The highlight of 2011 for me and my family was moving into a new home in the beautiful Village of Trumansburg, New York. Sprawling space and an open concept floor plan were welcome changes coming from a dark and damp basement apartment. But the house needed a lot of updating and our first project was the main bathroom which was a light blue nightmare - floor to ceiling light blue: toilet, tub, walls, sink...everything blue!
We decided to keep the layout the same in order to save money, even though it was not optimal. Two of the biggest challenges were scraping up 3 layers of peel-and-stick vinyl tile, and removing the two large double doors opposite the tub/shower unit, which had been used as wheelchair access to the room. Framing in the wall and installing drywall proved to be harder than we thought -
*MyEH Tip: Hire an expert drywall-er to do the finish work
Mudding and taping is a skill - and this task can eat up a lot of time (and you will eat a lot of dust!) when a pro could whiz through it no problem.
Despite the setbacks with the drywall, I was very excited to tackle the custom tiled shower. We plotted out the design on graph paper, took many measurements, and purchased a great wet tile saw.
We used all off-the-shelf tile from Lowe's, and I believe we attained a wonderful high-end look by combining three different sizes, united by the lovely warm sand palette.
*MyEH Tip: Don't buy custom! Get a custom look by combining different sized tile in the same color palette.
Our mishaps with the drywall forced me to think up a creative way to cover a large area of wall somehow. So I purchased a three-panel screen from
OrientalFurniture.com with a beautiful floral pattern, separated the panels and hung them vertical. OrientalFurniture.com offers dozens of options and sizes, even double-sided screens, too. This is a fantastic way to hide imperfections and make a big statement, even in a small space.
*MyEH Tip: Hide a multitude of sins with a three or four panel screen. Separate the panels and hang vertically or horizontally for more coverage.
I choose a dark mahogany freestanding furniture-style vanity with contrasting crema marfil marble top.
And with extra glass mosaic tile from the shower wall, I transformed a boring basic mirror into a custom jewel!
*MyEH Tip: Shop for mirrors at thrift stores and yard sales for a great deal and customize with paint, tile, shells, buttons, broken pottery
