About a month ago, I wrote about our plan for the upstairs bathroom refresh. Andy and I discussed it thoroughly, and I thought we were on the same page. The to-do list was relatively simple overall.
- Remove the torn wallpaper and paint the walls
- Restore the marble sink
- Paint the exterior of the tub
- Replace the light fixtures
- Paint the vinyl flooring
And the most critical to-do of all,
- Remove the pink paneling and solve the mystery of what was behind it.
Over the winter break, I convinced Andy to do a bit of pink paneling intervention on Instagram. Did you watch our story? We had so much fun filming that day.
Before the demo, I had a hunch that there was original wainscoting behind that plastic, and guess what?
We found original wainscoting. Insert happy dance here. The more we talked about the refresh, the more we started to question why we were waiting to dive into our grand remodeling plans for this bathroom.
Naturally, we boiled everything down to money and the budget. However, with an overall project as massive as BHH, coupled with the uncertainty of how long we will live here, money is only one piece of the puzzle. We try to schedule all of our significant upgrades based on what will make our lives better right now but will also appeal to buyers when/if we sell sometime.
Together, Andy and I considered what it would take to make a renovation happen now vs. later.
The Layout
Currently, the bathroom is laid out like this:
Everything is on one side of the room. If this bathroom were a boat, we’d soon find ourselves face down with a mouth full of water. It would surely tip over in a hurry.
If we start the master plan, we will move things around. The tub will move to the opposite side of the room, and we will use the open space for a free-standing shower, like this:
I have tentatively laid out the shower size as 3′ X 4′, but I have not looked at industry standards yet. There is plenty of room for adjustments.
While it would be nice to move the toilet and sink a little farther apart from each other, it’s not a deal breaker if they stay right where they are. As is, there is plenty of room for a cabinet between the sink and the shower.
The Project List
The master plan is much more extensive. It includes everything on the refresh list above, plus these costly additions:
- Hire a plumber to move the plumbing, tub, and build and tile the shower.
- Heated tile floor (more about this in a future post.) – DIY
- Hire an electrician to redo the electrical wiring to accommodate lightswitches, new outlets, an exhaust fan, and the heated tile.
- Reglaze the tub.
Refresh or Renovate? Which did we choose?
At this point, we have decided on a hybrid of the two at worst, and the whole enchilada at best. We are committed to moving the tub and building a new shower. Once we have a bid for plumbing, we will determine whether or not to move forward with the other expensive items on our list.
The possibility of an updated bathroom is exciting, and I turned to Pinterest for inspiration. As per my usual, I am not too bogged down in the detail of finishes at this stage. We have a general feeling in mind that I wanted to share right now.
I found this first photo on Pinterest, and the credit goes to Kim from Yellow Brick Home. During a day trip to Kohler, she took this picture in the design center. I love the old paintings and photos, the bright white and orange, as well as the unusual layout of the flooring.
In this next bathroom, I like that the wall sconces have a traditional vibe. The sink is also adorable, but we are keeping the one we have. And look! more orange. I have a thing for anything that reminds me of sunshine, especially in the middle of winter. (Like mother, like daughter)
Photo Credit to BHG This image was found on Pinterest.
As far as the shower goes, we are not firm on anything at this point. Yesterday, I posted this picture on IG:
Photo Credit: Pottery Barn
Since we have no plans to paint the wainscoting, our bathroom will not be quite so white. I love that black and white wallpaper, but we could achieve the pattern in the first photo by breaking out the stencils again. (Andy, forget everything I said about never stenciling again. I was just tired.)
I am also drawn to the concept of a walk-in shower without a curtain. The idea is a little industrial, but I think we could make it work in BHH with the right choice of tile and proper tie-in with the rest of the room. Again, this is all preliminary. I am just going with my gut at this point.
Now that you’ve seen our plan, I want to hear from you. What do you love about your bathroom? What’s on your wishlist? Have you remodeled a bathroom before? What would you do differently? Leave a comment below. I would love to know.
