Beach House Bathroom - Almost, Almost Done

We finished the majority of the small bathroom over Labor Day. All that's left is a little bit of trim painting, shelves and towel hooks - a busy Saturday's worth of work.

The Delta corner shower walls and door had clear instructions and were straightforward to install. It took about four hours with no problems. The quality seems good - so $400 is a fair price (Home Depot). They only had a clear glass option, which I'm glad we used. The bathroom would feel much smaller with patterned glass.

The bathroom originally had a really low ceiling at 6' 7" before the remodel. We took the sheetrock out, put some lap boards between the 2x6 joist and wrapped the joists with 1x6. The ceiling is now at 7' even. It was a bit of work for just 5"gain , but it really changed the space in the room - and the ceiling looks nice.

The box above part of the shower is a compromise. We are adding a small half-bath upstairs, and there was no other way to route the 3" drain. I notched the ceiling joist up 2 1/2 inches, glued & screwed reinforcements to it, and the pipe still hung down a bit. The box butts right up to it. It's not perfect, but it's functional. It's 6' 2" under the box, 6'6" under the joists, and 6' even under the shower head. Lucky we are all under 6', and the other larger bathroom has 8' ceilings.

The 1932 sink I rebuilt fits nicely in the small space. We decided not to put in a medicine cabinet, and instead we just have a simple mirror. With the low ceiling and therefore lower lights, it was just too tight. I added a built-in niche to the sidewall to add a little bit of storage - and I still need to put shelves in and paint the trim. 

The ventilation fan is right above the light, you just can't see it in the picture. Again, I didn't have a lot of choices on where to put it. I wanted it to be away from the shower so it's not an electrical hazard, but with an exposed ceiling, I have to run the ducting in the room above. The fan box is going to sit in the bottom of the sink cabinet upstairs.

Here's the window and toilet. I made the window out of glass block ($3 each at the ReStore), and ended up getting the toilet for nothing with an energy rebate.

I milled the trim for the room out of 1/2" x 5 1/2" cedar boards that we salvaged from the 50' fence that blew down and we didn't replace. The wood is premium quality, almost clear, and has only a slightly rough finish. I could have planed it smooth, but I like the texture.

Here are the doors I built a couple of weeks ago, installed. I'm really happy with the results. Now they just need painting. The knobs I bought were a little tricky at first - I'll do a separate post on those - but worked well.

Finally, here are a couple of pictures of the "before" bathroom...

I'm glad we made the effort to change it.

Beach House Doors - Solid Wood but Inexpensive

I decided to replace all the doors at the beach house.

We have everything from an old solid three-panel door to a super cheap slab from the 70's - and none of them are the same. Since all the doors need to be custom sizes, and on top of that I don't want any hollow-core doors, making them myself is the only option.

So my wife and I decided on the requirements:
- Solid wood
- The same theme for the doors, but have some variation
- Don't break the bank

The best option I could find was to use 2x6 tongue-and-grove kiln-dried pine decking and 5 mm underlayment plywood, both from Home Depot. A 12' decking board costs $9 (I need 2) and plywood cost $14 (I need 1/2 a sheet) - so the doors themselves will cost $25 each.

I started by rough cutting the decking to length:

I ripped the boards, removing both the tongue and grove sides, then I ran them through the jointer to get them straight and smooth. After I cut them to exact length, I cut slots to accept the plywood panels - it took two passes on the table saw with a regular blade. I also slotted the ends of the top and bottom pieces:

Once the slotting was done, I verified the panel sizes I needed, then cut them:

I glued the panels into the slots with Titebond. In some areas of the country this would not be a good idea, due to wood expansion and contraction. On the Oregon coast this is not a problem, since the temperatures don't vary that much and the humidity is always about the same.

I cut plywood splines to join the frame.

The assembly went OK, but it would have been easier if the glue didn't dry so fast. I may investigate something with a longer open-time for the next doors.

I pulled everything tight with pipe clamps:

All the doors will be made the same to this point, then I will put various patterns on them.

They will all have the top panel as shown below. We're going to put chalkboard paint on these so we can do fun artwork. From there, the bottom section will change throughout the house.

Here are some of our ideas:

The two doors for the basement and small bathroom are built, and mortised for hinges. I will do the jambs this week - which should cost about $20 per set.

Three hinges per door cost $10.

The door knobs were really cheap at $1.50 a set, and they are nice ones - brushed nickle. I bought them at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. They had 100's of sets and where trying to move them.

So the total for each door fully installed will be about $75 including trim and paint. To order the doors, since they are custom sizes, would be about $250 to $300 each. I need to build 8 regular doors, 2 sets of bi-fold and a 5' wide slider. In the end it will be around $1000 and some work, but I think it will be worth it.