Bath-Roomy

One of the features of the old house that stood out when I bought it was the size of the upstairs bathroom. Usually in a house this age and square footage, you can expect the bathroom to be pretty small, but this one was downright roomy. In fact, it’s the exact floor size of the kitchen, which is directly below it.

I did not want to spend a lot of dough on the bath. Everything worked fine — that is, until the sink drain line sprung a leak and trashed the kitchen ceiling. I had planned on using the existing subfloor to install new tile, but after the leak, I had to tear up the floor in order to dry everything and replace the drain line.

After fitting the new luaun subflooring and windows, it was time to paint. Took several coats of Kilz and paint to hide the dark stencils.

This is my first attempt at installing linoleum tile. It’s pretty easy, but I should’ve learned a bit about it first. Although it’s soft, I found it less forgiving than ceramic tile. I did not rent or make a weighted roller, which was a mistake. I thought I could use a piece of smooth plywood and my own weight to set the tiles properly, and it worked alright, but left dimples and waves where I pressed harder. It’s not very noticable, but if you get down close to the floor you can see it. I suspect that over time some of the waves will smooth out. We’ll see. Still a huge improvement over the rolled vinyl flooring that had been there.

This is how the bathroom came out. Still some work to be done, trim, touch-up paint, maybe new shower fixtures. I was able to reuse the toilet and pedestal sink, but did replace the old, corroded hardware on both. The cabinet on the left is an antique washbasin stand that I picked up right in Punxsy. You can’t see it here, but there’s a new ceiling light/exhaust fan that I installed as part of the renovation, too.