Bringing in the New Year

 with a bang bathroom!  Since it's the beginning of 2012, I thought I'd introduce you to the beginning of our Martin house projects.  Mind you, this is only the beginning of our continual transformation of the bachelor pad into our home.  Before we were pronounced Mr. and Mrs., and I moved in to the bachelor pad, Drew Babe began this first project of redesigning the Pepto-Bismol pink master bathroom.  Just the color of the wall (and ceiling....and door....and trim, everything was painted the thick, dull pink color), should give you a clear image of what the rest of the bathroom looked like.

Sorry for the lack of "before" pictures.  We will try to get better at that, but hopefully you can still get a glimpse of the very first Martin House project.

This is where the simple wood vanity once stood.  After being ripped out (I think Drew Babe enjoyed the demo part), the vanity was tossed to the street.  You can see the old dark green wallpaper and border, and the even older flowery wallpaper that was hidden behind the vanity. 

Drew Babe did an awesome job doing the majority of the bathroom work by himself (I'm so happy to be married to a handsome do-it-yourself-er :).  Thankfully we were able to get a new sparkly white toilet to replace this cream colored, mismatched-top throne.

Here is another shot of where the sink vanity once stood and you can see the two different kinds of linoleum on the floor.  Also notice the pink trim. There must have been a sale on Pepto-Bismol pink which made someone decided to drench the entire bathroom in this lovely color.

The floor was the first part of Drew Babe's bathroom overhaul.  To save money, we decided to go with the peel-n-stick vinyl tiles.  Personally, I think they still give the authentic tile look without the cost and installation effort of real tile.

I found this striped shower curtain at TJ Maxx (a Martin favorite), which inspired the master bathroom wall color, a light gray-blue color.  We went with a gloss paint for the wall which helps with preventing mildew and makes cleaning easy.

The hand towels were also found at TJ Maxx and match the shower curtain almost perfectly.

This vanity was found at Home Depot.  The white counter top, dark finish, and brushed nickel hardware gives the bathroom a modern and crisp look.  This was quite an upgrade from the old oak vanity with yellowy laminate counters.

While the vanity did come with a matching mirror (yay!), it did not come with any kind of backsplash (boo).  I believe it's a necessity to have a backsplash behind a bathroom sink to prevent having drips of toothpaste and soapy water all down the wall behind the vanity.  To solve this problem, my ingenious Drew Babe found a piece of marble door threshold at Lowe's (or maybe Home Depot...can't remember which) that would go with the counter top color, and then had it cut to fit perfectly around the sink as our backsplash.  Who would have thought that a threshold could double as a backsplash.

We continued the brushed nickel hardware for the towel racks as well.  Instead of spending hours tediously working to remove the hunter green wallpaper, Drew Babe and his godfather installed beadboard (or wainscoting) and a simple trim around the bottom part of the room.  We painted this white to keep the bathroom looking fresh and clean.