In only 10 days, Craig has almost finished the new main floor bathroom. Starting from scratch, everything is pretty much done except the painting and trim. It took about a day to plan and buy everything including the sink and toilet. It took a day to frame and install the door and rough in the plumbing. It took probably another day (off and on, late at night) to complete the plumbing. Shig did the wiring in about 2 hours and the drywall has taken another day total (off and on, late at night).





Lessons learned:

1. When you plan the framing for such a small area, make sure you have room to get the drywall inside before you close everything up.
2. I have always said this, but never from experience: avoid doing your own drywall whenever possible! It is one of those things that anyone can do, the tools are cheap, and the materials are cheap. The problem is that moving the boards around is cumbersome and error-prone. Mudding is an art that requires a lot of practice to be able to do well.
3. If you can do it, lay out everything on the floor before you start to help plan. For example, in this case I laid out boards to represent the walls and doors on the floor and then I placed the vanity and toilet, etc. so we could play with the exact design of the room before I finalized the design. This helped us decide to widen the bathroom by 6 inches past the pantry, because it was really just too narrow otherwise.