Bathroom progress: lights and action

Two weeks since the official start of construction, and here’s where we are now. Most of the rough plumbing and electrical is complete, as well as framing of new openings. This post is just a brief show-and-tell of construction progress. We have some additional in-depth post in the works covering riveting topics like why is it so damn hard to order doors, and how custom cabinetry is awesome.  Onward to the photographic evidence!

Bathroom looking West, towards new window.

Looking west, we have framing for a new window. Cut-outs in the floor reveal updated plumbing. Above our heads is recessed lighting and a box for the bathtub chandelier, and that little electrical box to the left is a last minute addition to accommodate our accidental whirlpool tub (Did I say we had more posts coming? Well that’s one of them). If you look below the window frame, you can take a peak into the attic of the original first story. Our cat likes to spelunk up there. Hopefully we end this project with a bathroom and a cat.

Bathroom looking East, towards shower.

Facing east we have rough-ins and a drain for the shower and the beginning of our shower bench. This was an element that we re-sized at the last minute. The initial designer on this project reversed the height and width on her drawings. We fortunately caught the error while trying to figure out why our shower door made no sense. That was followed by an experimental evening of sitting on random chairs and things to determine the ideal bench depth. How deep do you think your favorite chair is?

Looking North at our nonexisting windows.

Looking north, we’ve closed up the awkward half window and framed out two recessed medicine cabinets. Initially we bought these cool big framed medicine cabinets from Home Depot, but then read awful reviews and decided they were too bulky to begin with. So we finally realized our dream of spending money at Restoration Hardware (how often do you really need things from there? Not often enough for the amount of times we’ve browsed the shop) and chose a pair of simple frameless medicine cabinets.

Help! I’m trapped in the medicine cabinet!

One interesting aspect of seeing this all come together is that the bathroom is starting to feel much smaller than it did as a gutted space! Sounds obvious, but once you start lining up tub – vanity – toilet – shower and having to figure out mundane things like how many light switches does one need, even a blank patch of wall space becomes hard to come by.

Lighting, new and old (speaking of which, any ideas for what to do with the funky old chandeliers?)

Speaking of lights and switches, the folks down at the lighting store weren’t kidding when they said that four canister lights was more than enough for our space. Kane was skeptical, but now that the test canisters are wired  up and live, we’ve ditched our fears of a too dark bathroom. With the new lights, window, and skylight, this space is going to be positively aglow.

And did we mention the simple pleasure of  coming home to random packages of exciting things like toilets and faucets?

My shower diverter!

Well,  except for the bathtub. That’s a story for another post.