An Update on the Laundry Room and Bathroom, Plus Some Finishes!

Remember when we pulled back the curtain to share a gantt chart of all the projects we have happening at the moment? Yeah there's a lot of irons in the fire. We of course are working on the laundry room and Greta's bathroom, but also the home gym, and me being me decided to do a quick guest house refresh, all while our backyard is getting worked on! What is happening?? It's a whirlwind of projects over here but I'm taking a moment to update you all on the laundry room and bathroom progress because A LOT has changed!

First take a look at the laundry room, bunk room, and bathroom layout to make sense of this all!

Here's my inspiration for the laundry room, and the elevation drawings plus mood board.

Laundry Room / Playroom Before

Laundry Room Progress

Obviously a lot has changed! A wall has been built and all the plumbing rough-ins are in place and ready for inspection. Based on the hook-ups you can see the dryers will be on either side of the two washers in the middle. We had to drill two holes on our exterior brick to place a vent for each dryer! I was definitely scared about the white vents against our red brick, but we found a spray paint combo to make them more discreet and I think it's totally fine now.

Rusty Metal Primer | Satin Brick

Electrical is getting plumbed for one central light, 4 recessed lights, and 3 wall sconces–one above the sink and one on either side of the washer dryer area. We'll also do a plug on the backsplash so I can plug in the cute lamp Chris drew in the elevation.

Progress

This wall is where the sink will go, and where you can see the closet used to be! When we opened up this closet wall we realized that if we're going to take out the closet completely, we're going to have to add a structural beam.

So we did!

We had a structural engineer come look at it and tell us exactly what to do. You can also see where the plumbing in place for the sink. Right now the opening into the laundry room is WAY opened up because we're waiting for the sliding door and its casing to arrive.

Speaking of things arriving... Some of the finishes are here and I can't keep them to myself.

Laundry Room Finishes

Wallpaper | Sconce | Black Shade | Cabinet Pull | Glass Knobs | Faucet | White Marble | Gray Marble

The tile is still on its way so we laid out some of our extra FloorPops, but it's going to be very similar, only the white marble will have gold veigning! Can't get enough checked tile. The wallpaper is a lovely, perfect warm white with delicate florals and curved, ornate lines. It's too good! I went to Lowe's and brought home 3 cabinet samples that I liked. When I brought them into the laundry room space next to the finishes I really like this soft, ivory one the best. There was a taupe-y mushroom color with green, muddy undertones but I wanted this space to feel really light and bright!

The laundry room is such a utilitarian space so I wanted some of the details to feel ornate and special. The glass, oval knobs are exactly that. You can even see the light filtering through it which makes my heart happy. As for the pull, it's not exactly what I expected! Turns out I ordered the right pull, in the wrong finish. This is the champagne bronze which is a little rosy. I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm going to swap it for the golden champagne, or maybe I'll go rogue and do polished nickel. I can also see myself keeping it because it flows really well with all the other elements.

I'm obsessed with the shape of the sconce! Do I love the plate? Not so much. It has this repeated distressing that's a little too exact. Thinking of using some rub and buff, or maybe painting it ivory. We'll see! The faucet is absolutely adorable. It's a wall mount which will attach to back of the apron sink.

See the rest of the selections in the mood board, minus the central light which is now in stock!

As for Greta's bathroom right across the hallway...

Bathroom Before

Bathroom Progress

Based on that before, you would not have even known that there's a window back there! At this point the wall that separates the vanity area from the toilet, tub area was still up. Below you can see what it looks like after the wall was taken out.

Before

Before

A complete gut job! Again, that window was there the whole time and now the whole bathroom feels much brighter. In my original plans I hoped to to have a clawfoot tub with a wall mounted shower head and 360º shower curtain. The more we thought about it, the less it made sense in here. Greta prefers to shower anyway and it wasn't really practical. So we're doing a corner shower and there's a bathroom with a tub right down the hallway that the little girls use.

Funny story about the picture below... See the black coloring in the bottom right corner? It's not mold or fire damage... It's actually spray paint. One of our contractors had a freak accident involving a nail dropping precisely on a can of spray paint, causing it to spray all over him and the wall. In a panic, he stepped back and stepped right in-between the floor joists, and through the ceiling of our kitchen. Yikes. Not funny in the moment, but we're glad he's okay and it's all been patched and repaired.

Right where you see the black spray paint is where the corner shower will go with the door opening up to the vanity on the left (with plenty of space to clear). On the other side of the shower will be the toilet, and across from the toilet next to the window will be some hooks for towels. Very pleased with all the progress!

After all of this, we just received some unfortunate news that we didn't pass the inspection. It's a few nitty gritty things that we're already fixing including a nail plate covering to prevent nails going through any pipes, and some fireproofing material in the floor. The real doozy is that since the house was built, the coding for bathroom electrical changed and all GFCI outlets need to be 20 amp instead of the current 15 amp circuit. This means that we need to run larger gauge wire in these rooms and also Polly and Faye's bathroom since they run on the same circuit. In other words, we might have to rip up a lot of walls... Stay tuned!

Other posts about the laundry room and bathroom

Introducing the Layout of the New Laundry Room, Bunk Room, and Bathroom!

Inspiration for the Upstairs Laundry Room

Laundry Room Elevations and Mood Board