Hi y’all! I hope you are having a great end of your week. We spent the 4th with family and then took some time to visit friends, but I’m so ready to jump back in and knock out this bathroom remodel of ours!
Time to share how this little room is progressing. Last you saw our master bathroom, it looked like this.
The wall between the vanity and toilet was outta there, but it was time to address those dangling wires and all the holes in the drywall left by the wall and fluorescent light box.
We started with the wiring. This is the topmost room in our house, so the ceiling follows our roofline. Needless to say, there is no attic access above this bathroom to run electrical, so we had to do it all from inside the room. Stephen was able to fully replace the wiring to the light fixtures and add junction boxes for the other wires that wouldn’t reach their new homes.
The junction boxes were secured to the ceiling beams and safely covered.
Once all the wiring was done (a task that took a lot longer to do than to write about – ha!), the ceiling looked pretty much like this.
I snapped these pics a little later in the process, but you can see we placed all three light switches on the wall across from the toilet (they operate the vanity light, ceiling light, and exhaust fan).
And we added the GFCI outlet on the wall beside the vanity for easy access.
There’s just something about new light switches and outlets that makes me so happy! They’re so clean and fresh – no crusty paint or dust on anything!
After the electrical, I took over and started fixing what we destroyed during demo. We purchased one sheet of 1/2″ drywall (our walls and ceiling are the same thickness). Stephen actually had the associate at Home Depot cut the drywall into three sections at the store so it would fit in his SUV. I ended up using only 2/3 of the 4′ x 8′ sheet.
We were super careful not to damage or take down more drywall than we needed to during the wall removal, but this corner suffered when we pulled the beam out of the ceiling.
And, of course, there were all the other holes in the drywall that we knew we’d need to repair.
I started by removing the metal corner trim that was damaged on the bedroom side of this wall and adding a small drywall patch at the top. Then I added a long patch on the other side of this corner. The strip of drywall missing from the ceiling in the photo below was a tough patch to figure out because there were no beams to secure it to. Instead I added four braces (three pictured below) to the back of the existing drywall which to secure the new patch.
Voila! No more hole.
After the large patches were in place, I nailed on the outside corner bead. Corner bead is amazing because it makes outside corners (where two pieces of drywall meet) look perfect, even if they are far from it. Instead of metal I chose vinyl corner bead. Although metal is the product of choice for large projects, I found it so hard to cut that I needed an easier option. This vinyl corner bead is recommended for damp locations and was so much easier to cut to size than the metal stuff! I used these cupped drywall nails to secure it.
Next came the taping. I used this yellow tape which was super easy to apply! The pros recommend taping over every seam and piece of corner bead before applying joint compound. This mesh yellow stuff makes it easy to see the joints and to tell how evenly you’re applying the joint compound.
We tackled the area above the sink last because I had to measure and install the junction box for our new vanity light.
Our new vanity is wider than our old one, so the placement of this box might look off-center, but it should be perfectly centered over our new sink. I was able to conveniently install our junction box right beside a stud, but many home improvement stores also sell these 1/2″ deep pancake boxes specifically for installation over a stud. How cool is that? No more off-center lights!
(I linked to those products on Amazon so you can see what we bought, but we found both types of junction boxes in person at our Home Depot for less than $2 each.)
So that’s pretty much how our bathroom is looking with the drywall patches, outside corner bead, and tape in place.
I still need to pick up some inside corner tape for the area above the vanity and probably more joint compound. I have a feeling this little room is going to take a lot of mud to smooth it out!
What do you think of our progress so far? I’m so happy I can’t see insulation anymore! It’s starting to look like a room again. 🙂
If you missed any of our previous bathroom posts, check them out below. Thanks for visiting!
Master Bathroom: The Before Pictures and The Plan
Master Bathroom: Taking Down the Wall
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