Mommy... I Stained the Bathroom Floor!

We're about done with the ladies' room downstairs, so it was time to start on the gents'.

It's quite a bit smaller -- about the size of a generous phone booth -- but even more work. We're not sure what this room was originally, but it wasn't a bathroom. It appears to have been a "butler's pantry" or some sort of anteroom or pass-through between the dining room and the kitchen. For such a small room, it had two large doors in it, and not much else. At any rate, it's been the men's room for the last several decades.

The work started with the floor. When we stripped away the kitchen's old vinyl flooring and underlayment, we discovered an old oak floor in here, but nowhere else. Rather than tear it out, we saved it. I know, I know... wooden flooring in a public restroom seems like a terrible idea. And it probably is, but we're sticking with it anyway.

The oak was in bad shape, buried under layers of glue and nails. But we stripped off the adhesive residue, patched the holes, and sanded the bejeesus out of it until it was comparatively smooth. Then we rubbed in a coat of stain (left over from the 2010 floor project) and applied several layers of clear polyurethane. My hope is that the clear poly will waterproof the floor enough to keep it relatively sanitary.

The stain soaked in very unevenly, which I attribute to the aged and damaged condition of the wood, not my incompetence. We've agreed that it lends a charming, rustic look to the floor. Hey, it's a bathroom, not a ballroom, and I doubt many visitors to this space will comment on it.

We added a bead board wainscot around the walls, which Kathy painted gloss black. It looks really good, and pretty soon we'll add the floor molding and top molding, and probably a picture rail and some crown molding up high. The room is nearly twice as high as it is wide (10' x 6' x 3'), so we're trying to break up the vertical space to make it seem less like an upended shoebox.

Plumbing fixtures have arrived, and those go in once the floor has completely dried. Probably tomorrow.