DIY Bathroom Vanity

I really don't have plans for this vanity Matt built. He designed it and built it as he went. I did find a few other tutorials/blogs that is the basis for our vanity. Go HERE and HERE to see what I am talking about.

Here are a few detailed pictures to look at. Maybe you can see what Matt did and go off and build your own...

We moved the vanity into the bathroom to make sure it fit. I kinda liked the lighter wood, but we decided that it needed to be darker. So after sanding it down we stained it. We also stained the butcher block counter top.

He attached the vanity to the wall by drilling screws through it into the studs. Since there is a gap between the vanity and the wall (the baseboards caused this) he had to add a board between the two.

We attached the butcher block counter top to the vanity by using four brackets, two on each end.

As you can see, we used nice metal piping under the sink.

I love how it turned out!

We spent $80 for the Butcher Block and maybe $80 for the vanity lumber.

Vanity Measurements:
Width: 57.5"
Depth: 25.5"
Height: 32.5"

Basement Bathroom Reveal

It's done! The basement bathroom is finally completed!!! We started this project back in November and have worked on it here and there for the past five months. This morning we added the finishing touches and now it's ready to show off!

SOURCES:
-Lighting- Home Depot
-Mirror- Home Depot
-Tile Floor and Shower Walls- go HERE to read more about it.
-Sink- Amazon.com
-Faucet- Amazon.com
-Drain- Amazon.com
-Vanity- custom built by Matt. I will do a post about it later.
-Butcher Block- Ikea
-Tub- Lowe's
-Shower Curtain- Ross
-Shower Curtain Rod- Home Depot
-Shower Fixtures- Home Depot
-Shower Light/Fan- Home Depot
-Toilet- Home Depot
-Bathroom Door- Stock Building Supply- You cannot walk into Home Depot or Lowes to buy this door, you have to special order it. It costs around $100 and it takes about a month to get it. If you go to Stock Building Supply its cheaper ($72) and you can get it within a week.
-Door Knob- Home Depot

Tile Floors and Tile Showers

Since the last post, we have accomplished a lot in out basement bathroom project...

Matt tiled the shower walls. We used four boxes of white subway tile. We spent about $100. Not too shabby!

On a side note, my cat is a photo-bomber...

It looks divine! Matt did such a great job.

For the floor we chose tile that looks like wood. We thought the Montagna Rustic Bay looked the most realistic, so went with this tile. We used three boxes for our floors. All together the floor cost was about $120.

Matt also did a great job on the floor tile. The funny thing about this is the tile box suggested you don't lay these tiles in a 50% brick pattern. They suggest you use a stagger of about 33% brick pattern, or a herringbone pattern. Nope, we broke the rules! We did the unthinkable. I think it turned out beautifully! Matt also finished the electrical and installed the two wall sconces (you can only see one in the picture).

After going back and forth between grey and white grout for a while, we finally decided to do white grout. Matt spend hours grouting the shower.

All the meticulous attention to detail, his hard work paid off. The shower walls look fantastic!

It only took us about 45 mins to grout the floor. The grout we used for the floor tiles is called New Taupe. It is a chocolatey brown color. It goes great with the tile.


Last night we bought the toilet, so we will be working on that and building a vanity. After those things we need to put the door in, wall trim, and adding the plumbing for the sink. Until next time...

Building A Basement Bathroom

For the past few months we have been building a basement bathroom. We are doing this for a few reasons:

1. I work downstairs. This is where the creativity magic happens. I HATE running up stairs to use the facilities. Especially if I am covered in paint.

2. Matt and I have ADD- we needed/wanted a project to work on this winter. I'll be honest though, I was the driving factor in this. Matt is a trooper to keep up with all my hair-brained ideas.

3. See #1

Here is the customary BEFORE shot. This is how this spot has sat for the past 3.5 yrs. (minus the junk I moved.)

When we had our house built, we had our home builders rough plumb the basement for a bathroom, laundry room and a kitchen. We got to pick where we wanted all the plumbing to go. Unfortunately, they plumbed the bathtub in the wrong spot. After watching a couple of youtube videos on how to move basement plumbing, Matt set to work. We purchased a special cement cutting blade for our circular saw, marked cut lines and cut the cement. BEWARE of the cement dust cloud that will form...WEAR A MASK! Thankfully, we only had to move the plumbing a foot to the south.

After the cement was cut, Matt had to chip out the cement piece by piece. Once the cement was gone, he had to dig a foot of gravel out to get to the pipe.

Here is a picture of the framing for the bathroom. We purchased the tub from Lowe's and Matt installed it.

Drywall... ICK!

Since our house has textured walls and ceilings, we had to match the bathroom walls/ceiling to the rest of the house. Matt found a brush thingy at Home Depot that made the same effect on the ceilings. To do this, he stamped the brush in the watered down drywall mud and stamped the ceilings.

For the walls, he used a HAWK to stamp mud on the walls like so...

