Before and After: Bathroom Renovation

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I am in the mood for a lighthearted post today, and one of my goals this year is to start recording pics and stories from our home renovation on my blog... lest we forget the chaos!! lest I start taking the beauty of it all for granted... may God forbid!!!

The VERY FIRST thing we began renovating in our old farmhouse was the upstairs bath. I am not sure how I missed it, upon the final house inspection, but this bathroom was NASTY.

I think it is safe to say that this bathroom (particularly the toilet) had not been cleaned in a VERY long time. It was so bad that we HAD to immediately replace the toilet. At the time, it was the only shower in our house, sooooo.....As soon as we moved in, my dramatic - and very pregnant- self declared "I will NEVER take a shower in this shower. It HAS to go!!" (Am I the only one who is this dramatic about mildew??)

Without further ado, here is the tale of our bath:

Befores:

Here is the shower. The worst part was the piece of plywood that supported the shower. It was black from a complete infestation of mildew. And ewwwwww the smell! Note where the towel bar is... we added something there later.

Can we pause for a moment of silence to fully absorb the interesting color choices here: And here! The aqua clawfoot tub was not really doing it for me in this setup: The flooring was in good shape, but would have to be torn up to get into the stinky plumbing. Take note of the window on the right; it would later need to be changed into a cabinet, since we added an addition onto the back of the house:

After (but not quite finished):

The renovation is done (almost!). We have a new color on the walls and the trim, new tiles on the floor, a new shower and toilet (ahhh. fresh air). We reused the sink and the clawfoot tub: The new shower, and the new cabinet where the towel bars used to be. Prior to this the bathroom had no storage. A kitchen cabinet maker prebuilt them for us, and we "plugged it" into a preprepared drywall "hole.": Here is the unfinished end of our bathroom. It remains unpainted because we have 2 small children (enough said, I hope. And all of you industrious mommies who paint while your kids nap... I don't want to know about you!!):

The new storage cabinet at the end of the bathroom is where the former back window used to be. The new bumpout in the bathroom wall was made to allow a doorway opening in the hallway on the other side, and the transom windows were added to bring natural light into that hallway. I bought the transoms for $10 at an historic architectural salvage place:

Voila! Our semi-finished bathroom!: