Bathrooms, Lord have mercy.

Renovations are a sanctifying process. For this bathroom renovation God taught me how to still treat people with kindness and respect even when THEY MESS UP REPEATEDLY DESPITE YOUR SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS. *deep breath*

Our contractors were great, they really were. They usually do quick flips so on our whole home project they really endured with us. However, they needed to be supervised at times to make sure they were doing things in the previously specified (and painstakingly planned on my part) order. With a kid, a husband, and one on the way it was difficult for me to be there always, supervising.

We did the kid's bathroom renovation before we did ours, and I'm glad we did because it taught us a lot! We gutted the entire thing, except for the tub, which we resurfaced to save cash. When resurfacing, plan in about 2 days of no reno in the space. Since the tub has to seal no dust can be stirred up during the process. Try telling an 8 month pregnant woman that there will be no progress on the bathroom for 2 days, then give her space to breath fire.

Overall, this space took about 13 days to complete (they were also doing other projects during this time). And, I love it! When doing renovations, my advice is look for the area God is sanctifying you in and lean into it. Things are a bit less stressful and aggravating when you understand God is using it as a teaching moment.

On the kid's bathroom reno, my splurge was their tile. I wanted something fun that would look good for both boy's and girls. MAJOR KEY ALERT: When using cement tile, you MUST seal the tile before you grout. We did not know this, so imagine my surprise when my beautiful and expensive tile was grey where it was supposed to be white after it was grouted black. Hell. To. PAY.

Our contractors had to pour an acid cleaner over the whole bathroom floor and basically toothbrush scrub each tile to fade the grey tile back to white. Although it didn't go back to it's original perfect white, we didn't want to take the time to reorder the tile and re-reno the floor. We called it a lesson and moved on! I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who can tell it's slightly grey where it should be white, but hey, you live and you learn!