The Guest Bath Plan

After about a billion tile samples, I have finally landed on a plan for the guest bath. My contractor is ready to start immediately. Now, I just need to order the tile and start stressing about which shower head and plumbing fixtures to choose. Home renovation is fun! I truly am grateful to be in this privileged position. The timing just feels like a rush since we got our sweet, sweet refi money, and we don’t want to pay a higher mortgage for months before we reap the benefits. Within the next eight weeks, I need to plan two bathrooms, apply for a variance for our new garage (more on that later!), order supplies, get electrical bids, podcast, and prepare and execute a live audience event for True Tales From Old Houses. Unfortunately, I won’t have time to do the One Room Challenge this fall. The bathrooms will have to unfold on their own timelines. We don’t need more stress, even if it leads to something good.

The Shower

First, let me say that the photos in this post are full-on funhouse. I had to use my wide-angle lens to capture enough of the room to illustrate what we were doing. Also, I gave Photoshop twenty minutes of my time (again!) before I said several choice words and abandoned the idea of trying to remove the bathtub digitally and draw in the shower.

Here is the original photo…

…and here is the delightful rendering I created for you. (Click on it to see the full image on your screen.)

The lip of the shower pan will be four inches high. The entire shower is three feet by four feet. The thin gray lines represent glass, and the gray rectangle on the back wall is a niche. The bottom gray area beside the toilet is a half wall. Also, as you can clearly see in this expert rendering, the showerhead has an attached sprayer to make it easier to clean everything. Finally, we’ll add some grab bars in there for the guests that need them. I swear this shower is bigger than it looks in the photo.

Tile

We will be using a 1″ white hex with a split two-hex border in black for the floor. The shower floor will be entirely black.

For the shower walls, I chose large format marble-look ceramic. I haven’t decided which size yet because I need to measure it all out in the bathroom first. It will either be 12X24 or 12X12.

I realize that none of this is super inspired. This guest bath is pure function in neutrals. We’ll be splurging on all the glass and the showerhead, so we need to keep the tile cost low. For me, it’s more about the size of the shower and the shape. This bathroom is not a rectangle since it was likely carved out from a closet.

On the left side, there is actually a window. Here is a photo of it from the BHH way-back machine. (Surprise! It’s green, and that is not real stained glass.)

To put a shower in this bathroom, I will have to make that a fixed window instead of a casement. I might remove it altogether and extend the shower to that wall, but I haven’t decided yet. The benefit of keeping it is that it allows daylight into the back staircase behind it. However, It appears to be an addition at some point, so I’m not attached to its appearance, only its function.

I both invite your feedback and worry about what you’ll say. Ha! No really, please do let me know what you think. We’re shooting for a budget-friendly reno with a few splurges so the garage and our other secret project can be the masterpieces. We’re doing our best.