If you’ve been following along on our bathroom, you’ve seen what we’ve done in part 1 and part 2. Today we are talking about my pink bathtub and tile shower makeover. This was a project with a quick turnaround THANKFULLY! Because I need to point out that we only have ONE working shower or tub in this house, we could not have a project that lasted days or weeks.
Want a sneak peek? (I always do!)
First to set the stage for what how fabulous it is today, I have to tell you what we had done up to this point.
One of the first things I did upon buying the house was rip out the built in shower doors, (I am so strange…) It only took about an hour, but I couldn’t stand having them. Then, because I wasn’t planning on finishing the bathroom right away, I got to stare at an unfinished shower for a year…
About 8 months, after I removed the doors, there was still this HUMONGOUS (pointless) header. It was above the shower and it made you feel so enclosed in some strange cave whenever you used it. Not to mention, it was also really bad for air flow. So, when we installed our new bathroom fan, we decided to rip out the header too. That way the moist air from showers and baths could actually leave the room. So for another four months we’ve been looking at this. (But moving out of the crazy cave shower felt SO good!)
With the header removed and the addition of a pocket door (we saved so much space), we had some pretty damaged, old, crumbling plaster. We could have tried repairing it, but the integrity of the plaster was mostly destroyed and no matter how hard we worked at fixing it, we would have continually had the same problems. Replacing it was the best bet, and at the same time we repaired the header that we had removed. Then, painted all the walls in the bathroom a nice coat of fresh bright white paint.
Even after all the work to get the space looking clean and not be so scary, we still had a few big problems (pictured below)
- First, did I mention we have a PINK bathtub? Yes, it is pink… very pink.
- The shower tile edge (where the door had been) was still not finished.
- Many of the tiles had hairline cracks that you can see when they are wet, the finish had been chipped with all the construction and they were pretty hammered!
- The grout was so dried out it was sort of cracking out in places.
- (While I LOVE the style of the tile) we have already had water dripping into the basement from open cracks.
- The shower head was REALLY low, like below my head, so we installed an extender, which worked but is just not as pretty
- The bath stopper thing-a-ma-jig was missing, and obviously no longer worked.
- The actual finish on the tub around the drain was in bad shape
- The spigot was crooked and didn’t work very well (The first few months we couldn’t even turn off the hot water. To stop it we had to turn off the water to the whole house!)
Basically, we just really needed a new solution, and a fast one (because as a reminder this is our only working bath for a family of 4)
Enter Bath Fitter.
They can come in, and cover the old cast iron tubs and shower surround without having to remove it! As a bonus, they are able to work all the plumbing issues out, including raising the shower head, adding a nice tub stopper, and even updating the old school drum style p-trap. Rick, of our local SLC Bath Fitter office came out to take all the measurements and walk us through the process, making sure to answer all of our questions.
We learned a lot as he explained what they do and how much they could do. I was really excited about the possibilities.
Bath Fitter uses acrylic to create a really nice, thick liner that fit perfectly into your tub. How does it fit perfectly? They have literally a thousand or so different tub forms of manufactured tubs from the last 60+ years in their headquarters.
They had great real-life samples to look at and feel as they explained how the process works. It helped me feel really confident with my choices. And –confession– I want one of these mini tub forms for a Barbie dream house… I wish I got to keep it!
You make all your choices while they guide you through options, and BAM! The consultation is done. Then, Bath Fitter orders all your custom pieces and you just have to wait a few weeks (depending on the schedule) while they make the acrylic form to fit your tub perfectly.
On the day of the install Kitty was feeling nostalgic about the pink bathtub… and gave it one last kitty love… then promptly ran and hid when the installer came in.
All the magical rainbows and starbursts where here (as evident in the photo below) when the installer arrived!
The installer confirmed all of my selections and measurements upon arrival. He verified the height of the shower head (I wanted it taller than the norm, but that was not a problem), and then discussed the amount of overlap that I wanted the tile portion to have over the edge of the tub.
Before he got to work, he laid out a floor protector (I think it should have been red, like a little red carpet…) I love that they protected my new flooring, with a really thick mat, which Justin really wants for when we have projects… it was really cool.
He had a few things to do to get started, like cleaning up some plumbing, and cutting back a little of the tile, since it had a strange little lip at the bottom next to the tub.
We had an old barrel trap instead of a nice new p-trap, so he updated that to make sure that all the connections from the new tub were nice and tight.
He raised the shower head and had to add a new place for the control valve (our old one was an all-in-one), then he raised the spigot a little bit. I just have to say, he was REALLY fast doing it all. I was impressed by how quickly he just got to work.
The biggest challenge in our house was leveling the walls. It took a bit of time, but he did a great job. Once the walls were level, he installed the wall liners. I love the subway tile look we picked out!!
And the “piece de resistance”? The new, beautiful, white TUB! YAY! No more pink bathtub!! Doesn’t it look amazing?!
I am really happy with the fixtures that I chose! I love that it has a built-in hand shower that I can lower for my little kiddos when they shower.
Isn’t it looking SO amazing!?!
And, just a reminder about what it looked like before! No more pink bathtub, I am SO pleased! To book your own Bath Fitter consultation, click here or call (866) 364-2746.
*I’d like to thank Bath Fitter for partnering with me on this post. All opinions are my own. I truly I LOVE my new shower and tub, SO MUCH!
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