Bathrooms

For most people, the bathroom is where they start their day.  It where they spend a few minutes preparing to face the world and later escape from it, right?  It’s an area of the home where a little luxury goes a long way- perhaps an extra-deep soaking tub, or a vanity with room for all your personal items.  I’d like to highlight a few bathrooms I’ve remodeled here and see if it might give you some ideas as you consider yours.

DRASTIC CHANGES

Some bathrooms just need some fixtures replaced, but this one (right) like many I see, need deep down rejuvenation!  This bathroom was gutted and received new plumbing lines, electrical, tile, tub & fixtures.  It turned out great, hardly resembling it’s former years. 

It’s always interesting to deal with having a window in the shower like this one does.  I actually cut an acrylic surround to fit around this window.  The homeowner will be adding some kind of curtain to cover the window and keep water away.  You can read other solutions to this problem here. 

This beautiful new bathroom with marble floors wasn’t even here when I started.  There was a small laundry closet as part of a ‘sunken’ den where I was asked to add a new bath.  The new bathwould actually be raised to match the height of the rest of the home but this would add three steps down into a new smaller version of the den.  I did all the framing, drywall, tile and trim work, while other contractors handled the plumbing and electrical portions.  

One of my favorite things about a project is figuring out how everything will go together and the process for doing so.  For this project I started by sketching out a simple drawing to help picture how things would lay out, and make sure I was on the same page with the homeowner and what they wanted.  You can see below where I had started framing the bathroom floor, raised around 18″ off the cement slab in the old den.

 

Here’s another bathroom (left) that is completely new, though it may look older.  When I started it contained a small shower stall that hadn’t been used in years.  I removed all of that and an adjacent closet to make room for a tub/shower combo. 

My two favorite parts of a bathroom renovation are the tile and trim.  I’d say that these are the elements that give the bathroom its character.  This particular bath is full of it- classic white subway tile surround, 1″ unglazed hex floor tiles, beadboard wainscoting, pedestal sink and more. 

There was a small space behind the door that was a bit awkward where I thought a small cabinet might fit- perfect for storage and keeping personal items hidden and out of the way.  Having walls on either side, the cabinet is really just a face frame that I built with doors to access the shelves inside.  I also added an outlet above, perfect for charging razors and other similar gadgets.

I guess you can tell from several of the photos that the beadboard wainscoting is a popular item these days.  Using real, old fashioned beadboard can be expensive, both for time and materials because each board is installed individually.  I’ll agree it looks better and more authentic, but for most bathrooms, a material called “ply-bead” just fits the bill.  It looks like beadboard, but it comes on a 4×8 sheet and installed like a plywood paneling.  You can cut it to size and the joints overlap to hide the seams.

Here’s another bathroom (left) that was renovated to the studs.  In a smaller bathroom, it doesn’t take much tile or trim to make a big impact.  This is one of the nicer tub surrounds that I’ve found.  Of course, I prefer tile, but installing a tile surround is more expensive because of the labor involved.

There are many different ways to use trim in a bathroom.  This sink picture (left) shows a simple piece of panel trim around the top of the beadboard.  This finishes the edge nicely, but often I’ll use a couple pieces of stock to build a small shelf there that will go all the way around the room.  You can see that in some of the pictures above.  It’s not a deep shelf, but just large enough for photos, knick-knacks or even some personal items.

NOT-SO DRASTIC

Perhaps you’d prefer to not completely remodel your bathroom, but simply do some upgrades to make your life easier.  Of course, tiling the floor or walls could make a dramatic change.  (See this project gallery.)  Or, you may want to change from a pedestal sink to a double vanity as these clients did in the photos below. 

Adding a vanity, especially a double vanity can improve the storage available in your bathroom as well as how many people can use the sinks at once.  When working on this particular bathroom I also added the mirrors and installed more lighting and a bath fan.  The sun is shining bright in that ‘before’ picture, but it was actually a fairly dark bathroom before those lights were added.  Even adding one light fixture to a darker space will make an amazing difference in how the entire room looks and feels.  It may even make you less grumpy in the mornings!  (Okay, maybe not…)

You can tell that I enjoy working on bathroom projects helping clients get the most use and enjoyment out of this small room that’s one of the busiest places in the house.