Before we moved into our new (old) house we had to deal with the bathroom. There were two bathrooms but one was an ensuite to the basement “Master Bedroom” that the previous owners had made by combining the two basement bedrooms together. I believe that this layout is one of the top reasons that they struggled to sell the house for so long. Either way, we had two bathrooms but one was inside our nanny’s room which made it less useful to us. The main bathroom, upstairs, was turquoise. Bright turquoise. With a purple bathtub. And a large window in the bathtub. That was covered by a second shower curtain. Take a moment and picture a shower curtain on either side of your purple bathtub. And try to breathe.
For this reason, I NEEDED to renovate this bathroom before we lived in the house and needed to use it! I looked at having the bathtub re-glazed but all of the plumbing was leaking in the wall (40 year old plumbing doesn’t always have a great seal anymore… and sometimes isn’t even attached together) and my husband “accidentally” destroyed the purple bathtub during some of the wall demolition.
So a new bathtub was needed as well as tile, vanity and sink, flooring and toilet. And a new, smaller window to still let light in and humidity out; but one that would not require a shower curtain to protect it!
I pinned a schwack of inspiration photos for my bathroom but most of the links are now broken…. this was my floor inspiration:
Our new window is 2’ wide and only 1’ tall. It is high enough to avoid most water but to be sure, we tiled the entire area around the tub and the window sill with a matte white subway tile and grey grout. This tile was continued around the entire bathroom. This tile was a great find from private sale on a local website; I was able to buy over 500 sq ft for $1.30 sq ft.
The vanity that was in the bathroom was 50” long. We didn’t need that large of a vanity and I wanted to save some money in that area. I found this vanity from Home Depot for a reasonable price and I like the offset sink as it give me space to plop a dirty child down for a face cleaning.
The extra space allowed us to move the toilet over when I found my amazing, oval shaped bathtub on clearance from Home Depot for $200! This tub is great for bathing kids! My sister in law then spotting the curved shower curtain rod on clearance at Canadian Tire for $20. All these finds helped pay for our plumber… who chipped my new tub and drilled a hole in our air conditioner, he denied everything and we were forced to live with a new, chipped tub and replace our central air conditioning unit.
I fell in love with this hexagon tile at a local flooring store. On clearance. $80 for all of it. I wanted a border but couldn’t find the right thickness of tile. The one I used was from a sheet of mixed coloured backsplash type tile and I peeled off the ones I wanted. This floor was tough. Cutting the wee little hexagons was awful. And we had no air conditioning. It was 35+ degrees Celsius outside. Substantially hotter in this bathroom. My grout dried instantly and I had to scrape it all off. It took 3 days. And then I paid someone to grout for me.
To cover up the ugly popcorn textured ceiling I found pine tongue and groove from a private seller and white washed it for a soft, beachy look. This is one of my favourite details and it duplicated throughout the house.
I fell for the light fixture quickly. It was from a local lighting store and is not on my “deals” list. At $170 it wasn’t outrageously priced either and I love its classic vintage school house styling. I found the artwork at Homesense and loved the colours and simplicity for this bathroom. The shower curtain then came from Target. And then the paint colour is Behr from Home Depot. I love the colour scheme in this room. Everything is a bit classic, but bright, fresh, and fun. The look could easily be changed with a different paint colour and accessories.
After a couple of weeks our bathroom was done and we could move in… but we didn’t’ have a door and it was a strange size. I wanted something unique and possibly re-claimed but my search of salvage stores came up empty. The door style I wanted everywhere else in the house wasn’t available in this size either so I went with a windowed French style door painted white and used a Martha Stewart glass etching paint to give privacy while still allowing the light in. It worked quite well and I am happy with the end product.
inspiredboredom 