When Good Bathrooms Go Bad...Then Green?

Ugh. The dreaded bathroom renovation.

Even before I bought my condo, I knew this was a project I would eventually have to undertake. The inspector had informed me that there was water damage that was making the floor unstable. Fast forward seven plus years and here I was, still living in fear that the tub would one day fall through the ceiling.

My brother is an awesome handyman, so I planned to have him do most of the work. But I wanted to do things the "right" way. Turns out that is much harder than I expected.

Rule #1 about eco-friendly home renovations: Many of the green options on the market are the privilege of the rich. Rule #2: Finding eco-friendly products is akin to finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

But in case you want more information, here's the rundown of what I discovered, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Green Accomplishments

Dual Flush Toilet

Shopping Tips: I read that you should look for the WaterSense label and that the toilet should use less than 1.6 gallons per flush (GPF). I also knew I wanted to try a dual-flush toilet. (You know, less flush for number 1, more flush for number 2.)

What I Got: Glacier Bay's Dual-Flush Toilet

Fan

Shopping Tips: The fewer sones, the better. Look for the EnergyStar rating.

What I Got: This one.

Faucet

Shopping Tips: Look for the WaterSense label and a flow rate of 1.5 GPM (gallons per minute).

What I Got: I chose the Delta Lahara 25938LF-SS. There was nothing on any of the boxes at the store that would tell the GPM rate, so I had to go with just the WaterSense label. Turns out that this one has a GPM rate of 2.2. Ah, well. 

Lighting Fixture

Shopping Tips: Look for the Energy Star label. Use CFL bulbs. The usual...

Paint

Shopping Tips: I've read a lot about milk paint, but it's not recommended for high-moisture areas so it was a no-go. The other option is low-VOC paint.

What I Got: Low and behold that major retailers like Lowe's don't make low-VOC paints easy to identify. But the nice man at the paint mixing station told me that this one was awesome. I definitely liked it better than the one I tried from Sherman Williams a few years ago.

Here are some more paint tips, from yours truly, in case you're curious.

Shower Walls

It seems that using backerboard for the shower walls, rather than greenboard will help prevent mold and deterioration over time, so I went that route.

Trash

Due to water damage, I literally had to gut this bathroom down to the wall studs. This meant a lot of trash. Rather than trying to fit everything into a few Bagsters, I ended up renting a dumpster from Frog Hauling.

Unlike a normal dumpster, Frog Hauling will sort through the junk that they remove and salvage or recycle as much as possible before taking the remainder of the trash to the dump. This makes me happy.

As for some of the small stuff, such as shelves and towel racks and half-used gallons of paint, I plan to drop it all off at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Tub

This is the one item I was successfully able to reuse. It was disgustingly dirty after all the big demo and rebuild, so I scrubbed it down with a bit of Borax, which is the most magical cleaner ever in the world. My tub has never been so sparkly white.

Bath Mat

I think I'm going to try this one, which is made from something called vetiver root or this one, which is made from cork.

Green Failures

Vanity

I wanted to go with something vintage or something made of FSC-certified wood or bamboo, with environmentally-friendly finishes, glues, etc.

Um, yeah, good luck with that. I tried all of the major bathroom retailers in Columbus, including retail stores like Crate & Barrel or Restoration Hardware as well as Columbus Architectural Salvage and bathroom & kitchen specialists like Bath Works. I found only three vanities that were in any way eco-friendly and that were small enough to fit in my seemingly super tiny bathroom, but they were literally 10 times the cost of a basic vanity unit at Home Depot or Lowe's.

The two places I didn't try but probably should have were antique stores (which would have taken a ton of time to peruse) and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore (which was closed the one Sunday I chose to visit).

Flooring

All of the eco-friendly books suggest using cork, natural linoleum or recycled rubber flooring. Come to find that the only cork flooring available at Lowe's and Home Depot is interlocking, which means that it is somehow affixed to a bed of particle board or MDF, which makes it not nearly as eco-friendly. As for natural linoleum or recycled rubber flooring? I am most certain these are figments of the imagination, as I couldn't find them anywhere.

So I went with ceramic tile. (And not even recycled ceramic tile, as it only seems to exist on the interwebs.) In any case, ceramic tile is durable and long lasting and is better for the environment than vinyl and more suitable for bathrooms than hardwood. 

Miscellaneous

Solvent-free adhesives? Didn't see one label that mentioned solvent-free. Baseboards with a low-VOC, water-based finish? No dice. Low-toxic grout and sealants? Puhshaw. Who would think to ask for such silly things?

Also suggested by the eco-friendly gurus that write books? A tankless water heater and a circulation pump. I didn't even look into it.

I looked for shower curtains made from organic cotton or bamboo fabrics. There were a few, but not many and the patterns were very grandma-esque. I also looked on Etsy for shower curtains made from scrap fabrics, but there weren't any worth noting. Oh, well.

I wanted to get a vintage medicine cabinet or mirror, but so far they are freaking expensive. The jury's still out on that.

The Big Reveal

The Before

The After

Looks basically the same, huh? :)