Planning and Doing a bathroom rehab

The GreenUP Challenge Blogger has been very busy doing a bathroom model rehab, and still trying to plan it at the same time!

We need to remodel the surround in the shower because the surround is old, cracked and leaks. There is a enough caulking to plug a Dutch dam. The really sad part is that the surround covers up Vitrolite tile, which can be seen surrounding the rest of our bathroom. Vitrolite is a glass tile that was popular in the 20's and 30's, when our house was constructed. It is a tile that can be waterproof, so my guess was that the shower was leaking when someone installed this atrocious tub surround.



When we removed the surround, we found that the tub was only tiled with Vitrolite half the way up. Back in 1928, it was just a bath tub, with no shower. I was extremely disappointed, for two reasons. One, my rehab would not be able to reuse old material, and two, this was going to affect my pocketbook.

**see the beautiful white and blue Vitrolite on the side, and covered with nasty old glue. Luckily, the glue scrapped off without a problem and without leaving any scratches.**

We called in the Vitrolite Specialist, Tim Dunn. This is the only guy I know that is an expert in restoring Vitrolite tiling. He travels the country restoring and salvaging this tile (as it is no longer manufactured). I am fortunate, because he happens to live in St. Louis! He is going to add Vitrolite from his 'stash' and regrout our bathroom so that it is not only beautiful but also waterproof again! So, my bath tub will be a green remodel, because we will be using salvaged Vitrolite.

I am happy with reusing salvaged tile, an my wallet is not completely empty, so I still have some money to put into the fixtures, toilet and vanity and countertop.... I am still searching for a toilet that will work in our space and a 'green' integrated sink and vanity options. I have found a decent shower plumbing set and several counter options... details in another post!

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