Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge

I am so excited to announce that I have been chosen to participate in the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge. For the next six weeks, I will be renovating our main bathroom from start to finish. We are basically gutting this baby and I can’t wait to share the whole process with you. Look for progress updates every week here on my blog and on each of my social channels. There’s a voting component that begins next week, so you’ll get to participate! It’s going to be SO. MUCH. FUN!

Let’s start with the BEFORE photos. This is what the bathroom looked like when we first bought our home six years ago:

We gave it a stage 1 makeover soon after moving in that consisted of painting the chocolate brown wall a subtle gray, building a custom frame to go around the mirror, refreshing the grout, and getting new plumbing fixtures, new cabinet knobs and some cute decorations.

Not bad for a budget-friendly quick makeover, eh?!

But we still had those dated flowers on the shower tile and the white ceramic tile floor is impossible to clean. The cultured marble vanity top was showing it’s age with staining and yellowing and even the beadboard wall treatment had water damage. So we were planning on a gut job eventually.

Then in June, we had a clogged pipe in the shower thanks to our extremely mineral-filled well water and the only way to fix it was to rip out the tile shower surround.

I’m not even joking, a few days after ripping out a wall of the bathroom to fix the shower plumbing, my husband broke his arm and was in a cast for FOUR very long months, so the bathroom remodel was put on hold. Then it was one thing after another and long story short, our bathroom has looked like this since June:

Yep, we’ve only had one functioning shower in our home for months and months. [Insert sobbing sound here]

So when Jeffrey Court approached me about the challenge, let’s just say I was more than thrilled to participate. Woohoo! Hurray! Yee Haw!

Demo has already begun and I can’t tell you how happy it made me to take a hammer to those stinkin’ flower tiles.

The only thing we’re keeping is the bathtub. Everything else is going, going, gone.

We don’t have an owner’s suite, so even though this is a shared hall bathroom, I want to cram it full of as much style and function as possible.

I have been really drawn to classic English styles lately, so I’m hoping to bring a bit of an updated cottage vibe to the space. This is the mood board I created to help me keep a clear vision as I source everything.

I’ll be re-tiling the tub surround and floor, creating a gorgeous inset style wainscoting wall treatment, hanging wallpaper (for the first time–eek!) and installing a new vanity plus all the details like faucets, lights, hardware, etc. My husband and I will be working together on everything… we’re not hiring out a single part. HOLY BANANAS. I think this might just be a crazy undertaking.

Here’s a list of every project we’re hoping to tackle:

• Remove old tile around tub and shower
• Remove old tile floor
• Clear out debris
• Remove old vanity
• Add outlet behind vanity
• Move light box down
• Repair drywall
• Remove toilet
• Clean floor and prep
• Lay down cement board
• Tape and cement seams
• Tile floor
• Seal floor
• Grout floor
• New plumbing in shower
• Install cement board in shower surround
• Tape + Mud
• Redgard
• Tile shower surround
• Seal shower surround
• Grout shower surround
• Install vanity
• Wainscoting wall molding
• Sand, caulk, prime and paint molding
• Wallpaper above wainscoting
• Install new toilet
• Install light, mirrors, towel bars, decor, etc.

I’ve been shopping and sledge-hammering and hunting antique malls and staring at paint samples until my eyes cross and you guys, this bathroom is going to be SO. GOOD.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FINISHED BATHROOM!