Bathroom Updates + Renovation To Do List

I’m pretty sure Dan and I are about the slowest renovators out there. How is it I can even write a DIY blog when it’s taking us a year to makeover a bathroom?! I’m so ashamed. But you can’t really blame us, this one has been a doozy, with a cement floor, old walls and foundation, plumbing, and electrical work still to be done – it was bound to take long. Today I wanted to show you how far we’ve come with things in our most recent DIY adventure.

Since I know seeing my bathroom is at the top of your list of must-do-things this fall, here is our progress, drywall!

Not just hung drywall, tapped and mudded drywall!

Dan made tons of progress in the space over the past few weeks. Yes, it takes us weeks to do these things, I mentioned we are slooooow.

We got all the drywall up and when I say we, I still mean Dan. This was his part of the reno. I get to do the fun stuff like pick out paint and the shower curtain.

This is the space between the shower and window. I picture us building in some shelves here. I’ve also thought about hanging towel hooks on the wall, but am undecided. What do you think? This will all be closed in with drywall.

And the ceiling is finished too.

We learned when doing our bedroom closet makeover that you have to hang drywall first on the ceiling because the walls hold it up. Thankfully this is a small room, so the overhead work was minimal. Bless my husband for putting up with and cutting all those corners and small pieces. There may or may not have been lots of swearing coming from the basement at that part of the project.

I told you, most exciting. One thing we learned on this part of the project, aside from doing the ceiling first, is that we are not fans of the flat drywall tape. It has since bubbled in several places on the walls and we’ve had to do it over. Not fun when you are trying to make progress. So we’ve since switched to the mesh drywall tape. Have you used either?

And this is how we’ve finished things. But before I go I need to make a bathroom makeover to do list! I can’t believe I forgot to do that from the start. With those terrible before pictures, how could I not want to get this makeover started immediately?

Here is our basement bathroom renovation to do list:

• Gut the whole space More on that here
• Fix the foundation wall More on that here
• Level the floor More on that here
• Install the subfloor More on that here
• Select paint and prime and paint the room
• Install lights
• Get plank wood, cut it, paint it, and install it
• Install the floor
• Figure out how to create a floor for the shower and install it
• Move plumbing in shower
• Tile the shower
• Install baseboards
• Install toilet
• Install vanity, sink and faucet
• Find and hang lights, mirror, art?
• Install the wall shelves
• Accessorize and decorate

Oh wow, that is a long list. We might be finished by the time I’m due to retire. But we are making progress. Next I have to pick out a paint color. The leftover paint we had, which was the kitchen color, was moldy and now we have to actually buy paint. I was hoping to save money, but it will be fun to pick out a new color. Take a look at my For the Bath Pinterest board for my inspiration photos. Which do you like?

So now I have to go to work on getting that list narrowed down.