Then he went over the mud with a trowel to smooth it down. It took a minute for him to get his rhythm. He had to scrape the mud off a few times and start over. We let the mud dry for a few days, then we sanded everything.

Last Saturday we painted! I love the color Chocolate Froth by Behr. I have used it in the past. The problem: it is basically the same color as our ceiling. I didn't realize this until I started painting. If I could go back to when our house was being built, I would have had them paint everything white. Instead we had them paint everything cream. We didn't want to pay $3,000-$5,000 to do two/three tone paint throughout the house. We figured we could paint it ourselves (and we have) and save a bunch of money. SHOULD'VE, COULD'VE, WOULD'VE... For right now, I am going to leave it the color it is. Since this room is small and dark, I am limited on the colors I can paint the walls. This way, it's neutral and I can accessorize with color.

I found the floor tile I want at Home Depot. I think the white subway tile for the shower walls will go with it beautifully!

I even like the herringbone pattern. We'll see....

Next up, tiling the shower! Stay tuned...

Garden Boxes

Last year we had our garden in the ground. By the middle of the summer, the weeds took over and the dirt turned into swamp land. At one point while I was weeding, I lost my shoe. It was horrible. This year I told Matt that we were moving the garden area to the other end of the yard and we were going to build boxes.

My neighbor friend and I got serious with this gardening stuff and even took a Square Foot Gardening class through Community Ed. We both learned a lot and decided that that was the way we wanted to set up our garden areas.

Matt and I came up with a layout for our garden area. We decided on (4) 4'x 4'x 12" (2) 4' x 11' x 12" and (1) 4' x 10' x 12" boxes. We went to Home Depot to buy our supplies.

Garden Box Supply List:
-pine Boards
-paint
-Lin Seed Oil
-weed guard fabric
-deck screws

First, Matt cut the boards to the sizes we needed. Next, I spent hours painting the front, sides and ends of each board. I chose to paint my garden boxes Behr's Teal Zeal.

In the gardening class, I learned that if you are going to use wood as your building material for the garden boxes, you need to seal the wood that the dirt is going to touch. The best thing to use that is natural and doesn't have chemicals in it is LinSeed Oil. So, after the paint was dry, we turned the boards over and and rubbed the oil on with a paper towel. Once the oil is applied you have to let the boards sit for about 24 hrs. Just a side note, LinSeed Oil smells yucky. You need to wear gloves if you dont want your hands saturated with this stuff.

Next, attach the boards together using deck screws.

Before we put the boxes outside, in our prepared garden spot, we laid down weed barrier fabric. I hate weeds, so this stuff is a must in my yard.

We rented a dump trailer at South Davis Rental and went to Evergreen Soils in Layton, Ut to get our garden soil mix. We ended up getting six yards of dirt to fill the boxes. We spent around $200. Not bad.

A few days later, I planted my crops. I planted tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, corn, ghords, herbs, and cucumbers.

Two months ago, this is what our backyard looked like... covered in weeds.

Matt had to weed eat this whole backyard many times.

As it stands today, we have lawn and garden boxes. We even put in some gravel to make a place to park our trailer. Matt is working on cement curbing to divide our garden, trailer parking, and lawn areas. We have big plans for the old garden area. We hope to put in a pergola and fire pit. Hopefully we get to those things this year...

Industrial Pipe Shelves

Supplies Per Shelf:

-(1) board cut to length
-(2) Flanges
-(2) 1/2"x 3" Nipples
-(2) 1/2" Tees
-(4) 1/2"x 1" Nipples
-(2) 90 degree Elbows
-(2) Pipe Caps
-(1) Pipe cut to length
-wall anchors
-walnut stain

We bought most of our galvanized pipe supplies from Gatzies on line. Home Depot's price is $6.24 per flange and Gatzies is $2.07 each. We saved $4 per flange!

We started this project by going to Home Depot and buying our pipe.

We asked a nice Home Depot employee to cut and thread our pipe.

Once we got home, we washed all of the metal pipe supplies. The metal is greasy and smelly, so DO NOT skip this step.

Next, we assembled each shelf.

This is what the bones of the shelf looked like after assembly.

These are the parts we used for the shelf. Repeat the same configuration on the other end.

Next, cut a board to the length you need. We cut our board to 7" x 23.5".

Next, we drilled a hole in each end of the board. I think we used a 7/8" drill bit. It needs to be big enough so the 1/2"x1" nipple can fit through the hole.

This is what the shelf will look like with the pipe caps.

I sanded each shelf.

Next, we stained the boards with dark walnut stain.

Before we attached the shelves to the wall, we marked where we wanted each shelf to be.

Next, we drilled four holes in the wall.

Since we didn't have studs to attach the shelve to, we had to use anchors.

Finally, we put the caps on and tightened them with a wrench.

I added some shelf decor I have been collecting for a while to each shelf.




I think they turned out awesome!

Next up a shower curtain rod and towel racks...

**Check out the whole bathroom reveal HERE

***Check out the tutorial on framing a bathroom mirror HERE