A Labor of Love

All of the bathrooms in our house are outdated. The whole house is outdated really, but the bathrooms especially. They all have weird tile in the showers, for one thing. In the kid's bathroom, for instance, there is a "lovely" mural of dolphins that I've hated since day one.

Remember this ugly bathroom?? (And those cute little babies???)


Well, a while back a friend of mine was storing some of her belongings here, including a bathroom vanity. When she came to get her stuff later, she didn't want a bed frame or the vanity. The vanity was way cuter than the one that was currently hanging on the wall, so we switched them out. It only served to make the rest of the bathroom look that much more outdated. And so began the great bathroom remodel of 2015.

I bought some tile and picked out new, basically everything else. New Vanity, faucet, light fixture, toilet, and paint. My Sister and Bro-in-Law made the huge sacrifice to drive up from St. George, for the sole purpose of helping with the remodel. Richie and Mike worked tirelessly while they were here. They managed to get the new tile laid, new vanity put in, and the new toilet put in.

Shortly after, we took the closet doors and main door off and gave them a fresh coat of white paint.

Then my mom came up for something and painted almost everything else! It was starting to look so good! Especially with the new shower curtain I found at Ikea. We decided against tearing out the tile in the shower, based on some advice from a friend. So that's basically the only original thing still in the bathroom.

We were almost done with the remodel, just a few touch ups here and there. Richie installed new trim! And then....our attic flooded and ripped a giant hole in the bathroom ceiling, and tore a bunch of paint off the walls on it's way down. The night it happened, Richie's dad and brother came over with their shop-vac and helped us get it all cleaned up. Then Richie's dad came later to help Richie patch up the holes in the ceiling.

It sat like that for a while. Eventually we hired a guy in our ward to re-texture the ceiling. And there is sat. For a long time. We just couldn't get up the motivation to re-paint the ceiling, walls and trim. So my mom drove up from St. George and took it over. Thank goodness. She re-textured parts of the wall that needed it, re-caulked the tub and vanity, re-painted the walls, and painted the ceiling. A few weeks later, and I squished my pregnant belly in between toilets and inside closets to finally paint the trim.

TA-DA!!!




This is right after I cleaned it on Saturday. It makes me so happy! It makes me happy to think of all the people that were involved in this process, and the time and effort they sacrificed on our behalf. It's a big deal! This bathroom might be small, but it's bright and cheery and functional, and has a lot of love poured into it, ugly dolphin tile and all!