Florissant Remodeling Guy

Here I will post some of the bathroom remodeling pictures that I have done around the St. Louis metro area. Some of these bathrooms I don't remember much about because I have done so many, and they all start blending together after a while. Sorry but many of these I do not have before and after shots of. Lets start with a very basic bathroom in a basement that I fixed up. In the before picture you can see that the concrete floor is broken and the pipes are all exposed. Also in this bathroom, was a shower fixture hanging from the ceiling by wire ties and a drain "hole" in the floor. I covered all the plumbing with a simple wall, patched the floor, and painted the whole thing. I also re-built the shower stall and added a sink in this bathroom, but I do not have pictures of those. The materials were fairly cheap and the result was a decent looking bathroom in the basement. It's not perfect but, still a huge improvement on a tight budget.

The last 5 pictures I have are from bathrooms that I have done but do not have before pictures of. I will just post them here for your viewing pleasure. Trust me, they were all in bad shape (or non-existant) when I got to them. The first bathroom was built in a basement and was a complete custom job. We built an enclosure for that huge 4 person jacuzzi tub. One of the neat things about this bathroom were those glass blocks that were used as splash guards/shelves. We installed a colored neon light behind the wall that shines through the blocks when turned on. It created a really neat look with the other lights off.

The 2nd bathroom was tiled from floor to ceiling with plain white tiles. Even the floor was tiled white. I recall this bath replaced a badly outdated bath and was very, very dark. The customer specifically wanted white everything because of that. It was very white but came out great.

The 3rd picture shows a simple bathroom, but started out with the tub along the right sidewall and the toiled jammed in back in the corner. There was plenty of space and an open ceiling down in the basement for plumbing access, so I suggested re-arranging the fixtures for a more "normal" look and better access to the toilet. A linen closet was also built just inside the door, taking full advantage of the available space.

The 4th bathroom had a very common problem that many bathrooms have, rotted sub-floors. This one also had the added bonus of completely rotted floor joists that needed to be replaced before we could safely tear out the rest of the bathroom.

The 5th bathroom in this list of remodeled bathrooms was in a house that was 120 years old. When we gutted the walls we found an old window and some 1930's newspapers hidden behind the wall for years. We used the framed in window opening as a way to easily vent the exhaust fan thru the wall. I highly reccommend using the 2 or 3 piece fiberglass tub kits for your bathroom remodel job. They install quickly, last forever, never leak, and clean easily.

This 6th bathroom picture I found was another basement bathroom that did not exist beforehand. Even though they are the hardest to do, I think I enjoy installing new bathrooms in basements the best. I must be crazy. This one has a tiled shower stall with shower door. In this bathroom I learned that the center of the toilet flange must be exactly 12" from the finished wall for a standard toilet to fit correctly. I moved a wall without thinking and ended up with only an 8" space. Of course I knew that already but, just forgot it long enough to mess things up. In the end I had a choice to move the wall or the pipe, so I chose to special order a toilet that fits an 8" backset. :-)

This last bathroom I have pictures of was very time consuming because of all the tile work. You can see in the before picture, that this was a standard St. Louis bathroom. If you've lived here for very long chances are you have been in a bathroom that looks just like this one.

There must be thousands of this exact same bathroom all around town. Tear out of the plaster walls, cast iron tub, and super thick concrete tile floor can be a nightmare but it's all downhill afterwards. In this bathroom the wall tiles were concealing a small group of termites that had destroyed the wood inside the wall. Also signifigant mold growth was happening from loose tiles leaking inside the wall.

As you can see the exaust fan was moved from the wall to the ceiling and GFI's were added to this outdated bath. This bathroom was on the high-side as far as materials go, but the customer was going for a specific look based on what they had seen a picture of.

Finding a picture of what you want your bathroom to look like can be a great help to your contractor. I know it was for me on this project. Here is the nice, new pedistal sink and toilet, along with the matching mirror and faucet.

The last picture shows the floor tile detail that was installed. They are just standard 12" x 12" ceramic tiles centered around accent tile strips. These strips come pre-glued on a cloth mesh for ease of installation. Do not attempt any project like this one without having a wet saw for tile cutting. It would be impossible without.