Before we can officially move into the new house, I’ve required a working bath tub.
See, we pulled out the claw foot tub and we’ve replaced it with a five foot jetted tub and shower combo.
Which also required removing the small half wall and building a new floor to ceiling wall.
The plumbing runs through the new wall, and a Hardie Backer surround, tub to ceiling. Ben taped and filled the seams and we’re waiting for it to dry.
We also gained a little bit of space for the toilet. A claw foot tub plus a wide half wall in an eight foot square room is a tight fit. Now a five foot tub with a standard wall gives the cramped toilet space a few more valuable inches.
In other bathroom news, we picked up our shower tile and a remnant for our vanity counter today. Hopefully Ben can start (and finish) the shower surround tomorrow. But here’s the counter:
The counter is a 45 inch by 25 inch piece of white quartz. I love that it is light and will allow me to paint the vanity any color I want. Ben got it for 60 bucks, which is about $400 cheaper than the quote we got from the other granite supplier in town. Score!
Even better, this granite place has piles of damaged materials. Ben saw a few pieces of Carrera marble in the heap, so he asked about it. The company is trying to get rid of these and the employee said Ben could take anything he wanted, free.
Those babies are sitting in the garage, waiting for Ben to cut them down to fit our end tables. He sure knows the way to my heart.
In other new house news, I hung a few pictures. Mostly because I don’t want to look at the epileptic seizure inducing wall paper. And because I have about 10 boxes of art at my disposal.
We were able to sell the old bathroom vanity on Craigslist, and now we’re trying to pawn this enormous wooden pergola on someone. No clue of its original purpose, but it’s in our yard and we want it out of there.
We met another neighbor yesterday; Rocky, the rock chuck.
That’s the latest progress. Bring on the bath tub so we can move our beds over! Tell me, what kind of counters do you have in your bathroom? Have you scored any free things lately?
ourhumbleabodeblog.com 
You and Ben have this innate ability in finding great deals. Add to that Ben’s amazing talent with all things power-tool, and it’s a match made in heaven!
Great finds. Can’t wait to see what you do with the main bathroom and all the fixtures.
LOVE the counter! I like the sparkley bits- you guys work fast. Nice job! We have a great store in Missoula called Home Resource. While things are not free…. They are available at a great price (most of the items are remnants left over from jobs or reno pull outs) I got a piece of marble to use as a pastry stone for about $3!
Wow! All I can say is wow! That bathroom is going to be amazing! Question for you, how do you plan to cut the quartz remnant for the bathroom sink?
How is Ben going to cut the holes for the counter? When we were redoing our kitchen remodel we “scored” some free granite we thought about using for our island, but no contractors or fabricators would trim it square (two straight cuts!) for less than $25/sq ft! In the end since we didn’t love the color and didn’t have enough to do the whole kitchen anyway we just bought all the granite from a fabricator and we just donated our free granite to Habitat for Humanity. But we only paid $35/sq foot for everything including installation. It made no sense. So I’m a bit Leary about purchasing slab remnants for our bathrooms. Seems as if you can’t do your own cuts (or know someone who can do it for you) there isn’t a ton of savings. What do you guys think?
Hi Karyl and Catie! I’ll write up a post when we get to that point. 🙂 We bought remnants for all three bathrooms of our first house and Ben did the finishing, so we’re hoping the quartz won’t be much different. We’ll let you know all about it though.
Thanks!
Amanda
what kind of tub did you get? i’m getting ready to do my master bath and i’ve been looking for a jetted tub but i’m not so sure. ohh how much was it?
Hi Sandrine! We used the same tub we had in our first house. It’s made by American Standard, available at Home Depot. Here’s a link: http://www.homedepot.com/buy/american-standard-everclean-5-ft-whirlpool-tub-in-white-277241.html The website shows $438, but our HD sells the tubs for $399. We love the tubs and they’re great, even in a shower combo.
Thanks!
Amanda
How do u have the time do do all pf this work with two toddlers? Does your husband work during the day? Are you a sahm
Hi lkl, Ben took this week off to work on the bathroom and to move things over. But usually he works 40 hours a week. I am a stay at home mom, so I have time to do smaller things while the boys hang out and watch or nap. Hope that helps!
Thanks!
Amanda
Busting it out already! Love the vanity top and that marble steal is amazing! Can’t wait to see the shower tile.
thank you so much for answering. That is such a great help. we are getting ready to redo our small bathroom and my hubby wants to built the vanity but i’m hoping i can some information on that on your blog when Ben built yours. Thank you so much
Silestone “Stellar Snow 2008” going in the bath?
Such a beautiful home. You and Ben are a great team. Looking forward to seeing all the changes to come.
OK I noticed that you used a tub without a tiling flange, how did you waterproof the seams near the tub? Every pro site says this set up is a no-no and just calls for mold problems…?