Blog Sale

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Our Bathroom Renovation

We decided it was time to turn our bright yellow and mint horror of a bathroom into something a little more pop arty and modern.  And because The Sexy Man and I are both very handy and wonderfully clever...we did it all ourselves.  If you follw me on IG, @konadlicious, you will have seen sneak peeks of a few of these photos, but here they are a lot bigger in size.
 
Want to have a look?
 
 
First we knocked down the wall in between the loo and bathroom.


And jackhammered up all the floor tiles in 3 rooms plus a hallway.


Pulled all the tiles off the walls and removed the ivory pedestal basin.


And started laying the awesome red tiles that took me over a month to source.


Took out the Ivory Apricoty (!!) toilet and installed a nice white one.

 
Painted the yellow walls stark white through the laundry and hallway.
FYI, to paint white over a yellow takes SIX coats.


Pulled out the shower


And started tiling floor to ceiling.

 
Now, the fun part!  We pulled out all my mosaicing supplies from the garage and dumped it all in the middle of the bathroom and started......


.....mosaicing the walls!
 

 
Have you ever mosaiced?  It's mentally draining.  It's like a HUGE jigsaw puzzle and you have to cut, slot and fit.  After a several hour stretch you are completely exhausted.


Almost done!  After securing all the tiles to the wall we then grouted all over with white grout, then buffed back the excess, semi dried with a heat gun then got to it again with box cutters to define the grout on every single piece of tile and make sure no pieces got covered over with grout.



And finished!  You can click on the pics to make them bigger if you want to see details. 

What did we throw into our mix?  Everything we could put our fingers on....ceramic doll heads, geisha figurines, elephants, dogs, parts of mirrors, washed up sea glass, my broken glass beads, marbles, nude statues, pre decimal coins, current coins, Turkish tiles, shards of pottery 150 years old, bullet casings, retro coasters, antique china, modern solid color tiles, teapot spouts (lots of those),  pot lids, antique Bakelite light switches............ just to name a few!


The light and corner towel cupboard are from Ikea.



The mirror is a $29 bargain from Kmart.



So, my take on renovations??  I'm NEVER going to renovate anything ever again!  This project took 3 months and it was solid hard work by The Sexy Man almost every night when he got home from work, by myself during the day and both of us every weekend.  But we love our new bathroom, what do you guys think?

23 comments:

  1. Oh my lawd, it looks freaking AMAZING! What handy, clever people you two are. I tried some mosaic madness years ago and always wanted to do my splash back area in the bathroom. You may have just inspired me (or completely scared me off!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Definitely do it Brooke as it will look fabulous! A small area will be much quicker than 3 large walls!

      Delete
  2. Looks amazing!!! Yeah, I've done mosaic, and it IS rather taxing, but what a WOW here!
    We're looking at doing our bathroom shortly......we're pretty into doing it ourselves, but are a little nervous about ripping out the window for a new smaller one. But what the HELL. XXX

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just pull it out and do whatever! You can always get it fixed if it doesn't go right.......right??

      Delete
  3. Wow, wow, wow! This is frigging stunning! I'm in awe. You guys are incredible!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is amazing! What a lot of work went in to that. I can't even imagine having enough patience to finish the mosaic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were well and truly sick of it by the 3rd wall.....ugh.

      Delete
  5. LOVE!!! I'm totally jealous as it looks beautiful

    ReplyDelete
  6. WOW!!!! That is just so wild and awesome! I can only imagine how long the mosaic took...I once did a small hotplate and yeah it took awhile!

    Congrats :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fabulous, simply fabulous! And darn, he's sexy. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thoroughly artistic, gorgeous remodeling job! That wall of vividly hued tiles is stunning!!!

    ♥ Jessica

    ReplyDelete
  9. those mosaic walls look amazing!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow, I love your wall! I can just imagine the torture you went through for three months putting that mosaic together. But the results speak for themselves. That was real dedication on your part. Great job! Too bad that you don't want to do renovations in the future, though. I hope you find more motivation and change your mind.

    Isaac Andre @ CarolinasHomePros.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Isaac! Comments like yours do make me change my mind....I am currently changing my whole house to 60's. Will keep you updated!

      Delete
  11. MOST amazing bathroom walls EVER! I so want to do this when I own my home, but my partner would have a FIT not just at the work but his epileptic so most likely the amount of different colors on the walls ..... he struggles with all the color from the nick nacks I have around

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for commenting! I read each and every one, even if I am slow to respond sometimes!