I don't have any questions, I just thought people would like to hear about a little bathroom improvement project. The old bathroom off the master bedroom was still functioning fine, but was looking pretty shabby. The vinyl floors were vintage 1973, original with the house, the medicine cabinet was cheap by 1973 standards, the toilet seat was frozen on so tight I couldn't replace it, and somebody with no drywall skills had installed a ceiling fan. I had already replaced the sink last year.
Cleaning up the bathroom was an easy fix. I pulled the toilet, pulled the vinyl, soaked the old glue off the floor with DIF, and floated a top coat on the ceiling. Since the ceiling was small, I did a spray texture with a couple aerosol cans to match the orange peel that should have been there. I also replaced the old aluminum slider with a new vinyl window while I was mudding stuff.
While I had the toilet out, I took it apart, took a garden hose to it and cleaned all the sediment out of the rim. It was not flushing well because of mineral buildup in the rim. Cleaning it out restored it to good as new. It is an American Standard, and the porcelain is in good shape with no stains. I replaced all the valves, gaskets and washers. The seat came off with a little careful hacksaw work. Toilet seats were never intended to last 30 years!
Back in the bathroom, I gave the walls and ceiling a new coat of paint, added some screws to the underlayment to eliminate squeaks, scraped it smooth as possible and floated the rest with Fixall. A $10 vinyl remnant and some rubber base finished the floor, except for the furnace register. I ran the old register through the dishwasher, hit it with some rusty metal primer, and gave it a nice rattle can coat of cream colored enamel.
The bathroom is small, so I installed a 4' bevelled glass medicine cabinet on the wall opposite the window, and replaced the old chrome and glass light fixture with a nice brushed nickel and porcelain unit. I also installed matching towel bars under the window and towel hooks next to the shower
The shower is tile, and in excellent shape, except for a few grout joints around the top of the door. I took a dreml tool to the loose grout, and scrubbed in new grout where it was needed.
So that polished up the whole bathroom. I don't know what the cost of the project was, but the most expensive thing was $169 for the medicine cabinet. Next was $25 for a toilet seat, and about $25 total for the vinyl, Fixall, rubber base and glue. $16 for a gallon of paint, and about $16 for two cans of spray texture. The window was part of replacing all the windows in the house, which is a different project. Call it about $300 for the whole project.
So now the bathroom is looking so nice that my wife insists we replace the carpet in the master bedroom. I spent last weekend dealing with moving a king sized water bed out of the bedroom. The wet vac really paid for itself. After I siphoned all the water out that I could, I used the wet vac to pull about 200 lbs. of water out of the anti-slosh padding. I could actually roll the mattress up and walk out with it over my shoulder!