22 Comments
Marta
About three months before I left my marriage I designed and oversaw a complete renovation of our bathroom (in retrospect it was a Hail Mary effort to save the marriage which failed, but I left a really nice bathroom!) We lived in a row house with a tiny bathroom, and I wanted it bigger (I’m talking TINY). My sons bedroom was right next to the bathroom and had an oddly shaped closet that he didn’t really use (he likes hooks on the wall and bins in cubbies), so I stole the closet and a few more feet from his room. Now his room is TINY but he has a whole man-cave in the basement so I don’t feel too bad. So, I decided this was the last time this bathroom was ever going to be renovated (the house will never be worth enough to update it even more), so I wanted everything as classic as possible. I went with white and black one inch octagonal tiles on the floor (with radiant heat; O.M.G. The best!), white subway tiles on the walls around the claw foot tub/shower and half way up the rest of the walls; grey grout because keeping light grout clean was not on my to-do list; a largish pedestal sink and a new toilet that is a little higher than usual and supposed to be helpful for elderly people but doesn’t feel strange at all. An in-wall, large entirely mirrored medicine cabinet, a pretty grey cabinet with shelves and drawers for towels and toiletries, and a sliding door (to save more space). The walls could handle a pretty dark grey with all the white, and I put up some framed kid’s art and an artful swirl of small round mirrors. Overall, if I do say so myself, it was (is) quite nice! The things I feel best about are the simple, classic choices that really will be timeless.
Stacy
Your bathroom sounds beautiful, Marta. I agree with you about choosing classic and timeless finishes. I am crossing my fingers that radiant heated floors make the cut here. Tomorrow’s high temp will be a whopping one degree. Low temps like that help me plead my case. 🙂
I will look for a toilet like the one you installed in your bathroom. Another big push for us to get a separate shower is that most of our house guests have difficulty getting in and out of the tub/shower combo. A slightly taller toilet might benefit them too.
Vanessa
I get to vote? Yay!
I would go with classic and vintage, nothing “industrial” just simple and throwback, as cleanable as possible and up to code. By all means add the radiant floor heating unit when you do the floor, it doesn’t have to be the entire floor but in front of the toilet and near the sick will make your lives so much better. We still miss that from two houses ago.
Good luck Stacy and Andy, you always do a great job.
Stacy
It’s funny that you mention choosing finishes that are easy to clean. I’m a practical gal. If we cannot clean it easily, it does not belong in our house. 🙂
Nancy
We still have our original 1964 bathroom. It’s a love/hate affair that we’ve dreamed about redoing for as long as we’ve been here, and I’ve done enough research to write a book. It’s going to be fun to watch you transform your bath, and I know you’ll do a wonderful job.
My advice to you would be to think seriously about how much time your choices will take to clean or maintain by you or others in your family. Pet and human hair, tissue fluff, soap talc dust, dust bunnies, humid environment and plain everyday use can turn a lovely bathroom into a drudge of constant irritation if you’re bothered by those things. I can live w/ a lot of disarray in my home, but some of the bathrooms I’ve seen or used make me stressed just thinking about the upkeep. Ha!
So for me: no open vanity or wall shelves, no white grout on the floor, no fabric or clear glass light shades, no non-washable window treatments. I do want a heated floor, good lighting, good ventilation, an adequate mirror, a closed linen closet, a skirted toilet, and easy to wipe down faucets. I also want a shower where I can easily reach in and turn on and adjust the water before stepping in. Make sure you allow for storage of all shower products used by your family either by built in niches or shelving.
Will there be any concerns w/ the added weight of a tiled floor and shower?
Have fun!
Stacy
Nancy, you are singing my song. One of my main priorities is upkeep. My kids have daily chores, and I have never liked housework enough to become a slave to it. If I could afford someone to clean this house, I would be all over that. That said, I like a neat and clean house, and keeping it simple makes that achievable.
You have brought up a lot of points to consider. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I had not thought about how miserable it is to step into a shower and get blasted by cold water. I also did not consider the weight of the tile, but I suspect that will not be a problem. I will be sure to talk to the plumbing contractor about it, though.
kati
I love the shower concept, it is gonna be so good!
I have a thing about blocked empty corners like the one between toilet and sink. It just feels as forgoten space that can’t really be used for anything. If you are going to do a full scale renovation it would be good to move sink and toilet on the same wall and then have space for a big closet. I’m not sure if this is even possibility but I feel it would look (and function) really nice.
Stacy
Thank you, Kati. I am going to talk to the plumber. I have a feeling that the toilet will need to stay where it is because it may be too expensive to move it. There is a closet behind that toilet wall. If we could access it from the bathroom, it would solve all of our storage problems. I posted a little video on IG stories. It will be up for a few more hours, or I may put it in the highlights.
Kelly
Any updates on the podcast? I have been looking forward to it.
Kelly
I meant to add that I signed up for it but haven’t received any emails. Just wondering if my sign-up didn’t go through.
Stacy
I sent out an update today. Check your inbox, and thank you for the little nudge! 🙂
Kelly
I didn’t get it so I may not have signed up. Off to do it now. (I did check my Spam – didn’t see anything). I also didn’t get notified that you replied to my comment above. I used to get those. Probably something going wrong on my end.
