Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Guest Bathroom Update - FAIL

Who doesn't love reading about a complete and utter failed project from time to time? And boy, was this one a serious fail.

To catch you up on our plan for the guest bathroom, we've been trying to update this room - and bring it out of the '70's that it was living it when we bought the house - by spending very little money on it.

Yup, budget updating is the name of the game for this room.

And so far we had been able to stick to our measly budget in here, too. We used leftover paint from other areas of the house, and scored the rest of the bathroom items either on clearance or just found them for a good price.

So our bathroom went from this:


To this:


Not bad, right? Yup, it's almost completely officially "updated" - it just needs a few more small updates.

Like the floor. Back when I was painting the bathroom, I knew that we'd install new flooring sooner or later, so I didn't bother with dropclothes or trying to protect the existing dated vinyl tiles. Hellooo paint splotches!

A few weeks ago I decided that it was time to up-the-ante in this room, since it had been awhile since it's gotten much diy attention lately.

So, I broke out the leftover vinyl tiles from when we tiled the basement bar-area, and started tiling away. I was about 100% positive that we had enough leftover tiles - we had a box and a half, and have you SEEN the guest bathroom? It's tiny! Like, seriously - tiny.


Things were going great, and the tiles were looking sweet, and as I reached in the box for another tile -

I came up EMPTY.

No biggie, I thought, I'll just stop by Lowe's and pick up some more tomorrow.

So I did. And guess what?

...

They no longer carry those tiles! The floor guy informed me that they went on clearance - 4 months ago!

....

Picture me slapping my forehead right there in front of that stranger, mkay? Because that's just what I did.

Afterwards a race to find just a measly 5 tiles that matched ensued. I googled, I ebayed, I contacted the manufacturing company and contacted customer service (who told me they couldn't help me), we jumped in the car and drove all around town to all the home improvement stores in the city.

And nothing.

Lesson learned: make sure you have enough material on hand to actually complete the project you're doing -- before you actually start doing it. Especially with tile.

So this past weekend I spent some quality time with our floor-tile-ripper-outter (like my professional-name for it?).


And now the bathroom looks like this:


Back to square 1. Sigh.

Anyone else have any fail-tastic projects done wrong lately? C'mon... make me feel a little better about our most recent big-fat-FAIL.


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7 comments:

  1. I live in Colorado and no joke .. the previous owner left a bunch of random leftover tiles in my house.

    Because those tiles aren't anywhere in my house, I thought I would put them on CL but I figured who would want 15 vinyl tiles that look just like yours & has a lowes sticker on them ... haha

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  2. Oh no! That is a huge bummer! But hey, you got some good practice in, so your next tile job will be super duper.

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  3. I know the feeling of failure as well, here is the last FAIL we shared on our blog, hope it helps make you feel a little better: http://hammersandhighheels.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-high-heels-are-homeless.html
    We were trying to make a dressing room and it looked awful, thankfully we came up with a new plan and got it done: http://hammersandhighheels.blogspot.com/2011/03/dressing-room-is-complete-before-and.html

    The tile thing is tough, we ran out of what the previous owner had, so if we ever need to fix anything we are SOL! I hope you find awesome new tiles. I think failure is a part of the DIY game, at least you can blog it out!
    Carla http://hammersandhighheels.blogspot.com

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  4. Oh man!!! That is seriously a huge bummer about the tile. But on the bright side, I really like how you brightened up the bathroom with the remodel!

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  5. Whoops! I suppose that is a lesson we can all be reminded of - with tiles, paint, whatever - make sure you have enough supplies first! I love your post, it is nice to see other people having the same silly issues that I do (like losing a knob that I JUST BOUGHT).....ha!

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  6. Oh no! That is so sad. I can't believe you couldn't find those tiles ANYwhere! Thanks for sharing your "fail" with us -- this is real life, after all! :) The rest of the bathroom looks great though, and maybe you'll end up finding a good deal on some even better tile somewhere.

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