Master Bathroom Renovation: How We Transformed Our Master Bath

The gut renovation of our 30 year old master bathroom – transformation renovation tips. This is how we upgraded our master bath adding function, style, and modern appeal to our home.

Our master bathroom was original to the house at about 30 years old, and it had never been touched. Our master bathroom remodel took a lot of planning, complete demolition, and then the renovation itself could begin. This is the long, drawn out saga of our master bathroom renovation.

Master Bathroom Renovation: How We Transformed Our Master Bath

This was not our first bathroom renovation. This was Hubby’s fifth full bathroom renovation which really did help with all the planning, demolition, and remodeling. Experience is a great teacher, but people have to be willing to try. You learn as much from your mistakes as you do your successes.

(Since this bathroom remodel, he has remodeled the other two bathrooms in our house. Those were not to the studs; the half bath was just a flooring upgrade. The other full bath was more involved, but not to the studs like this master as the layout is set in that bathroom.)

As I mentioned in my demolition post, the master bathroom renovation improvements; new flooring, walls, electric, plumbing, vanity, linen cupboard, and shower, was like watching a ballet performance.

A needed to happen before B and C, but C was happening at the same time as D, etc. There is a reason people hire general contractors to oversee renovations.

The condensed version:

In our case, not only did Hubby do much of the work, he also GCed the skilled labor. He was responsible for the timing of the plumbers (they came several times), the electricians (they came several times) – we has permits pulled for this renovation so that required licensed and insured plumbers and electricians and county inspectors to check their work.
We planned.
We demolished.
Then, the ceiling was painted, can lights went in, and so did the fans.
Once the pony wall went up and the outside of it was drywalled and painted, the electricians could come back and install the electric towel warmers. After that, the inside was finished for the tile guys to be able to work.
Hubby had to frame before the shower could be tiled, and we had a date that the tile guys would arrive and how long they would be here.

Hubby had to have the lighting installed, the electricity reworked,the plumbing redone, the walls painted, and the medicine chests hung before the vanity could be installed. The vanity needed to be installed before the countertop could go in (the sinks were installed in the countertop). Then the plumbers could finish up. The countertop guys left us the shower threshold (the tile guys came back to install it), the seat, and the top of the pony wall.
Once the shower was finished, we had the vanity people come in and measure for the linen cupboard. We then went on vacation and let the tile cure.
When we got home from vacation, the shower door guys came in and installed the frameless doors.
Then, the cabinet people came back and installed the linen cabinet/cupboard.
After that, we were in the home stretch. Hubby installed the baseboards and moldings, and I had shutters installed.
And voilà! We were done.

The longer story:

He took down the popcorn ceiling and patched that up. A header needed to go in above where the linen cabinet was going to be installed. That had electric through it.

Hubby spent a lot of time putting up the walls, making sure they were solid and then putting up the drywall and making sure it was smooth.

One of the walls was going to house the bathroom niche, so he had to make certain the depth was correct for that.

Hubby torn down most of the walls and replaced them.

The wall by the exit door and the water closet door had been wallpappered at one point, so that had to be removed before sealing and painting.

The pony wall was built so that electricity could run through it as I wanted towel warmers. I had also decided on using the top of the pony wall as my shelf for hair and body products, which means it had to be thicker.

The electricians were in several times. Hubby had to paint the pony wall before the towel warmers went in, and decided to paint the ceiling before the can lights went in. We had several in the ceiling from the old bathroom, and decided to leave them in place. We added more and retrofitted the old one to upgrade them.

We also added lights above the medicine chests. It is now nice and bright in there when we want it to be.

We installed new, very quiet bathroom exhaust fans (one in the shower, one in the water closet), and also installed a ceiling fan. Now, the bathroom is light and bright and well ventilated. The old exhaust fans exhaust hoses ended in the soffit. The hose was just laying there and current code says they have to be attached to the soffit so it will blow out from there. We have boxes installed to accomplish that.

The electrical plugs got a bit of an upgrade. A hairdryer and an airwrap draw a lot of power when turned on. I recall at the old house being told to not use my hair dryer when the electric went out and the whole house generator tripped on because the hair dryer start draw was too large.

The electricians installed a dedicated GFI for my hair utensil needs. The other GFI is hooked in for the rest of the bathroom.

At this point things were moving a long. The new walls for the shower were up, the medicine chests installed, and now the tile guys came in.

The toilet was pulled, all the moldings and baseboards had been removed, and it was time to let the tile installers work their magic.

As I mentioned in the last post, a Schluter system was installed in the shower. The tile guy did have special certification to install it.

