{Mother-In-Law's Powder Room} Part II, The Vanity

This past Winter, my husband, brother-in-law and I decided to do a complete transformation in their mom's super outdated powder room. To turn this plain ole' half-bath into a showstopper while we all three were working full time jobs was going to be  challenge. There was no better time to do it than when she was on a 15 day trip to visit friends in Florida in May. So in late Spring, we got busy with the project. The room had a couple of issues (besides just being old) that you can read about in a previous post.





Nothing but 80's builder grade standard.



So after the demo was done, (no more tilted toilet!) we painted all the walls a refreshing Icy Blue and hung beadboard from the floor to 4' up. Next step was to install the flooring. We used 12x12 travertine that we bought for $2 a sq ft. It was remnant tile that we had found, and some were better than others, so rummaging through crates to find peices that had the least imperfections was necessary. The color was a nice creamy neutral and the price was so right! (Travertine is usally upwards of $6 a sq ft.) We had to be careful on installation to use the worst pieces as the ones we would cut for the edges or around the toilet. But $60 total for natural stone floor tile instead of almost $200??? I'd say it's worth the extra effort. 

We were really torn with our vanity situation. Should we go pedestal or cabinet?

As pretty and fresh as a gleaming white pedestal can be, we didn't want to lose the only storage in the room. So a cabinet it is! The problem that we ran into was that our space was an odd 34". Now, as you might know, most stock vanity cabinets are 30" or 36". But....we couldn't shave an inch off of both sides of a 36" (although I would have given anything to do so! There were so many great options in that size!) and a 30" gave us too much unusable space. We thought our issue was solved when we found a couple options that were 32" but the quality just wasn't up to snuff. And.....with the price of a simple cabinet being about $280, and we still have to purchase a counter-top---well, the desicion was made that we would refurbish the existing piece and get a remnant granite top cut and installed. After all, there was nothing really wrong with the cabinet itself.  No major surgery needed. Just some cabinet paint in a dark color and--

Good As New!



Let's just paint it and get a new granite countertop!



The cabinet shell. I took the doors off  and painted them in the other room.

The cabinet was pretty easy to paint. I used the Rust-Oleum cabinet kit that has everything included in it. It has a solvent that you wipe on the cabinets and doors before you paint, and then gives you easy to follow instructions on how to paint the doors so that you don't get any brush strokes showing. Then you paint on a protective gloss. I've heard from other people that you can just use regular paint to do cabinets, but I wanted them to look great for a long time, and not have any paint flakeage (did I make up a word?). In short, I didn't want to do a janky job of it. And plus, The kit has enough paint to do a small kitchen's worth of cabinets, so we can save it for the next room to spruce up!



You have the paint tinted when you purchase it. All of the color options are listed on the box.

We had a remnant piece of granite cut to fit and installed by a local company called Bathrooms Plus Kitchens. Anyone living in the East Valley, I totally recommend them. They did a lovely job. Their guy was on time, in and out, told us everything we needed to know about the care of the granite, and left us with a little folder containing warranty and care instructions. Thanks guys! You couldn't have made it easier!

Here's a pic of the finished, well sort-of finished product. We still have to mount the door hardware, but you get the idea....





You're also getting a sneak peak look at the gorgeous tile....Lucky you!



There are just a few more details I'd like to show before I reveal to you the completed project, and the super fun video of Mom-In-Law seeing the powder room for the first time..... So....stay tuned!

{Mom-In-Law's Powder Room} Starting the Project

A bit of "back-blogging" for you today. And it's totally worth the trip! Some months ago, my brother-in-law had the great idea to do something really big for his mom, my MIL. Her downstairs powder room needed refreshing in a major way. The fixtures were seriously outdated and there was a very, umm, shall we say,  "interesting" toilet situation. I am so dissapointed that the photo below doesn't show the degree of "tilt" in the toilet. Yes, the toilet is lifted on one side, making any sitters concentrate a little harder in order to conduct business and remain on the seat itself.





Sorry toilet, did I catch your bad side?

 So why on earth would someone have a fun-house toilet? Well, we were all thinking that the handyman that installed the tile and toilet did something incorrect. I mean, the three inch moat of grout sourrounding the toilet gave us no cause to think this man did quality work!

But any way you swing it, the room needed help. The main complaint, (besides the obvious) was that is was dark. My mother-in-law has a wonderful and lively spirit and this room doesn't reflect it. This room must have ree--aaalllly been bothering my BIL for him to suggest that we overhaul it. It's tons of work, we all have full time jobs and the Spring temps in Phoenix were slowly creeping up. But I'm always a sucker for a good renovation, and I get to be project manager!! So I was IN before he could change his mind!! (Just kidding. He'd never change his mind. He'd do anything for his mama.)

Since this was going to be a surprise, we wanted to have all the materials on hand before we started the job. And since it was a gift, we wanted it to be spectacular! And since we're not rich, we needed to get as many deals as we could. That's the fun part for me. I love me a good deal!! I can smell 'em where they hide!

The ultimate goal for the little PR (powder room) was to feel fresh and inviting, and slightly tropical; like a polished resort room. I wanted the walls to have a color, but nothing that would take over it's identity, so I chose an interior semi-gloss in "Icy Blue" by Valspar. It turned out just perfect. To add a little detail and interest, we (my hubby) installed a bead board wainscoting from the floor, up 4'. The trim is pretty neat too. It's a product that is already shaped to fit right over the boards, making a finished look very easy to achieve.

Oh, and by the way, when we removed the toilet, we discovered that tree roots had invaded the plumbing and were actually lifting the toilet up!! Crazy!! I tried to get a pic of it, but the guys shoved a bag in the hole, and I didn't want to touch it to move it out of the way!! The guys had to dig as much as they could of the roots out and use a root killer on the rest. Let's hope it worked.....


Kind of a shoddy pic, but then again, consider the subject. 

 I'll sign off from this post leaving you feeling what we were feeling at the time. Dirty and underwhelmed. We were a long ways away from turning this room into a polished little gem.

More to come.....