February 2012 | Westwood Drive

So for all the work, sweat, smoldering studs (you can find that here), head banging (more about that another time) and jubilation over creating our 1/2 Bath, lets see where we ended up with our project costs. Remember we really never set a budget on any project we just try to do it on the cheap while making it look good.

Without further ado I present to you the costs from beginning to end:

... well, it looks like receipts are pretty hard to read when the stores abbreviate everything! I'll have to jot down what the hyrogliphics really mean next time, especially if I want to do another "Project Cost Roundup". So without further ado I present to you the estimated costs:

Demolition

Free

Sub-flooring & finish flooring/baseboard items

$150

Supply & Waste items

Paint items

Toilet

$100

Sink & faucet

$170

Hardware Accessories (Mirror, TP Holder, Towel Ring)

Light Fixture

Decorating Accessories & Misc.

Estimated total: $650

Seems a little high - didn't realize we spent that much on one small room! Maybe we will have to set budgets for our next big projects. But hey, nothing beats free labor! Where could we have saved? Perhaps we could have used the old toilet and old hardware accessories, but isn't it hard to resist buying new when you're remodeling a room?

Before the baseboard, flooring, and painting we ended up diving into some more plumbing work. Like the other week when I wrote about moving the toilet (you can find that here), we also moved the plumbing for the pedestal sink for it to be centered under the new ceiling light. I didn't want to move the light fixture since it would require a new hole and patching the ceiling. This was the easiest way - or was it?

It wasn't a drastic change, but the water lines as well as the drain line needed to be moved about 6". It was relatively easy since the back of the bathroom was the dark paneled cave of a Family Room. Simply removing a panel or two gave us access to the plumbing. Take a look at the finished picture below.

We first needed to know our exact plumbing dimensions so we headed over to Loews and found a pedestal sink that was only available in the store. We also picked up the matching brand of toilet.

At Home Depot I picked up some miscellanious plumbing parts: copper pipe, 90 deg. copper angles, a can of propane, solder, escuthion plates, silver plated supply lines, p-trap and pvc drain parts, yada yada yada (you know - all the things you may need for plumbing lines and drains).

After measuring for the new drain and supply areas I cut the existing drain pipe and drilled a new 2 1/2" hole through the wall stud to extend the drain line. The water supply had to be cut and then all the new pieces needed to be soldered together. That part was pretty fun other than burning the wood stud slightly! Good thing Melissa wasn't in the room at that point otherwise she may have tried to stop me from doing any more).

I purchased shut off valves that needed to be soldered onto the supply lines, but had a very hard time getting getting the solder to adhear and seal the two together. After completely failing at this twice, I purchased a 'push on' type of shut off valve made by BrassCraft. I should have picked these up the first time! All you need is a little push and it locks in place.

Image courtesy of BrassCraft Mfg.

I won't get into all the little details as I'm sure plumbing can't be too exicing for most people. After moving the sink into place all we had to do was connect the drain and supply lines to the sink and install the faucet.

Here are a few details of where the major items are from that finished up our 1/2 Bath: