Bathroom Before and After Pictures

I was looking through old photos on my computer today, and since I was in my 2006 folder, I realized it was two years ago that we had our bathroom remodeled. I love seeing before and after pictures on other blogs, so I'm going to post mine here just for fun.

We went to Peru in February 2006 for Ben's brother Caleb's sealing in the Lima Temple. His wife Elizabeth was from Lima and we had a fantastic time staying with her family and also traveling to Machu Picchu. We were gone for 10 days, and when we came home, there was a surprise waiting for us.

The ceiling above our shower was sagging.
Is this not the most hideous shade of green that you've ever seen??
We had to have the entire bathroom ceiling ripped out and replaced. Thankfully, it was paid for by the owner of the condo above us, because his renters had been using their shower even though there was a hole in the wall, which then allowed water to get into the walls and eventually dripped into our ceiling. Not good. (this was before the dog lady bought the place)
So... soon we had a new ceiling. We had talked about remodeling our one and only bathroom since we bought the condo, but it never seemed like the right time. Somehow, having a new ceiling put in made us realize how nice it would be to gut the entire bathroom...
The tub was original to when our condo was built, in the 1920s. The vanity was from the 70s when they converted the building's apartments into condos. It was so ugly.
The light fixture... awful! So was the tile.
We saw this on a box at Target and decided this was the look that we wanted to copy (random, I know!) - white pedestal sink, subway tile, and wood molding for the trim. We obtained quotes from four or five contractors - the highest being $19,000!! No thanks. Thankfully, one of my nanny friends' fiance and his brother did small remodeling jobs on the side, so we hired them to do our bathroom for a really reasonable price.

Here it is with the plaster walls torn out.
It was scary seeing our bathroom like this!


But soon enough, Jon and Gabor put up new drywall and started tiling.
We had to get creative while our one bathroom was out of commission. I would go over to work early and shower at the house, and Ben took showers at the university gym. We had use of the toilet for all but one day, so that night we slept over at Drew and Caroline's house, which was a huge help.
We did the most frugal, but nice job that we could do with our limited budget. The tub and marble floor tile were both from Home Depot. The subway tile was from Century Tile and the most expensive part of our bathroom.

The light fixture and sink were from Lowe's, and the encased mirror/vanity was from Menard's. The Pottery Barn shower curtain was new from eBay.

The only thing that didn't change was our very powerful, commercial toilet. It would have been difficult to change the plumbing to a more modern toilet, so we decided it wasn't worth changing something that worked just fine! It's loud though.
It took two weeks for the bathroom to be gutted and redone.
That was a long two weeks, but well worth it!
After the bathroom was finished, we had a "potty party" with our friends to celebrate the new look. It was lots of fun!