Closer to Master Retreat

After the tile was installed in the master bath and the shower fully functional, the project picked up pace. We were also able to finish painting the bedroom and install the doors to the bath. We couldn't be happier with the final master suite. It is a soothing place to be and helped us weather the future kitchen renovation that actually got started before we completely finished the master suite.

As I've shared before, I don't always get it right the first time in some of our selections. Renovationism doesn't cause bad decisions, but sometimes I think I'm attracted to a trend and not true to my taste. Such was the case with the color of the master bedroom. Look at this photo and see the swatches of color I was considering:

Original color of room is a light gray/blue. Bottom left hand swatch is what I decided on.

Alan had his usual job of sanding the walls. As I've mentioned before, every paint job in this house was sloppy. Globs of paint and drips were everywhere. Alan had the tough task of sanding those down, which often uncovered bad patches, which just meant more prep work. Finally, it was ready for me to paint in that color I selected.

Alan hard at work with strong cross light to see the wall texture.

I wanted the room to be bright, but after I painted it that light blue/green, it looked like a nursery to me. Hated it. Paint is easy to fix, but time consuming nonetheless. After more searching through rooms on Rate My Space on HGTV.com, I found a color that turned out to be too blue for me, but it led me to Benjamin Moore Affinity Collection colors. I found Grasshopper and a darker green for the bath, Thicket. Here I am painting the room for the second time:

Repainting a room is pretty easy, but sometimes it does require a little re-cutting in on the trim work to avoid exposing any of the old color. When I paint a room for the first time, I over paint the trim work to ensure a perfect line. Didn't want to repeat all of that work on the re-paint.

I have my favorite brush and always cut in by hand, no tape. Tape is only used to protect other non-painted surfaces that paint must be cut in against and usually only if the angle is awkward or the reach is difficult.

We really love the new color. You can see that it goes well with the color of our furniture in the bedroom. The bath is not yet painted, you can see the primer on the walls through the opening. We also didn't have the doors to the bath in yet.

We moved the furniture while we were painting the room. Bed worked better on the opposite wall from the entry door, which is where it is in this photo. It was a little uncomfortable to sleep in this room while we were painting. There was still a lot of dust from the sanding and we had to crawl over furniture to get to the bed.

Dressers will go along the wall to the left, in between the entry door and the door to the cat room.

After this painting was complete, the tile work in the bath was also complete and we could install the cabinets. We selected Kraftmaid cabinets from Lowe's. Door style was Maplewood Square and the color is Canvas, which matched our trim color nearly perfectly. I did learn that big box stores have their own names for door styles. And they don't match the standard names the manufacturer's reps or their website uses. Tricky. You can see the Thicket paint color on the walls in the bath in the photos below, which worked really well with the neutral palette of stone and glass. Our toilet and sink were contemporary style American Standard in Linen finish. Countertops were Ceasar Stone in Jerusalem Sand. We started using the shower as soon as it was done even though we didn't have any other plumbing in the room that worked. Loved the shower so much we didn't mind going into the hall bath to brush our teeth.

Alan's side. Undermount sink is in, but no fixtures. Turned out we had to buy extensions for the Delta faucets because the quartz is thicker than granite or laminate. That caused a delay in getting the sink functional.

Upper cabinets would be installed next. Needed to put countertop on lower cabinet first since a stack of small drawers would sit directly on top and that upper cabinet needed to line up exactly with the upper cabinet that was going in over the vanity.

We really liked the look of the rectangular sink. You'll also note we elected to go with 24" deep base cabinets, a kitchen depth, rather than the bath standard of 21". This gave us extra room behind the faucets for toothbrush holder, cup, etc. The size of the bath is small, so we didn't have the luxury of an expanse of counter space from side to side. So, the extra depth really expanded our work space at each sink.

I elected to install the backsplash around the sinks myself. Alan is masterful at cutting tile and we own a wet saw. We saved money on the labor and it wasn't that hard to do.

We repeated the pattern in the shower and finished the top edge with pencil.

New furniture arrangement works really well and the flow through the bedroom into the bath finally works.

