ORC: Basement Bathroom Week 6

You’ll notice I titled this post: “Week 6”, rather than “The Reveal”.

I know. I’m disappointed too.

It is, of course, the final week of the Spring One Room Challenge, hosted by the awesome Linda at Calling it Home.  It’s been a crazy six weeks, and I do feel like we’ve made some major progress on our basement bathroom. So all is not lost! Even though we’re not quite done with the room, I have to remind myself that we started with the corner of a living room, and now have nearly a bathroom. We built it from scratch.

Here’s a reminder for you, too. This is what the room looked like in January:

Here is where we started 5 weeks ago:

And this is what it looks like today:

I know, I know. It’s still quite a messy work in progress. I wanted to have the shower pan completed by now and possibly have some floor tile down. But! We did a couple of major items crossed off this week, so we’ll focus on the bright side.

I was a little unsure of how our spray-can wall texture was going to turn out. As I mentioned last week, we used Homax Water-based Pro Grade Orange Peel texture.

This is what it looked like after the first “coat” of texture and a coat of primer:

Not bad overall, but I decided to go back over several areas of the walls and ceiling with the fine spray setting on another can of texture. We used about 2 1/2 of these 25 oz. cans on the inside of the bathroom (ceiling and upper half of the walls). Total area textured is about 90 SF. According to the cans, this amount should have covered 212 SF on a medium texture setting, so definitely buy more than you think you will need. Again, these are much cheaper on Amazon than at good ol’ Home Depot. We ordered 4 more cans because we still have an entire wall facing the living room, part of a wall in the laundry room, and some ceiling to cover.

After the second round of spray, I am much happier with the way the texture looks.

AND, I painted last night! It’s starting to get real, folks.

For the ceiling, I used the Valspar Semi-Gloss “Ultra White” that has been sitting in our furnace/storage room since we bought our house 3 1/2 years ago. I believe this is what was used for all of the ceilings, doors, and trim in the house when it was flipped about 5 years ago.

On the walls, I thought we should use the same Behr Swiss Coffee that we used for our Master Bedroom makeover during last Fall’s ORC. I’m still obsessed with this paint, and am 100% sure that it’s the perfect creamy white.

We were going to start laying out our “Kirb Perfect” and “Quick Pitch” shower pan system on Monday evening. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find half of the screws that are supposed to come with the Kirb Perfect to put it together. They’re self-tapping, stainless screws that are only 3/4″ long. This combination apparently makes them super special and exclusive. So, off we went to Home Depot. We still couldn’t find the exact screw that we needed, but we did get a standard (not self-tapping) stainless screw that should work. Jesse will just have to drill pilot holes with one of the self-tappers that we do have, before installing the standard screws.

So we have yet to finish the shower pan and start laying floor tile.

Speaking of tile, I’m sorry to say I don’t have much of a positive update on the shower and wall tile that we have picked out and is all of a sudden out of stock online. I did get pricing on the same tile from two different flooring contractors in town, so I know we can still get it. Unfortunately, their cost with markup just to supply the tile is $1 to $2 more per square foot than we were planning to spend at Home Depot. That comes out to at least a couple hundred bucks difference. So the search continues.

I do plan to keep posting weekly updates (whatever it takes to keep us motivated. which apparently is… a lot). I hope you’ll keep coming back to follow our progress and see the big reveal!

Here’s a quick look at that dang to-do list:

• Finish framing/furring strips
• Insulation
• Vapor Barrier
• Drywall/Cement Board
• Shower pan/curb – In progress. Still.
• Build shower shelf
• Mud and Tape Drywall/Cement Board
• Sand Drywall
• Order wall tile
• Texture walls
• Prime walls
• Paint walls
• Hang doors – 1 of 2 done!
• Install Floor tile, grout
• Install Shower tile (ceiling and walls), grout
• Choose/purchase shower curb finish material
• Order glass panel shower wall
• Install Bathroom wainscot tile, grout
• Finish trim/baseboards
• Have glass panel shower wall installed
• Set, trim plumbing fixtures
• Install fixtures/electrical trim
• Purchase towels, accessories
• Hang mirror, hardware, final touches!

I also have to give a huge shout-out and thank you to Linda for hosting such an awesome challenge. It’s so fun to follow along with so many other crazy and talented bloggers and professionals as they transform their spaces. And the encouragement is so great. So please, keep it comin’. And also, head over to callingithome.com and check these out!