Bathroom remodeling project is done now and I’m pretty happy with the results. It used to suffer from a case of the 1980s remodel, with brass fixtures, an off pink vanity with a shell sink bowl, and excessive use of mirrors. I did all of the remodeling work myself and basically replaced everything except the tub, toilet and tiles. My goal was to use as many off the shelf, in stock modern design decor from the big box stores as possible, and reuse old stuff where ever I could to keep down costs. Also, the bathroom is small so we needed as much storage as possible, but not in a way that made you feel cramped or like you were in a warehouse. Energy efficiency was absolutely required for the light fixtures and exhaust fan, all of which were energy star models.
Two of the walls were completely covered with four foot tall mirrors that that ran from one end of the bathroom to the other. Yuck! After I pulled those mirrors down I discovered that they not only glued them directly to a crappy wall paper job underneath, there were two very illegal, very out of code electrical junctions just stuffed into the wall, without a proper junction box! Can you say fire? Thank God nothing bad ever happened. I rewired everything, made drywall patches from scrap drywall pieces, and did the best I could to repair the wall board before I painted.
Here are some after pictures. It was hard to get good camera angles for some parts of the room, so these two photos are the best of the bunch.
I got the vanity top from the Habitat for Humanity Reuse Center for $26, which I thought was a steal. The quality of the marble was much better than the in stock vanity tops they had at Lowes/Home Depot. The medicine cabinet provides both a mirror and a place to store things, plus I really liked the way the different sized doors look up on the wall. I splurged on the faucet and special ordered a Michael Graves faucet from Delta, since I couldn’t find any that I really liked in the store. The print was ordered from the ModernArtEveryday store on Etsy.
I got the shelves for $2.50 each from the clearance table at Lowes. They were made for CD storage but they were perfect for this room–low cost, already stained the right color, and “open” feeling to keep the room from feeling cramped. The curved shower rod creates 6″ of extra room in the tub, which makes it a lot harder for the shower curtain to smother anyone taking shower.