We also added all new closet system with double stacked racks. It is amazing how much more you can fit in a closet when you organize the space well and use the right hardware. The translucent plastic you see on the right is the edge of my shoe cubbies. We originally bought these back in Memphis from Target, but I haven't seen them again. I really like how you put it together yourself so you can decide how many cubbies tall and wide you need.

My side of the bath almost complete. Still have a mirror to install in the space under the cabinet. The oval mirror over the sink is also a medicine cabinet. This one had to be moved twice to get it centered.

We have also frequently used eBuilderDirect.com to buy hardware and fixtures. We loved these over-sized brushed nickel handles. They really work well with the style of the cabinets.

Alan's side of the bath. His mirror is also a medicine cabinet. We put a little collection of accessories on wall-mounted shelves. The photos are hard to see in this picture, but they are of our trips to the tropical locations of Moorea in Tahiti and Cancun, Mexico. Seems appropriate for a spa bath.

Shower even looks good with all our crap in it. We are religious about using that squeegee. We got the Shower Guard glass, but you still need to be diligent about keeping soap scum from building up. I have to say the Shower Guard is working. Glass still looks perfect and I've only actually cleaned it with chemicals a few times. Rest was just squeegee.

This photo shows the doors from the inside.

We still have some details to complete in the bath and closet. We also finished accessorizing the bedroom. I'll post a final reveal soon. But, my next post is going to move on to the plan for kitchen. I think it is more accurate to order in this way because our projects overlapped. It will give a better sense of how we experienced the progress (or lack thereof in some cases).

Progress on Master Bath

Even though we had the hall bath to use while the master bath was under construction, it does wear on you to live in a construction zone. The walls were in and that always feels like you should be farther along than you are. Work gets done, but it still feels like it is getting nowhere. It is actually kind of painful to relive this portion of the project. It all turned out well, but the process did feel slow.

I was able to get the walls and ceiling primed before the work on the radiant heat was started. One thing about being your own general contractor is that you can make that choice.

In addition to priming the ceiling, I wanted to get the finish paint on as well. I didn't want to figure out how to work in such small rooms and keep paint from splattering on tile and cabinets.

Yes, it is dark outside. I can only do this work at night or on weekends and invariably someone was coming to work on the room on a weekday and do the next step that would keep me from being able to get the paint done. So, it turned out to really just be nights that I had to work it in.

Finish coat on the ceiling.

We were really excited to put radiant heat in the floor. We had heard great things about it and it just sounded like such a fabulous feature. Also, this step was the next big hurdle before we could get tile done, which would be the first signs of our design work in this bathroom.

Plastic tubing was stapled over tar paper and wire mesh.

This is the bathroom side.

Hallway connecting bath and closet

Closet side.

Because this installation is on the second floor, a manifold was placed in the wall between the bathroom and the closet on the closet side. A metal cover will be put over this.

After the tubes were in place a bed of mud was put over them. Once that was dry, we had the crown moulding installed. We continued the same crown as in the rest of the house. We also elected to have a fiberglass shower base. It is more reliable to hold water than a traditional shower pan. Since this bathroom was on the second floor, and as we know right above the kitchen that we would renovate next, we didn't want to take any chances. We also had the shampoo boxes covered in fiberglass as well.

Fiberglass in shower, mud bed on floor, and the first of the tile.

After the shower walls were tiled, they started on the floor. We selected a pinwheel pattern with nine squares of shell mosaic as the pivot points.

Here is the finished tile on shower and floors.

Tile pattern carried through to the closet.

Shampoo boxes have a little sparkle from the mosaic. Strips of brick shaped mosaic with pencil above and below were strategically placed.

Final shower with frameless glass door and fixtures.

We began using the shower right away. The toilet is just sitting in place and you can see only part of the room is painted. I did that just to get paint behind the toilet because there was no way I could paint behind it once it was in place.

We still didn't have cabinets or sinks, but it was a great start. That radiant heat is the best thing ever! Just love it. And the weather was turning cold, so just in time.

While we were doing this project, we finished the master bedroom. We needed the doors to the bathroom installed before we could do much more, but we did paint the room, rearrange all the furniture, and add lighting. I'll share some of that work next time.

And, where I left this last time was that new door to the cat room. It wasn't completely finished yet, but it was installed and operational.

Bedroom side.

Cat room side. Door ended up in the perfect place on both sides. Must have been meant to be.