DIY Bathroom Renovation with No Experience (What Went Wrong 😅

A Simple Plan… Until It Wasn’t

“I thought I was doing a quick bathroom update…”

Turns out we were one loose pipe away from a full plumbing disaster.

Yeah… I didn’t think I would discover our pipes were basically on their last leg.

Somewhere between ‘just swap the vanity’ and ‘why is there water everywhere,’ my husband became… a plumber 🔧”

Yeah… I don’t think they meant tearing apart a bathroom with zero experience while waiting on a life-changing phone call 😅

People always say marriage is teamwork, right?

Yeah… I don’t think they meant tearing apart a bathroom with zero experience while waiting on a life-changing phone call.

People always say marriage is teamwork, right?

Yeah… this is where that really got tested.

Lately, I’ve been stressing over everything—waiting, the house, life—and somehow this project just added to it.

My husband was just along for the ride…and by “along for the ride,” I mean I handed him a honey-do list that somehow turned into plumbing.

I didn’t mean to take it this far with the bathroom facelift…

I was thinking—easy project.
Pop off the old vanity, put a new one in, swap out the light fixtures… make it look a little nicer.

You know… simple

Yeah… no.

Because of course, once we got into it, we realized the plumbing was basically holding on to life by a thread.

The second we tried to detach the pipes from the old vanity?

👉 Leaking.

And the water supply lines I ordered?

👉 Way too small.

I got 20 inches… we needed 36.

So naturally, we had to turn off the water for 24 hours.

And let me tell you—no one ever needs to use the bathroom more than when the water is turned off and you can’t flush the toilet.

What was supposed to be a “quick update” turned into a full-blown remodel… by accident.

But somehow, through all of it, my husband was an absolute trooper.

He was running back and forth getting supplies, asking the hardware store workers for help, and just figuring it out as he went.

At one point, he even had to cut part of the vanity to make it fit around the pipes…
(which, to be fair, was my fault because I bought one that was too narrow)

But honestly? It turned out really pretty.

And eventually, he got smart and called a friend who actually knew what they were doing to help with the wall light and ceiling light.

We learned a lot through all of this.
We only lost our tempers about four times… which, for a remodeling project, I feel like is actually pretty impressive.

And somehow, we made it through.
The bathroom isn’t 100% done yet—I still need to paint the shower (yes… the ugly one) and paint the cabinet green.

But it’s about 85% there now…

Honestly, it looks like a completely different bathroom.

And as chaotic as it’s been, I realized something in the middle of all this…
This is what marriage actually looks like.

Not perfect.

Not planned.

Definitely not easy.

Just figuring things out together… one unexpected problem at a time.

Until the next update… hopefully with less plumbing involved, have a blessed day!