Picture me, at the sprite age of 31, pinning images of mid-century entry ways and bathrooms.

I was completely and utterly unaware of the massive shit storm I was about to enter into that would lead me, one and a half years later, to have a prominent gray streak of hair directly in the middle of my head and to have known what it feels like to live with a plywood floor through all four seasons.

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Yes, renovation projects start out so exciting and then you find yourself in small claims court trying to get your money back from a contractor that you absolutely should have known better than to hire but isn’t saving a few dollars worth it? (It’s not). We won the court case. But that’s not the point.

I’ll spare you the whole long drawn out story and rather show you how we got from before to after. You’re here for the pictures anyways.

So, let’s start with a quick overview. Our front hall and powder room bathroom were original from when the house was built in 1936. Now, many original parts of the house I love, but this particular area had seen better days. The transition from hallway tile to bathroom tile drove me insane, as did the textured bathroom walls. Then there were the functional issues like when the front door scraped against the floor in the winter when it was cold or the glass blocks letting in wafts of cold air because they were not sealed properly. So let’s just sum it up like this: we wanted a lot of cosmetic changes and while we’re at it, let’s fix some of the functional issues. Some quick snaps of before to get you oriented:

Front Hall and Bathroom (Before) | Things I Made Today

Front Hall and Bathroom (Before) | Things I Made Today

Front Hall and Bathroom (Before) | Things I Made Today

And then in March 2017, we got started. The project began as expected, with the demoing of the entire bathroom and the front hall floor.

Front Hall + Bathroom (Demo) | Things I Made Today

Then came the bathroom floor and the the herringbone tile pattern which took about two weeks of two grown men’s lives to install.

Front Hall + Bathroom (Demo) | Things I Made Today

Then the fixtures went in and the details went up and wow, we had a brand new bathroom! Our front hall, however, remained looking like this:

IMG_3730

Then comes the part where we found out our contractor had been lying to us and we sued him in small claims court because we paid him to leave our hallway looking–well, not like what you see above. We hired a brand new, very reputable contractor to finish the job (and upsell us on all sorts of wonderful things in the meantime) and they got to work immediately.

Fast forward to now. We’ve got this beautiful brand new front door that changes everything about the front of our house. It was something that we tacked on towards the end (when we switched contractors) and it may be my favorite part of the whole project.

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

The front hall is now brighter and more modern. This tile was actually not my first choice but after the whole hot mess with the contractors, we ended up going with something that didn’t need to be custom ordered. And I’m so happy with how it looks, especially with the bronze insets.

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

And of course, the finished bathroom. The space is so tiny that it’s tough to take good photos (and it’s impossible to not catch my own reflection), but hopefully you can at least see the marked improvement over the before photos.

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

Front Hall + Bathroom | Things I Made Today

You’d think the pain and suffering of this renovation would sting for a long time — but somehow we’re already discussing our upstairs bathroom remodel. See ya in 5 years.

Source list, in case you’re interested. Starting with the front hall:

And the bathroom:

2 Comments

  • 01 / 12 / 22 / 4:00 pm

    1receives

    writes 1unabatedReply
  • 03 / 14 / 24 / 12:27 am

    Great post! It sounds like you went through a lot during your bathroom remodel, but the end result looks fantastic. I especially like the brighter front hall. Did you consider using loft boarding to maximize storage space in your remodel?

    writes Loft BoardingReply

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