I can’t believe it’s already been 5 months (!) since I shared this mood board for our master bathroom. At that time, we were beginning demo to turn an awkward small bathroom, hallway, and office into a big, luxurious master bath and closet.
And while we’ve made so much progress, we still feel a long way from being done in here. I know, how can a bathroom remodel take 6+ months?! Well, today I thought I’d explain a bit more of where we are, where we’re going, and what’s taking so long.
Where We Are
The plumbers finally came last week, which was so exciting! We had initially had another company out to give us a quote, but they stopped returning calls and emails from us, so we had a bit of a delay trying to find a new plumber. So far it’s been a great experience with the new plumbing company, though! Most of the rough-in is done, but they’ll have to come back to add a few things in before the inspection.
The room is still down to the studs, and Dustin is installing a new subfloor (I’m learning so much about how homes are built!). Next, we have to lower the ceiling about 6 inches to allow room for the plumbing that drains from the upstairs bathroom.
Then, we’ll get drywall and tile up, and the electrician and plumbers will come back to get fixtures installed.
There’s a lot left to do, but we can see the roadmap ahead of us and we have the subcontractors scheduled or waiting, so hopefully it will all be done by the end of summer.
Where We’re Going
This is the exciting part! While our plans are mostly unchanged from our initial moodboard, we did end up making some modifications. The biggest news? We’re really embracing the dark side—of the tub, that is! We decided to go with a tub that’s black on the outside and white inside. Dustin pushed for this option and I’ve been seeing it everywhere, so I was in.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I didn’t share these before, but I think this overhead shot of the previous layout vs. the new layout really helps to reinforce exactly why we took on this renovation in the first place.
These are pretty rough plans and don’t have the scale of the bathroom fixtures 100% correct, but it should help give some context to the renovation, right?
- The 10×17 room at the top of both images is our master bedroom.
- The small room on the bottom was previously used as an office but will become our new master closet.
- In the center, you can see there was a hallway connecting the two rooms, as well as a bunch of weird, small closets and a bathroom.
As you can see, losing the hallway makes for a MUCH larger bathroom, but it does mean we had to make it a walkthrough bathroom, with doors on either end. Since it leads to what’s going to be the closet, it works.
Because we have to be able to walk through the middle, we landed on this layout with everything around the outside of the room. We seriously examined every possible layout but this one just made the most sense.
Want to see more of our vision? Head back to the mood board post here.
What’s Taking So Long?
If you watch HGTV or even follow some DIY bloggers, it can seem like anything is possible overnight. And, with the right team and experience, it might be. We opted to do things a little differently, though, so we’ve taken a long time to see progress in our bathroom.
The main thing that is holding up the progress here is that we didn’t hire a general contractor. We also did all of the demo ourselves, around our work schedule. We spent 5 weeks traveling in the middle of a renovation. We had subcontractors disappear, ignore our emails, or not be able to fit us in their schedule. We changed plans and dealt with issues as they arose. We worked on other projects during the delays instead of devoting all of our time to the bathroom.
We are learning so much as we go, but this is our first ever bathroom renovation and our first project that we’re managing ourselves and doing a lot of DIY work on.
Honoring Where We Are and Embracing Transition
Construction shots don’t do well on Instagram, and this blog post probably won’t be as popular as a before and after post. People aren’t used to seeing the messy middle and it’s not as exciting and glamorous.
I’ve been so stressed about this bathroom and how long it’s taking that I’ve lost sleep over it, and I wake up feeling like we’ll never get to move into our master bedroom.
That’s just not true, of course. Someday, we’ll be in there. But even so, what’s so wrong with life right now? What’s wrong with being in a season of transition?
The truth is, the delays on this project have taught us a lot and given us the time and space to change our minds, find the right products, and really ensure that this bathroom is going to be amazing. Most recently, we ended up switching our white tile selection and choosing a different shower enclosure (oops—this one involved a return) than we initially picked. We also came up with new storage ideas that we can easily incorporate because the walls are still open. If we’d hired a GC in December, there’s no way we’d have been able to make these changes.
Ultimately, this is going to work a lot better for us and solve some issues we were stressed about, but we only came to these conclusions after nearly 6 months of thinking about and working on this project!
Instead of dreaming about a perfect home or your someday situation, what if you could honor where you are right now?
We can’t always love where we are—sometimes we have hard seasons, seasons of waiting, or trials that feel overwhelming. But we can always honor where we are.
Maybe by doing so, we can untie that knot of resistance in our chests.
So, I’m going to honor this season while my house is under construction. I’m going to decorate around the open walls. I’m going to make plans and change plans and dream up new clever solutions. I’ll get my hands dirty and be thankful for things taking their time so they can work out in the best way.
How can you honor where you are?
2 Comments
Baylee
January 6, 2021 at 2:47 pmMy fiancé and I just purchased our first house and basically gutted everything but the kitchen (for now). It’s great seeing someone kind of doing the same things we are. Luckily for me he is a contractor so if we can’t do something, we know someone who can. I feel bad your contractor flaked on you guys, my fiancé says it’s people like that who give the industry a bad rep. I love seeing all your progress. Super excited I found this Blog.
darcyclark
January 6, 2021 at 4:01 pmAww thanks so much for reading! We have definitely had a hard time finding good contractors/sub-contractors, which is so discouraging. But we’re slowly getting there!