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The Junk Parlor

I love laminate flooring, but it does not like water, or pee. Here’s what we did to replace the flooring, that then caused a snowball affect with an updated bathroom!

It all started 12 years ago when we first added this dormer to our second story to create a new bathroom.  This bathroom was used by 3 of us when we first moved in and then by 5 of us each morning before we built on our master bedroom addition.  From the get go we had problems with the toilet.  It leaked.  Luckily I noticed water on the main floor bathroom(checkout that room HERE) ceiling and we quickly reinstalled the toilet, but there had already been too much moisture on the newly laid laminate floor.  Over time it had continued to get worse, and now 12 years later we are finally doing something about it.  For the past 8 or so years this has just been the kids bathroom, so I wasn’t looking at this issue every day or it would have been dealt with sooner!

Removing the trim and flooring

To start with I had to remove some of the wood trim.  This was not original trim, but just pine boards the same height as the trim in the rest of the house, which I attempted to stain as close as possible to the rest of the house.  Because it was not original and not a good match, I decided this time to paint it all white. 

This POST shows you a good example of the original woodwork. When we built our master bedroom addition, I was able to salvage some from a salvage company so I could match the original trim in the new space. But for two of the bathrooms that were remodeled we went with basic pine boards.

After I removed a couple sections of the trim I started working on pulling up the floor.  Luckily we had saved some extra flooring from this project!  I did damage one piece in order to get the floor pulled up.  It’s kind of like tongue and groove boards, but it locks into place much tighter.

Removing the toilet

Eventually I could get the floor up and then I had to wait for my husbands help.  I’ve sat a toilet before, but I was just the assistant!  And, I preferred to be the assistant again.  So together we got the toilet pulled up and then used the rotted floor piece to cut out a new piece.  Now, if you look closely you will see that the fake tile lines do not match up perfectly, but the hubby was beyond pissed with how it was progressing, so much so that we gave up and called it good.  We figured most of the time this area would be hidden with a bath mat anyway! Somehow we managed to get the rest of the pieces to pop back into place, it took forever, but they were lined up.

Updating the bathroom with paint

While waiting for the flooring and toilet process I filled nail holes which I didn’t do the first time, and painted the trim white.  It probably ended up taking 3 coats.  I just used the stocked white from True Value.  I then painted the walls grey…Silverplate from Sherwin Williams.  This is the same grey I have in my kitchen, dining room, living room areas.

When I paint, I paint the trim first (if I’m painting it), then I move to cutting in.  I cut in everything with a brush like THIS and then I use the roller.  Hopefully you can get away with just one coat of paint, but if you are still seeing a lot of the original color than you must do a second coat!  I lucked out in this room and only did one coat.  But I did have to go through and do some touch ups because my husband caulked the tub/shower area and the cracks on the baseboard where we didn’t have a good cut years ago.

Tip – Be sure when caulking to use caulking with THIS feature

Repainting this room allows me to give you a great tip!  If you are desiging a bathroom, take into consideration repainting this room.  When I designed this bathroom, I could have easily made some changes to this floor plan that would have helped me out now!  Do not put your cabinet/vanity a couple inches off the wall!  Go flush against the wall or at least 6″ from the wall so that you can easily clean and repaint that area!

I ended up buying a skinny roller and just going in as far as I could.  It’s so dark in that corner that I don’t think anyone will even be able to tell, but it would have been a lot easier if I could actually fit my hand in that space!

Done is better than perfect

While we are updating the bathroom with paint and flooring we decided to tackle the shower as well.  No matter how I tried to clean the kids shower head, it just wasn’t spraying with much power and the water wasn’t getting very hot.  So, we adjusted the handle so the water could get hotter and bought a new shower head.  The pressure and temperature problems are solved, but the shower head is not very pretty!  In our small town no one carries bronze, so we went ahead and got silver.  Yes, we could have ordered online or waited until we were in a big town, but the hubby and I both knew that it might take us a year or ten to actually complete that task, so we just bought the one locally that doesn’t match!

We can always replace this one with a bronze one that matches and then hold on to this one as a backup. Because you never know when you are going to need one!

New bathroom decor

I was at Target in the big city when I purchased a shower curtain and bath mat.  The black and white striped shower curtain are from Threshold and the grey bath rug is from Project 62 & Nate Berkus.  Since the kids have all switched around bedrooms this summer, this bathroom is now shared between my youngest two, a boy and girl, so we decided to go pretty neutral in our choices.  My daughter already had coral towels from her old bathroom, so we decided to reuse them in here.  I still need to get the towel rack hung and at least 1 piece of art work.

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