Good evening friends! Today is exactly one week since we started our bathroom renovation project in conjunction with The One Room Challenge™ and so far we are still in the demolition stage. In this post we will be sharing our progress and where we stand currently. To be honest, I thought we would be done with the demolition by now but we all got sick and needed to take it easy. I didn’t want to be a hero and push myself past my limit so I took off the last two days. Slow and steady wins the race.

Progress:
If you follow along on our Instagram stories, you might have seen that we already removed the toilet and the vanity over the weekend. The last major piece we need to take out is our bright blue 1950’s tub. We managed to remove the majority of wall tile from the existing cement boards only to realize that the mortar isn’t coming off as we had imagined. Considering the age of the bathroom, I’m not all too surprised. The good news is that we are a little more settled on the tile we will be using. After a recent trip to Home Depot, we really fell in love with this Carrara Matte tile for our floors. With white subway tile for the walls, it’s going to look great!

Issues/Concerns:
Since I will not be sticking to the original plan of leaving the cement boards, I had to purchase a new blade for the angle grinder so we can cut through the cement boards and take them out piece by piece. Removing everything all the way to the studs is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good is that we will redo the bathroom with all new construction materials, we will be able to do a clean, solid job from beginning to end. The bad is that we will have to spend more $$$ on purchasing drywall and new cement backer boards. Considering that this bathroom is a small space, the additional expenses shouldn’t exceed $250 (and this is considering that I will also have to remove and replace the subfloor with new plywood & moisture barrier). We just really wanted to challenge ourselves to do this renovation on an extreme (but realistic) budget so we could inspire others who might not otherwise consider renovating because of the cost.

All this fun stuff with the walls and floor removal, which I had hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, will add between 1-2 weeks to the job. As is the case with any renovation project, you have to be prepared for stumbling blocks and plan accordingly. Despite our setbacks, I think we will still make it out in 6 weeks. We sometimes get discouraged thinking it will take that long, so we have to keep reminding ourselves that we have day jobs and two little ones and that’s why we can’t just finish it as quickly as we would like. Until next week 🙂

You can also follow along on Instagram @thecozyhomechronicles for the latest behind-the-scenes and videos of our progress.

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