DIY - Bathroom Completed!

    Ahhh!  Our bathroom is finally complete!  Okay, mostly complete... we still need to add the vent/exhaust fan + light and paint the ceiling, but really for all intents and purposes, the bathroom is done!  It's actually been done for quite some time - just over 2 months as we finished a couple weeks before Walden was born.  But, adjusting to life with a baby has sucked up nearly all of my blog-posting time.  :)

     I am really happy with how the bathroom turned out.  It's so different I can barely remember what it looked like before without the pictures!  We lost a linen closet in the renovation but gained the refinished double-sized vanity (with one really large sink), a beautiful clawfoot tub, tile instead of linoleum, a new toilet, amazing fixtures and a really nice black, white and purple color scheme.  Here's a quick look at the before and after! 

     Here's the finished vanity complete with the anthropologie mercury glass candles that were the inspiration for the mercury glass sconces.  We put a three-pronged antique style cast-iron hook on the wall for hand towels.

     I also found this cute toilet paper holder.  It's not an antique, but it's a nice reproduction.

     Our built-in shelf turned out wonderfully.  We added two more of the cast iron hooks by the back of the tub for easy towel access post-shower.  

     I really love the hardware and shower conversion kit that we chose for the clawfoot tub.  The tub faucet matches the sink faucet perfectly and adding a shower to the tub was a must.  I'd heard that showering in a clawfoot tub was really inconvenient, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how not-bad it was!  The hardest part is getting into the tub because it's quite a bit taller than a conventional bathtub.  Other than that, I barely notice a difference.  I did have to buy 3 shower curtains to fit around the full length of the tub, but I used my sewing machine to shorten them lengthwise and convert them into 2 extra wide curtains.  For the back curtain, I sewed in an overlapped opening so we would have easy access to the toiletry shelf without flooding the back wall with shower water.

     Lastly, even though we got the tub standing on its feet and it seemed very secure, Clint didn't want to risk the tub falling and busting the pipes/tile/etc.  It would pretty much ruin the bathroom if anything went awry, so we built little wooden support stands to go under the tub.  They sit about 1/8th of an inch below the height of the tub so that if the tub were to fall, it would be just barely. I was really concerned about adding something that would look terrible, but they're nearly invisible if you're not looking for them and gave us some peace of mind.

     That's it!  It was a lot of hard work and it took forever (from November until April, working mainly on weekends), but it was definitely worth it.  And although I spent way way way too much time picking out every little detail for the bathroom, I really enjoyed my little venture into the world of interior design!  That being said, I wouldn't recommend anyone take on a bathroom renovation project at ~3 months pregnant...  :)