The Semi-Big (okay, not so big and not really quite finished) Reveal!

These are all phone photos, so the details are somewhat lacking, but you can get an idea. Edit: The very beige tone of the "befores" is the lousy light of the "before" light fixture. The bathroom was really "bone white" of the 80s, a creamier version of white, not almond or beige. That's why it took several days to figure out that the toilet was never going to match.

This is the tub with the leaking drain that made the whole thing necessary. If you give enough of a damn to look closely, you will see that the edge of the tub is scarred. That's because this tub originally had a glass door enclosure. When my husband came home from the hospital after his initial diagnosis of terminal cancer, he had a massive brace holding his cancer-fractured leg together. Both bathrooms had tubs and glass enclosures, and neither were at all accessible. In a sweaty afternoon, I tore out the glass enclosure around the hall bath tub, because it was roomier than the master bath, and with a lot of help and a shower chair and hand-held shower, that's where and how he bathed. (I later tore the other shower enclosure out too, but he couldn't maneuver as well in that space - I just really hated those doors.)

The tub was scarred from the previous door frame, and has been that way for over 10 years. I will spare you the details of maneuvering a 6 ft. tall and fairly immobile cancer patient around in this bathroom, but you can probably imagine. Anyway, it's another piece of history I was really, really ready to see disappear.

This is the vanity that really was just a casualty of the tub and toilet's betrayals, at separate times. The very dated tiny tile floor had been torn up around the toilet to replace the toilet years ago, and there was a lovely big gaping hole in the drywall behind the toilet, so as long as we had to rip out that tile to replace the tub, the floor had to go too, and as long as the tub, tile around the tub, and floor were going, it didn't make sense to keep a 30 year old vanity of no particular charm.

Okay, are you ready for some phone photos of the still undecorated After?

New tub, new tile, new toilet, and Princess Delaney photobomb as she checks out her new throne.

New vanity, sink, faucet, medicine cabinet, and FAB-U-LOUS granite top. Our now-beloved contractor guy fessed up that he was a bit nervous about the stone selection and how it would look when he saw how much gray and cream it has. But it was meant to be - the colors in that top are echoed in the small tile accent feature in the tub surround, as if we were actual designers or something - and it looks soo, so elegant.

The phone photo doesn't let you see the detail of the light fixture, but it's a brushed nickel fixture with four tulip-shaped frosted downlights, and provides more and better lighting than this bathroom has ever known.

We still need a mirror, two new outlet covers, paint and a shower curtain, but that's all on us. The bathroom is now useable, and Princess Delaney can have a bubble bath in her new tub, and make new, fresh memories in that space. And her grandma says good riddance to another chunk of bad memories and bad karma. I feel like that house is being reborn, and it's totally worth every penny I can't really afford to spend.

Oh, and my balcony has been re-screened and is now giant scary bug secure. No photos of that because a screen is a screen, but this was the motivation to get it done now:

Scale is challenging, but I am not exaggerating when I say its body was bigger than the first joint of my thumb. I was suddenly very, very motivated to get the balcony screens fixed.