Now that we’re almost done with the kitchen, we’ve been planning out our upstairs hallway bath. We have two full bathrooms in need of renovation – a “master” bathroom and this hallway bath. I put master in quotes because it’s about the smallest full bathroom I’ve ever seen. But it works.
That’s a post for another day, though. Today, let me present you our hallway bath!
Ugh. Yeah. It’s really hard to grasp from pictures just how much this bathroom needs to be renovated. The tub and surround are old, stained fiberglass (I think? Or something plastic). The tub frame is actually cracked around the base on the outside, so it squeaks when you stand in it to shower.
The vanity is circa 1985 and has a sort of peel and stick faux wood veneer. The floors are linoleum. The baseboards were never caulked, and nail holes were not patched. That is one bonus because at least they will be easy to remove when we put in new floors. The light fixture is also screams 80′s. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the 80′s. Just not the decor.
So, needless to say, everything is going to go. Well except the plantation shutter. We put that in and love it (perfect for privacy but still letting light in!). We put in the towel rack too. So the easy to replace things? We’ve got those covered already. Everything else? Not so much.
We’re meeting with contractors right now to get quotes. We know we’re going to use a plumber for the tub installation, but we are undecided on if we are up to the task of installing the tile surround and floors ourselves. It really depends on the cost and if we find someone we are comfortable with.
I’ve been looking at lots of these lately. We may or may not be using some or none of these. I’m not keeping secrets from you guys. I just really have no idea what tile to go with.
All of these samples are from the Tile Shop. We were really happy with the tile we got for our kitchen backsplash, so considering them again for bathroom tile. I really liked that they stock the tile and take returns, and they have a decent selection. I’m looking at some tiles through Home Depot and Lowe’s as well. I haven’t been able to find any other tile stores in our area that stock tile and take returns.
I might sound a bit like a stickler on this only-going-to-tile-stores-that-take-returns thing, but I just really don’t like the idea of having to special order tile after only seeing one or two sample tiles, get it in, then what if we hate it? I’m really bad about buyers remorse, so I need the security blanket of returns! Sorry to all the other tile shops around. I’m a returning kind of girl.
For tubs, we are strongly considering either the Kohler Bancroft:
Or the Kohler Archer:
I like the look of the Archer more, but it only comes with a pop up drain. We’re weighing the pros and cons of different drains. Any experts, feel free to weigh in :)
If you follow me on Pinterest, you might have seen my bathroom board blowing up lately. I have more ideas floating around in my head than I know what to do with. While coming up with the overall design is so fun and exiting, it’s also somewhat stressful. Decisions decisions!
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Obsessed with paint colors. Avid DIYer. Decorator. Fixer of broken things. Sharing your paint colors at 
I have the Archer tub! The pop-up drain seems to work fine for the kids. The ledges along the sides seem to collect a little dirt. I just noticed (after a year), that the overflow gets really moldy, gunky on the inside which I will now be regularly checking.
@MXL – I’m worried most about hair collection, lol. Our current drains get clogged all the time so we’re looking into the best hair stopping drains. I’d much rather clean it out of a hair trap than a clogged drain :). Thanks for the mention of the overflow. I hadn’t thought about weighing pros/cons of the different overflow types, but I believe the Archer has a different style than most other Kohler tubs.
We just installed the Bancroft in our main bathroom. We like it but it’s already got a few scratches and it’s a deep tub to step in and out of. I wouldn’t want anything deeper for a shower/tub combo. The front is as deep of a design detail as I was thinking it would be. We helped the plumber set the tub with a mud base which was difficult to do but it makes the bottom of the tub flex a lot less and therefore makes the caulked seam between the tile and tub last a lot longer too. These fiberglass tubs move a lot! Even with it mudded in place the tile flange was still squeaking from rubbing on the back of the cement board every time we sat on it. We had to keep taking the piece of cement board on and off to get it right.
We have the Clearflow cable drain (K-7213) which doesn’t have any inner working for hair to catch on but the part holding the drain piece itself. The cable mechanism is all exterior. It’s hard to tell from the pictures but the overflow is also one big knob to turn to open and close the drain. We like it so far. When you step on the drain it does close though. It’s not a huge deal but when we do things like wash the dog we have to remember to open it back up before we take a shower. The one thing I wasn’t a fan of is that the overflow knob doesn’t seem to get tight enough to the tub and is a hair too small because you can see the hole slightly from the side. And of course it’s a rough, jagged hole because you weren’t supposed to be able to see it.
All and all we wish we would have upgraded to a cast iron tub. Now that we know how much work it is to tile the shower surround and niches along with drilling through the tile to install the fixtures and shower curtain rod we hope to never have to do it again! We’re hoping it will hold up well enough over time but if we had went with cast iron we would know for sure we’ll never have to tear that all out and redo it. There would have been no flexing or scratching if we went with cast iron either. They do cost a lot more though so they aren’t for everyone.
HTH!
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