I realized yesterday that I never put up any last pics of our bathroom to show our shower completely finished. It has been done for quite a while now, and we really love it, especially the dual showerhead. To pull the whole dual showerhead off on the cheap we ended up going with a Danze Parma shower/tub combo. The Parma has the tub diverter right next to where you turn the water on (instead of a pull up thing on the tub spout) so it makes for a clean look. Instead of diverting to a tub spout, it goes to our adjustable shower wand. Set it somewhere in between and you get dual shower heads! The tub/shower combo was around $350 and the wand was about $150. $500 isn’t exactly cheap by my standards, but compared to any other dual head systems I could find it was a steal.
More pictures after the jump.
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When we were first looking into making an ofuro, one of the things we considered was pouring one out of concrete. The good thing about concrete is that the material is cheap, and with a little hard work it lends itself well to the DIY approach. We quickly bagged the idea because there is no possible way our floor could support the weight. This morning I stumbled across an old post on Apartment Therapy with a gorgeous DIY bathroom built for under 3k which includes a concrete ofuro. The soaking tub only cost about $200 according to the owner splat girl. She did mention that it was a lot of work though.
Check out her flicker photo set and the Apartment Therapy post.

This was sent in by a David M a long time reader. He is currently remodeling a mid-century modern home in Renton just south of Seattle. While redoing his bathroom he wanted to put in a vanity similar to the Kohler Purist but didn’t want to spend $1,500. With a little creativity he was able to take this Ikea STOLMEN and make it work as a wall mount vanity. I think you will agree when I say it looks great. The price of the STOLMEN was $80, which makes it a very affordable alternative. He finished it all off with a sink an faucet similar to what we have in our bathroom.
More pics here.

Things happen slower when you do them yourself. Over a year ago I posted about our bathroom vanity that I had just built. I did a walnut base and a concrete countertop. The only thing that was left to do was the drawers. It sat that way for over a year, but it’s finally finished. I was able to do all the drawer fronts out of one continuous piece of wood so that the grain pattern follows all the way across. It’s those little details that make me really like it the most. I opted to use no handles, but instead beveled the bottom edge of the drawer for a comfortable grip. I think it turned out pretty nice. It’s funny because I really love all the walnut in the bathroom, and very little of it was planned. The walnut behind the toilet was because we didn’t have enough wall space for the wall hung tank in the wall, and the walnut above the mirror is because they had to cut the mirror short to get it past the sink when installing it. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it any different.

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Our bathroom is almost completely done. We finally finished the vanity a couple months ago (more on that later) as well as installed the hand held shower wand (more on that too). All we have to do now is a little touch up paint, add a towel hook and a toilet paper holder. This one from Eva Solo caught my eye because it is very simple and I kinda like the way it sticks out of the wall. The roll is held in place by those spring loaded black parts. No idea on pricing yet as it is due to come out sometime this month along with their other new products, but how much could a toilet paper holder cost.

When we designed our bathroom we always planned on forgoing the standard bath mat in favor of a wooden one. We even placed an extra drain outside of the bathtub so that when you stood on a wooden bath mat the water wouldn’t just pool underneath. I had planned on making my own out of Ipe, but I have to admit I am tempted to just get this teak one from West Elm. I even love the matching stool.

Available from West Elm $89 - $129.

Sheetrock work began a few days ago. This is usually the mid-point in home construction. Since we have very little finish work required, i.e. no window or door trim, we feel like we are well past the mid-point. Sheetrock will wrap up tomorrow and preliminary steel posts for the stairs will be installed later this week. Doors were installed just before sheetrock. Garth found an awesome set of interior doors at a great price, less than $200.00 each! The remainder of the radiant system will be installed and the gypcrete floors will all be done by the end of next.
It took some time and negotiation but we finally have a solid game plan for the stairs (thanks to Kenner for the coordination). We are going with a clear varnish on the steel instead of paint. We chose square tubes and stainless steel cable for the railings. Greg with Premier Metal Works is constructing the stairs and rooftop railings.
For anyone wondering we chose the Kohler Purist series faucets for the upper floor bathrooms. For the first floor powder room we chose a “Vattern” compact cabinet/sink/faucet combo from Ikea.
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I finally finished setting all the tiles in the bathroom, thanks to my stepdad who came down on Saturday to help. We spent almost 9 hours straight on Saturday setting tile. I just have a couple of small little trim pieces to put up, and then I have to grout and caulk the whole thing. Besides that, the list of things to do in the bathroom is quickly shrinking. We have one more light to install, and a fan. We also need drawers for the vanity and trim for the door and it will be all done.
As far as the addition, they put up a couple more walls yesterday, including the walls that connect into our existing house. Today I think they will probably do roof joists, and hopefully some exterior sheathing.

More pics after the jump.
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I started tiling our bathroom last week. I set the floor tile on Wednesday night and grouted it on Friday. Let me just say for the record, that grout is a wonderful thing. It makes a not so hot tile job look pretty darn good. On Saturday I put up the rest of the dura rock (minus one side of the tub that I was still clamping and gluing) and started on the wall tile. My stepdad and father in law both stopped by Saturday night and helped with all the wall tile. It was a huge help too. I never could have gotten so much done without them. I ended up getting close to half the bathroom done, and we are getting very close to being able to shower. We can hardly wait!

We spent last weekend and a couple of nights this week getting everything ready to tile in the bathroom. Since we want to be able to get the whole floor wet without worrying about it getting funky under the tile we went ahead and covered the whole floor with a PVC membrane. It is a bit overkill, but at least we know it is done right. Next we had to get the slope correct so that the water goes toward the drains. I cut some thin strips of wood with the proper slope to help guide me as I put down the drypack. It ended up raising the floor almost 2″ at the far side. The first time I did the dry pack I made it too dry, and I had to go back and redo it all a couple days later. I got it right eventually. We are going to spend the weekend tiling, and will have all the floors done, and hopefully a good deal of the walls too. My wife can’t wait, it has been almost 8 months since I tore our old shower out. Did I ever mention how wonderful and patient she is?