The 65 Rancher, A labor of Love, bathroom remodel.

It's hard to believe we bought this old house in 04. November 30th was our 6th year "house-i-versary". Not having a sizable income, we have just taken to remodeling as we could, as money allowed. First the little things, like painting, fixtures, etc. Then there came bigger headaches, like having to nearly gut the bathroom.

When we bought our house, all the baseboards, trim and doors and EVEN windows were this ICKY HUNTER green. The kitchen was salmon pink, and a few rooms were ARMY beige. The former owners probably meant well, and it probably looked good with whatever they had going on in there, but for us..well..it just was not our taste.

When I received my refund on a LARGE electric deposit a year later (300 bucks) I sat on hands and knees and kilz'ed all of the baseboards and doors bright white. I painted our ugly walls from stark white to behr's ripe wheat. The first time I saw it on the walls it looked school bus yellow. Then it dried into a nice historic type golden color. I wish I had done it in satin instead of semi gloss, but as a new home owner with a child I thought semi gloss would be easier to clean.

But the bathroom, My gosh that bad boy was a hot mess. oak built in wall shelving, OAK UGLY vanity, HUNTER GREEN counter, Oak medicine Cabinet, OAK light fixture, OAK towel shelves. Man..yeah, it was probably all true to the year it was built in 65 as well.

Initially I bought an over the toilet cabinet, it was so nice, I bought a new mirror and light fixture, and I was planning to just stain the vanity and buy a new counter top...UNTIL, I noticed the previous owners had hid a dirty little secret (which is why I encourage ANYONE to buy a home inspection, DO NOT TRUST the seller, no matter if they mean well or not) the home inspection protects you! Well, the dirty cover up? An old water leak that was so bad they SPRAY painted over to hide mold. When we ripped the vanity from the wall, the dry wall was not bad, but for safe measure we decided to replace the sections near the vanity as well (never know with the spores being invisible).

So the 65 ranchers only LONELY bathroom went from this:




The Mold we found that ate through the spray paint (haha ew right?)


Demoing the old vanity..


See those textured walls? Yep, replicating it once we replaced the drywall was a pain in my rear, but i did it!



Jason & Doug replaced the Drywall with MOLD resistant one & I replicated the texture etc.

You have NO idea how much joint compound I had to use lol!!

How did I make it match?? joint compound, smacking the wall with a flat hard object and repeat LOL;D


Eventually it was all done and in went the vanity and counter, then I tried to find a nice neutral green..

Beat the old vanity right? (this was all in 07 may I add, we will do the tile floors this year)

I painted the oak built ins bright white semi gloss kilz. The paint was lion by behr, I would of gone one shade lighter if I had to do it again.

because the 65 vanity was an odd size, no one carried that size, so we went smaller but nicer, and as a result had to also move the light receptacle box, which Doug did, and I matched the drywall texture PERFECTLY :)

The paint again..see those ugly old shower tiles? they will get redone this year:) The door used to be hunter green and that entire built in was oak *ick* wish I had a before photo of that.


new light bar and mirror (sorry my camera did not have a wide lens 3 years ago so the angles are odd)

part of the over toilet cabinet


I can't believe I painted when I was 7 months pregnant with Ethan.



ta daaaaa such a nice transformation, right?!


And of course we, like I said, don't have a sizable income, and with 2 kids, we just remodel as we can, we bought the tile to do the bathroom but have to wait till the income tax return to actually hire a friends husband to re tile the shower walls and floor:) I can't wait!!



So, in a few months we are hoping to do the tile work. Considering we did all of this ourselves, we saved money, it wasn't a cheap job, but it wasn't super expensive. The new vanity i was 400, the counter was 190, the mirror I got on sale at LNT for 45 bucks, the light bar was 90 at lowes, and the faucet was probably 200. The drywall was 25 and we had the joint compound, the paint was 30 at home depot. The tile was 120..So 1100 bucks thus far is NOT bad for a near complete remodel. :) After we get the tile and shower done I will be sure to post another update and photo to the blog. And excuse the green, it is very literally my favorite color:)

**update, here are a few w/ the wide lens camera**