apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Yes, EMBRACE IT! In the most cases the look is classic, beautiful and embedded with history and personality!

Before moving into my current apartment (but after viewing it) the whole thing was re-modeled. This included removing the black and off white checker bathroom tile floor and claw foot tub and pedestal sink! Now i'm left with a starkly white bathroom and no tub..! I would do anything to have it back the way it was!

Furthermore they removed the 100 year old original interior doors and replaced them with paper-light modern doors made to replicate the look of turn-of-the-century doors!

i could cry

So funny, I have this photo in my inspiration folder and was just looking at it earlier today as we are moving in 2 weeks into an older building with a charming bathroom. It's not NEARLY as stunning as the one above, but this pic inspires me to take what is good (the original black and white tiles) and run with it.

Finally at little respect for the vintage! All I want in life is to find an old unrenovated place that I could buy and keep as is, if not restored a bit (not reDONE, but reSTORE). Please people, stop with the demo! :)

While I think some vintage bathrooms are worth saving...all of them aren't! I have a rental bathroom that is smurf blue and falling apart due to poor maintenance and cheap materials. I'll have to get it photo-ready and post next week!

Vintage does need more respect. I was watching some HGTV show last night and this couple bought a beautiful house in Beverly Hills with a super cute vintage kitchen - maybe 1930's - and they gutted it and turned into a totally innappropriate "chefs" kitchen. Granite countertops, recessed lighting, etc. and even got RID of a window so there would be more cabinets!!! It was horrible. I understand there needs to be some updating - like with appliances but why do people buy older unique homes and then make the inside look like some Home Depot special??

I can't abide pink porcelain. I imagine I could work with just about any other color, but not pink. (However, there's another thread going right now about how old toilets are water guzzlers... might want to consider that too...)

Our bathroom was remodeled in the 1970s with smoked mirror tiles and a acrylic bathtub and surround and a dropped acoustical tile ceiling. yuck. We put in a cast iron tub, subway tiles, a pedestal sink and built in medicine cabinet. We have linoleum on the floor, but it does not like the water so much so we are going to put in hexagonal tiles. Even unfinished (we need doors for the doors for the closet) it looks a thousand times better than the horror that was there previously.

Amen to Nikita's comments. I was trying to put my finger on what I don't like about so many of the remodelled homes/apts I've seen. "Home Depot Special" is exactly the term I've been searching for.

My bathroom is a fugly beige color and has a horrible, textured sliding glass door.

I covered the walls almost completely in family photos, art and objects (my grandfather's prep school diploma and the boater he wore to graduation, for instance - we went to the same school, so I inherited them), hung a white cotton shower curtain, and got some navy blue towels.

You can almost forget that it's the beigest room ever. Now it's more like the preppiest room ever. ;-)

fugly. lol

I have been looking everywhere for a little white shelf like the one in the bathroom--anyone know where it is from? or one similar? Thanks!

I'm moving into a house with a tiny white bathroom that has *pink* tiles! Hot pink! And you know what? I couldn't be happier :)

I would *love* a vintage bathroom. The bath in my prewar apartment has suffered at least two tragic "updates," each with cheaper materials. If I had my druthers, I'd restore it to a 1930 deco dream in a minute.