Bathroom Overhaul

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I stood in the doorway of the bathroom  in our finished basement downstairs, and decided it definitely needed an overhaul. Sure it functioned well but the cheap looking imitation marble sink and fake front oak cabinet blended in way to well with the 1970's flooring. It all had to go.

The picture you see at the top of this page, is what the bathroom looked like with the 1970's toilet and the sink removed, along with all of the base board trim and the white tile ceiling panels. The picture was taken just before the floor covering was removed. Nothing would be saved!

I decided I would build most of the furniture and the decor for this bathroom, so the planning started.

I decided the bathroom sink should be made from a parts washer and would include hot and cold water. The walls should be some kind of barn siding, the ceiling should be corrugated tin, and from then on... one thing led to another.

The parts washer sink is now plumbed for hot and cold water,  The drain is 5/8 heater hose using a 4 step hose adapter from a dishwasher install kit. The braided water lines are also from a dishwasher install kit with adapters to tie into the service lines and drain in the wall.

The sink works as it is supposed to. I have a plumber friend Arden Rozean who helped with the plumbing. He dug thru his warehouse to find the old brass fittings and adapters, some he hadn't used in twenty years.

I spent the next year collecting and building parts of the bathroom. Finally the parts washer sink was done, and it was onto the Chevrolet engine intake and soap dispenser, followed by the running board shelf, followed by the restoration of two antique Benjamin porcelain barn lights, and the new TP holder. Finally after a year I had everything gathered up and it was time to start on the bathroom.

This is the soap dispenser made from a 1950 six cylinder Chevrolet intake manifold. I removed the stem in the middle of the oil filter canister then sandblasted, painted, and put fresh decals on the filter housing. The 1/4" ball valve on the bottom of the filter dispenses the liquid soap and the clear hose on the LH side tells how much soap is left in the filter.

First up... I decided I wanted a mural on the floor, and it had to be a 3D mural so it looked real, and would give you pause, so when you first saw it... your mind and your body would not agree that you were looking at the same thing. I talked to good friend Bart Thomas who runs a sign billboard company. I said I want a billboard on the floor of my bathroom!

After some thought he said... "send me down what you want and we can figure out a way to do that." So I sent him four pictures from an estate collection that I had appraised about ten years prior. Bart photo shopped the pictures together, right down to even matching up the blades of grass and leaves, and created a 7' x 7' mural. It turned out like this...

Now it was time to prep the bathroom floor and install the mural. My original plan was to install the mural just like this picture so when you walked in the door this is what you see. Bart suggested we turn it a forth of a turn counter clockwise to the left, so the steering column would come out from under the wall of the bathroom to give it more depth and more of a 3D look. He was right... it even made it look more 3D with much more depth. Here is what the mural looked like installed.

The red plug is where the toilet goes. The barn siding paneling is up, (which is actually an exterior barn siding from Lowe's). The floor truly does look like it has some depth.

I found out in the 1980's that there was once a "Rundle" plumbing company located back east, that was in business from the 1920's until sometime in the mid 1960's. I found an add on eBay that showed a Rundle toilet from the 1960's as part of the "ultimate" bathroom collection. I now knew what one looked like and set out to find one.

I finally got one and replaced all of the old internal parts with modern replacements. Now I have my "modern" Rundle toilet, the same one shown in the advertisement.

A Genuine Rundle Toilet from the 1960's

Next up I needed a toilet paper holder. I decided to build my own using a wrench from on old printing letter press. In my past life I was a printer, and learned to run one of the old "snap presses."  This wrench was apart of a tool kit that got scrapped along with an old snap press sometime in the late 1980's. OSHA would have a field day with those presses today, but back when I ran them, nobody gave it a second thought.

The only downfall I discovered to using this wrench was the size of the bolt  and nut it was supposed to fit. It proved to be neither American or Metric. I finally figured out it was a size called British Standard something that was no doubt common when that press was built in the 1930's. I ended up making a nut and bolt for the wrench. Got a metric set that was close and spent some time in front of the bench grinder. It worked. I then took the TP holder out to the local farm machinery manufacturing company and had it powdered coated. They coat everything red so red it became!

Sometime in the early 1990's, a local farmer stopped in my store and said... "I have something in my ditch with your name on it, better come check it out."
I did go check it out and it was part of a 1946 Ford truck that once belonged to my granddad as evident by the lettering on the door. I never knew the truck existed till then.  It had been pushed over a bank and ended up in a deep ravine. More than a little worse for wear I decided I was going to save something from it.

About all that was worth saving was the passenger door, which took me all day to rescue. I stored my treasure away in the back of my store for the next twenty years... not sure what to do with it. After working on the bathroom project for a while, I knew exactly what to do with it. I restored the lettering on the door using the faded lettering outline on the original door. Then I hand sanded the door using fine river sand to age the lettering and the door to get the "patina" of the "found in the ditch look."

I then put a mirror where the window glass once was and that became the bathroom mirror in the new bathroom.

The door lettering turned out great. I left the rest of the door pretty much as I had found it including the sweat equity proudly displayed on the door sill.

Above the door I installed an original 45 degree Benjamin porcelain light that came off of an old Texaco street sign. The light is about the same age as the door.
I restored another original Benjamin barn light to go over the parts washer sink.

I also remember going into old garages and machine shops growing up and in the bathroom of most of them was a shelf above the sink where they emptied their pockets before they washed their hands and went home for the day. There was always parts like spark plugs, cans of some fuel additive or radiator treatment, wrenches, odd and ends. I decided I needed one of those shelves so I built one out of a piece of an old Ford Model T running board.

The light switches are the old push button type with the mother of pearl inlay on the buttons. The covers are nickel plated art deco style covers.

The last thing on the list was the ceiling. The white perforated drop ceiling tiles were replaced with used corrugated tin from an old warehouse. That really changed the look of the ceiling. I am not sure how many people will be looking up, most will be looking down and trying not to trip on a car part on the floor.

The bathroom project is complete and it turned out pretty well, and is a stark contrast to the bathroom that was there before. It took a little longer than I thought to find the parts I needed to build the interior. There are always hitches in projects like this, and this one was no exception.

The exterior paneling I chose to use turned out to be a discontinued item from Lowe's, so after buying all they had at the closest Lowe's store 60 miles away from where I live in Salina Kansas, and being two sheets short, I tried to order more. No longer available is the reply, it is a discontinued item So after spending half a day on the Internet I finally find a store that has more of the paneling in stock, but it is 200 miles away in Lee Summit Missouri!

I went and got it after confirming twice that they actually had it in stock, and yes I bought a couple of extra sheets... just in case. But it was all worth it in the end especially when you look at what I started with. Now, it is on to the next adventure.