Guest Bathroom

Our guest bathroom...before and after pictures. We are extremely pleased with the results! As with the rest of the house project, Libby and I ended up tearing out the bathroom to the studs. The good part about this is that it gave the ceilings a ton of height. Libby installed the floor tile and cabinets. She used Ikea cabinets and countertop.

Front sitting room

Here is the front sitting room. It is the room to the right as you enter our house. As you can see, we decided to remove the pink wallpaper, curtains, carpet and shutters. The floor was very interesting...at first glance it did not look like wood...it looked more like linoleum from a distance. But, after some very careful sanding and finishing, we have a magnificent hand laid parquet, rift and quartered white oak floor!

Entertainment center

Once we took out the old cabinets, window air conditioner and all of the drywall off of the walls, we had a clean slate to work with. Keeping in the same style as the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, we decided to add a little black glass cabinet face to work with the line of slate that wraps the fireplace and the black glass mosaic tile kitchen backsplash. LED lighting shines down from under the black glass cabinets and creates a nice mood in the evening. Once again, Libby had some great ideas!

Main living room

This is our main living room. We love the fireplace! The entertainment center on the right was fun to design...all of the cabinets are from IKEA.

Kitchen

A front on view of the kitchen. The cabinets are IKEA, the appliances are Jenn-Air and the flooring is sanded and finished rift and quarterersawn white oak. Notice the little air unit in the top left corner of the finished product. This is part of a 2 stage air conditioning system that is made by Fujitsu. It heats and cools and is over 98% efficient. The house did not come with an air conditioning system and this Fujitsu mini-split system sure saved the day! We still utilize out hot water boiler system that has been fully upgraded with a Munchkin boiler for heat in the winter.

Master bathroom

The master bathroom. Libby put quite a bit of work into the concept of the master bathroom. It started out fully carpeted, with a pink cast iron shower, pink toilet and a "Hollywood 1970's" vanity. We took the same position here as we did the rest of the house...tear it out down to the studs. Libby found this beautiful Italian glass mosaic tile for about $2.50 a square foot on Ebay. The same goes for the faucets and vessel sinks. The chrome faucets look like bamboo! To keep in sync with the rest of the cabinets in the house, Libby decided to use the same IKEA cabinets here. She had some custom granite countertops made out of a remnant by Distinctive Marble and Granite in Powell, Ohio which turned out great. The granite in the bathroom was about $600 but was well worth it! Bathrooms are expensive little spaces to renovate!

Alternate view of kitchen

Soon after we purchased the house we started demolition. This is the area that opens up into the kitchen. As we started tearing the place apart, the project became much more intense than we had thought. The carpet came up easily, but I then had to tear out an entire layer of 5/8" subfloor that was nailed down every 6 inches with screw nails (this is so the new hardwood flooring could be installed). It was so difficult that I could only physically tear out one piece of 4x8 subfloor a day! As we entrenched ourselves deeper and deeper into the demolition, it became apparent that the drywall and plaster had to be taken off as well. The final picture in this set includes a full IKEA kitchen (designed by Libby), Jenn-Air appliances and brand new flooring. The flooring was installed, sanded and finished by us too...it is a 3/4" tongue and groove rift and quartered white oak with a high traffic water base finish. The water base finish keeps the floor light and modern.