Hubby and he decided the bench would be custom and they used cement blocks to build it. We used glass tiles for accent, long boards for the tiling, and a modified non-slip penny tile for the flooring. The pony wall, threshold, and the bench seat are quartz that matches the vanity quartz. The tile guy came back to install them not trusting the quartz installers. heh

The glass required a translucent two part epoxy grout. It dried clear and the glass looks spectacular.

Truly a lovely job.

We decided against installing a heated floor. Honestly it would have been worth having for maybe one month out of the year down here and it simply was not worth the brain damage to us to have it installed over a slab. We ended up with a non-skid floor that I love, and Hubby now hates. He thinks it shows dirt as it is quite light. I think he sees the pattern as dirt. (We ended up using the same tile in both of our other bathrooms. heh)

They used spacers and spectralock one – a one part epoxy grout on the floor (stormy gray), shower walls (frosty), and shower pan (silver shadow).

This is the only photo of the water closet I took. I have no idea why they wrote on the floor. They did it in the other bathrooms we renovated. It was cleaned before they left us.

After the tiling, getting the cabinetry installed was next. I did this in a two step process. It It was easy to have the vanity measured when the room was torn apart as we knew where it was going, and the walls were firmly in place. I waited on the linen cabinet until the soffit, half wall, tiling and painting were complete. That was not a big deal as we ordered, went to Spain on vacation and it arrived the week after we got home.

When bringing in the vanity, they never measured to see if the pieces would fit through the bathroom doorway.

The vanity arrived in parts. The installers tried to get the parts through the doorway and couldn’t. We had ordered kitchen depth as well as kitchen height for the vanity, and the width was too much for the door frame.

The solution (thank goodness) was to remove the door jambs. That little bit of room was enough extra to get it through the door and installed. Whew. Crisis averted!

Kitchen counter depth is 24″, bathroom counter depth is 21″. We had the room, so decided to go with the deeper countertop space.

Standard kitchen cabinet height is 36″. Standard bathroom cabinet height is 32″, and wow that 4″ difference is a lot. Hubby constantly hunched over with the old vanities, and the old bathroom vanities did look rather short. The trend is now toward a “comfort height” of 36″, the same as a kitchen.

I asked the cabinet people about it when I ordered for our other bathroom (there was never any doubt we were ordered the taller vanity for this bathroom) and they told me that the lower height is seldom ordered or installed these days, “everyone” has moved on to the taller bathroom vanity height.

The vanity was installed over the tile floor. Once that was done, the quartz guys came and measured that countertop, the shower bench top, and the pony wall top. They were quite quick and we had about a week’s turn around. We had asked for rectangular sinks (everything is sharp in thos bathroom except for the lights about the medicine chests) and they brought in oval so they had to re-cut the vanity top. A mild setback that was quickly remedied.

Once the countertop was installed the plumbers came back and hooked up the sinks and shower. At that point, all the electric and plumbing was finished and the inspectors came and signed off. In all, we saw an inspector five times – twice for electric, twice for plumbing, and then the final sign off.

The inspectors were very nice, some were talkative, some not, but we were never given a time they would arrive, just a day. I am not sure how people who work outside the home can deal with that.

After this, we were in the final stages. The only things left were the moldings (Hubby installed them), shower doors, and the linen cabinet.

We ended up getting frameless shower doors. There were many discussions with the shower door installers before, during, and after Hubby framing the shower. They would be the ones dealing with any imperfections as well as telling us if our vision was doable (it was). We also decided to get the doors with the invisible shield baked in so I wouldn’t have to coat the shower doors anymore. It works, but not as well as I would like and I will end up coating them eventually. LOL

After they installed the shower doors the installer decided he did not like the gap between the door and side piece and so redid it. We were able to use the shower while they re-fabricated the side panel.

The linen cabinet came in and easily fit through the door as it was a 21″ depth. It was installed, Hubby did a round of paint touch-up and we were officially done with our renovation.

The finished product.

In all, the work took four months to complete. There was downtime in between as we went away for a month-long trip and then a two-month trip. That wasn’t terrible as it allowed for things to be ordered and come in while we were away.

This project was finished over a year ago so we have had time to live with it, and our decisions. There is not one day when I go in there that I am not thrilled with how this renovation came out!! This is probably my second favorite reno project of all time (the pool fill-in at our old house will forever be my favorite), and I love every choice we made, every design feature we installed. I remain thrilled we did this renovation, and enjoy having a functional and lovely master bathroom.

● For more renovations on Ann’s Entitled Life, click here.

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