apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I would put plaster on the walls to make them smooth and then just paint. The white fixtures should do for now. Before you plaster the walls, you need to remove the toilet tank, so you get behind it.

gosh, it really does look like a gas station... maybe you should play that up? friend of mine acidentally painted a powder room too bright of a yellow. When you opened the door it was like BAM!!!! they kept the mistake and we all just laughed at how wriong thier color choice was whenever using that loo... so what I am trying to say is that your bathroom is so bad it makes me smile, just like my friend's yellow did.

i think it looks fine...but what detracts the most are: 1. the shelf, and what's on it. 2. the small mirror that dwarfs the space even further. 3. the lack of window treatments.

i'd hang a biiiiigggg mirror where the teeny one currently is. black or white thick frame.

i'd run a lonnnnngggg glass shelf where the teeny one currently is. you can prop a photo, put towels, make it cute, etc.

then i'd spiff up the window with blinds or a valance or something like that. something colorful on the tank or sink would be nice (flowers, glass object, etc)

put a basket under the sink for bottles of cleaner you need in there.

i have a .5 bathroom too and i have no idea what to do with it. we never use it. i'd prefer using it as storage than a watercloset. i don't need a closet strictly for water. ;)

good luck!

either i like gas station bathrooms (er, no) or i don't have issues with concrete walls. i say play up the concrete with black, white, and gray stuff.

I think its darling! I would paint the walls a nice pear color OR a plummy-medium-gray. If you can find many small-ish mirrors to add to the wall, it would make it seem bigger (or any art with simple but similar frames). I would also take down the existing shelf and add two new ones, similar in size to what you have currently, with some nice small potted plants on the top shelf.

Renee

I'd play up the cinder blocks. Paint them out to resemble giant subway tiles, white with pale grey grout. Black and white accessories...

I would remove the little shelf over the toilet, put up a nice mirror over the sink, install a toilet paper holder on the wall facing the door, install a towel ring or bar next to the sink on the right, and stash the toilet cleaner and other stuff in a covered container on the floor. Then I would hang a fairly large piece of artwork on the wall facing the door.

Leave the walls. Take down what's on them like kd said. Put up a real mirror over the sink and some modern chrome/glass/stainless accessories (shelf, towel bars, etc.) and you have industrial-chic. It even looks like you have room for a small, shallow wall cabinet or two. Suddenly the cmu block walls are an asset! A fluffy rug and towels will warm it up.

Hang curtains floor to ceiling across the largest wall. You need softness desperately. Also, put down cork flooring. The sink is restaurant/gas station style. Maybe a skirt? Replace that first when the time comes.

Like kd said, my first thought was to get rid of that tiny mirror. Ditto putting a large mirror on that wall, only because it appears there is no space to place a mirror above the sink at head height because of the window?

I'd also remove the little shelf above the toilet and replace it with a nice chrome towel bar for hand towels, preferably white.

Above the sink, it might be a good idea to place a shelf, at mid point between sink and window, so you can display a pretty bottle of hand lotion or a votive candle, and a small potted plant or flower bloom.

hang a condom machine on the wall!

I'd make it super clean. All white, get rid of everything on the walls, old hardward, choose a tasteful print or mirror only. Personally, I like old wall hung sinks. As long as everything is spotless and smells good, it won't look like a gas station at all. Besides, if it is off the laundry room, it probably won't get much use, maybe a quick one or some hand washing. But, come to think of it. Decent looking toilets and vanities are not that expensive. Paint costs $20 bucks a gallon. See how much you can do for $300 even. I bet you'll be shocked.

Thanks folks. I was angling industrial, but saw this big fancy mirror- over the top really for my usual tastes, and then wanting that threw me off.
Love the idea of cork flooring
Thought playing up gas station was to precious- crossed my mind though
Like plum-grey paint. Maybe that with white fluffy towels.
It is as the previous owner left it, minus cleaning supplies (and minus mold and mildew). Weird seeing my place on AT...gotta do this again.

Ellen

I agree with a lot of the above--get rid of the shelf and mirror, paint it a steely grey (note, you need a really nubby roller to get into all those crevices, and it takes some work to cover it up) and get a sleek stainless-bordered mirror for over the sink. If you want to soften it a bit, hang some gauzy white cotton or linen on the windows. Stick some flowers on the toilet tank for a pop of color...

Can you use chalkboard paint in bathrooms? I might do that and then draw in either a gas station motif (the mind reels) or go the other way and draw in super frilly Louis XIV looking frames, etc.

Is it really dark in there tho? it's hard to see in this picture.

But really: Are you going to use this bathroom at all? Next to a laundry room? If you're not, I'd not waste my time and I'd rip it out and put in something else. Like a dog bath. Now that's a theme you could run with.

Alternate painting the bands of cinder block in either two colors (cream and sea-glass green; chocolate and steel gray; cream and dove gray; sea glass and lavender, etc.), or a tone-on-tone of the same color, to make it look like horizontal stripes.

If the window molding color is not the same bright white as the porcelain, I'd make that change, too.

Skirt the sink (velcro on the inside lip of the sink), and I'm onboard with all the other posters who said change out the wall items.

Id plaster over the walls.

Graffitti, a paper towel dispenser, and a condom machine

Thanks. It'll be rip out in a few years, but it's handy now. Maybe in month or so I'll submit a before/after shot.

Very funny imagining this to be a gas station bathroom. Play up this theme and make your guests laugh, but keep it spotless !

This looks like so much fun to play with. I'm kinda jealous. I'd totally splurge on a hand dryer - one of those new super-powerful ones that makes your skin look all weird when you use it...

Since it's a half bath, probably only used infrequently, have fun with it in a way that you normally wouldn't. Especially if you plan, down the road, to really redo it. Use the cinder blocks as a built in graph when/if you paint and do bold stripes or oblong checkerboards in loud or unusual colors. Inexpensive but sturdy linoleum tiles/carpet tiles for the floor, maybe some prints/paintings you love but wouldn't know where else in the house to put them. You could think of it as your testing ground for ideas you've always wanted to try but never had the nerve to do elsewhere.

Well, just to prove everyone sees things differently, my instantaneous reaction was TNT! Wow. In a saner mood--and having read other, creative comments, I thought of this (now hear me through, please!):

When I lived in Japan, the bathrooms I saw broke the mold of what I thought of as bathrooms, One thing they did in even the smallest spaces was to partition off the toilets. It truly and oddly doesn't make the bathroom look smaller, because it makes it look uncluttered. You could add a [thin] partition that went from floor up to the bottom of the window in any one of a million creative materials. Then you'd have a nice, clean wall to the left of the sink. (Not to mention that if someone barges in when you're on the loo, they can't see you. . . .)

My mind runs to a partition of corrugated aluminum or steel, But that's my mind: I'm sure other ATers will have other ideas.

i'd add some softer lighting. a pendant lamp, maybe.