

Posted by: HomeSweetstuy at February 27, 2008 10:59 PM

Sounds beautiful and timeless. Im sure you're future owners will really appreciate it.

If you are getting the black/white hex tile that is unglazed ceramic, its not quite white. Its very much a grayish white so you may find that its a nice match with the older subway tiles. And its not expensive so another bonus.

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at February 28, 2008 2:50 PM

I got that unglazed white hex tile from Bergen for less than $3 a square foot, and Mrs. L is right, it is quite gray, or even you could say cream colored.

Cautions about the tile job itself that you might want to bring up with your contractor as you go:

1. Make sure they pay special attention to flattening the floor. We did our tile job ourselves and found that the pretty-good flattening job wasn't good enough for hex tile, which shows the contour of the floor really *really* well.

2. Don't use black grout! It has a ton of pigment in it that's hard to remove from the face of the unglazed tile. Dark grey is great--all of the contrast and none of the regret.

I am looking forward to progress pics of this project... good luck!

Posted by: guest at March 2, 2008 6:12 PM