Stacy
I wish I had a proper answer for you about notifications. I am not sure that it is something on your end. There are some mysteries with WordPress that I cannot always figure out right away. I did take a peek at the subscriber list for the podcast newsletter. Assuming your email is the same as the one you use to comment here, it’s not on the list. Let me know if you have any problems subscribing, and I will see if I can help. The mail service I use for the newsletter is separate from the blog and troubleshooting is more straightforward.
Kelly
I was just coming back to tell you that it worked this time. I just found a subscription confirmation email in my spam and confirmed that I’m human, lol. Sorry for all the confusion.
Stacy
Excellent! I am happy you found it. If the subscription confirmation does not prompt the newsletter that I just sent, let me know. Perhaps I can send it to you individually through the service.
Chad
A few comments up someone talked about a tiny rowhouse bathroom. I met a guy who had one that was only 5×5 and he said he had to put one foot in the bathtub when he was on the toilet. He turned it into a wet bath, meaning there is a shower pan under the whole bathroom and the walls are tiled all the way up in the whole room.
Vaguely related to that, what do you mean by a walk in shower? Having no curtain or glass I think would require something much bigger than 3×4, and did you say you have 6 people sharing one bathroom? I think I’d want the shower enclosed in something opaque in that case. I like the glass panel with the muntins in the one photo. It looks like a prewar steel casement window. That could be a cool look, but it could also be expensive. If you did something like that and it went way out of style in 20 years someone could always just replace the shower glass. You could just get a typical modern style glass shower enclosure. But I’d probably get sandblasted or acid etched privacy glass in that case. That would also hide hard water spots, although I think my dad got those off with vinegar. Or maybe get clear glass with a film on it if you think you’ll ever want to pull it off if you add another bathroom and/or stay in the house after your kids move out. And I would go for a frameless one with thick, heavy glass. My mom got the cheapest shower doors available and loathes them. Either of those looks is a little modern in contrast with your old fashioned tub, sink, and wainscoting, but it won’t look too out of place either. And I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a stall shower that is period correct to match the rest of the bathroom if you tried. I like my shower curtain better / hate it less than the cheap sliding doors that jump off the track all the time on my parents’ bathtub, but I wouldn’t do it on a stall shower. We had that at the old house and if I remember right, it blew around and water would get out a little.
As for my bathroom, my biggest regret is that I left the heart pine flooring in place when the house was gutted. Hardibacker is only to be installed on a plywood subfloor, so I mounted plywood onto it and Hardibacker on that and wound up with a little bit of a tripping hazard on the way into the room. Also what I pulled out of the back bedroom came up short when I wanted to put it back down (there was a big hole under where the bathtub used to be, which is now in that room and water damage beyond that) so I would have saved about $150 for a better outcome if I had done this.
Also, it bothered me that at a little over 8×8 minus the adjacent closet, my bathroom has more “extra” space than any other room in the house and it’s where I think it’s the least useful. But anything I could have done to steal more of the bathroom for the front bedroom would have made the rest of the second floor wonky and put the window in the tub enclosure instead of at the opposite end of the room where it belongs.
I have plumbing roughed in for a second sink because I have barely enough room for that and that’s more in line with what I think my house should have. Some people told me that the second sink would be indispensable, others said it would be useless. I’m now seeing someone (!!!) and found that it would be at least somewhat useful for me. And hopefully it would be some kind of mitigation for the fact that there’s no powder room. (People told me I had to add one but I was unwilling to mess up the living room to do it.)
Stacy
Important things first: seeing someone (!!!) 😀
You raise some excellent points about the size of the proposed shower and clear glass. Even though there are six of us, we do not use the bathroom at the same time. However, a little privacy would save a bundle of embarrassment if one of us accidentally walked in on an occupant. (teenagers!) One thing I do know is that we will not have a slider with a track ever.
I’m almost 95% positive that we will be removing the original pine floors and putting tile down instead. It makes the most sense for our project goals and outcome.
Chad
Oh yeah, you said you’re not going to paint the beadboard but it looks like it’s already painted. Is that an illusion in your picture, or is the old paint a good kind of shabby, or what?
Stacy
It’s not an illusion, but it doesn’t seem to be painted, either. There is some sort of coating on it. It looks like very thin paint, but it’s not all over and not in the crevices. I surmise that it might be an adhesive residue of some kind. I haven’t tested it for lead or attempted to remove it yet.
Chad
Confession: I bought a lead test kit in 2013 and just found it and put it in my “return to Home Depot” pile
Stacy
😀 FWIW, I assume there’s lead when I work on doors and trim. I only test if I have no idea.
Chad
Yeah, even the varnish probably has lead in it.