Random Post: Beach Themed Bathroom!

If you're just tuning into this blog within the past 2-3 months or so, I want to reiterate something important about mine and Josh's life since the end of last year.
His mom passed away in October 2012.
He and she and I were all very close. It has been hard. Not a day goes by that I/we don't think of her.
We moved into and bought her house about 6 months after this happened, and when we did, we made it our goal to "put our stamp" on this house.
Her dad helped build this place. She lived here almost her entire life. When Josh was in a tough spot, she let him move back here. This is where he lived when he and I met 8 years ago. We have lots of memories with this house, but when we moved in, we were determined to make new memories of our own here.

So, we remodeled the bathroom. It was in pretty bad condition before we moved in...the shower was corroding in some parts, had rotten wood in others. The toilet was too short. The fixtures were not our style. We had a vision, and we're just about done with it.
I want to share the "remodel" with you. Some of it was done by us, some we had to have done, like the wainscotting and shower construction.

This is the most clear photo I have of the bathroom before, with Freddo's cousin Sydney included. As you can see, the wall color is white on top, and there are light greenish/gray tiles on the walls, with a thin strip of blue/green runner tiles and a wooden strip at the top. To the left, the counters have a white/gray tile, two sinks with jagged-knobbed faucets, and wood runner, too. If you look towards the back of the photo, you can see there is a shower door, a large step into the shower, and those same tiles all around the walls, with a small corkboard type of material lining a separation wall that hides the toilet.

The tiles had to come off, first. Then, the drywall. Let me tell you, this was hard. Josh did the majority of this by himself, but I helped here and there...I am not very strong because of my arthritis, so I wasn't any help, but the little that I did left me sore for a few days. I can only imagine how he felt!

The tile lined the entire area behind the jacuzzi tub, which his mom wanted but very rarely ever used. It all had to be removed, and in hindsight, it would have been smarter to cover up the tub before we began this project. We are still having to clean out those jets in the tub and haven't been able to use it yet.

So, after all was said and done, the tiles/drywall were removed and replaced with wainscotting! We were going for an old school beachy feel to it, and it looks so, so good! The corkboard material was also filled in and replaced with wainscotting. The step in the shower was lowered, and the runner was replaced with this really cool varying blue tile, which, if you look waaay towards the back of the shower, you can see also runs through the shower wall! We replaced the faucets and tiles backing the counter, too. It came together very nicely!

This is the color of our bathroom now! It's a really bright blue, even brighter than this photo leads you to believe! We got these cool shadow boxes with starfish in them from Amazon and love how it ties into the beach theme! It also adds different colors to the wall to break up the blue paint color.

How cute are these towel rings/holders?! We added them because there was no real place to hang towels in the bathroom! They were also an Amazon find (though they were about $4-$5 cheaper when we bought them), and the rustic look of these really beings an old timey feel to the bathroom.

Here's my beach terrarium! We bought the sand, shells, and 2 cool glass bowls at Michael's. They were having an AMAZING sale, and everything came out to less than $20! I just love the way this turned out, it looks so neat. I also love starfish, so it

This is Josh's beach terrarium, which sits up behind the jacuzzi tub. His also turned out really cool. These were really easy to make once we sat down to do them.

Hehehehehehehehehe, this is also something we picked up on Amazon. We couldn't resist. :P

There's the bathroom! Well, there's lots more photos of ugly tiles piled up on the floor, but I think you get the idea. I am excited to share this with you all! Have you recently done any arts & crafty things or remodeled any parts of your home? :)