Reader Christina follows up with some stunning results from her bathroom renovation! Hi Apartment Therapy, Our bathroom remodel is done, and we wanted to share the results! Because I was eight months pregnant when we started this project, we decided to hire a contractor to do all of the work. We did the job for 6k, and half of that cost was labor. You can really save a lot when you source everything online!
We ended up going with a different floor tile (when we went to pick up the tile we’d originally planned to use, we saw this one and instantly changed our minds). The best part about the tile? It’s pigmented throughout the top ¼ inch, so chips won’t show.
The floating vanity and shelves above the toilet provide more than enough storage for us, and the space under the vanity will give us a perfect place to store a bucket of bath toys and a step stool further down the road, when our daughter is old enough to use them. In the meantime, it really visually opens up the room, as you can see the whole floor now.
Removing the old glass shower doors both opens up the space and will make it easier to grab slippery toddlers out of the tub later on, and adding the curved shower rod makes for a much roomier shower experience (not to mention looking a whole lot better).
The biggest impact, though, probably comes from the lighting. In the old bathroom, the only light came from a six-light “beauty bar” (which made everyone look like Frankenstein). In the new bathroom, face-height sconce lighting provides a much more flattering effect, while two can lights in the ceiling and a fan/light combo in the shower cast a nice ambient glow through the room, giving it a much more upscale feel.
Thanks again to the “hive mind” for all its help! Chris
The AT office is a-buzz over your stunning floor tiles! You've really opened up the space and made a huge improvement - congratulations!
See the original post: :Good Questions: Bathroom Remodeling Advice?
Originally posted on 3-10-2009 - AA
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Comments (59)
love love love the flooring!
Gorgeous!
Just love the encaustic tile!
Great job and what a difference! I love the floor tile. Who makes it?
Whoa - I love it. Those tiles (floor and subway) are killer. Well done.
It looks spectacular. I love the tile even more than I did the other, which I liked. I would love to see a little more green in the room, like maybe a shower curtain or towel or something(although I love that one. Or maybe a real plant!
Anyway... congratulations on such a beautiful result and an affordable price; it's so much easier to live with something that has both of those qualities, isn't it?
Those tiles look great opposed to the minimal style of everything else!
Beautiful tiles! I really like the white shower curtain and big fluffy white towels too - with the detailed floor I think they are just right.
Well done!
Is that cement tile? They look similar to the tiles I saw in the place I was staying at in Mexico.
Please! Tell me where you got your vanity! Pretty please?
Looks really great. Really pretty, but not too stark or austere. Would love it if you would share links to your sources for the vanity, sconces, tiles...basically any links you have! It's amazing how much personality the floor adds to the space, nice choice.
Really well done. It looks great. My only concern is the floor tile (which I LOVE). It is so distinctive that it will probably seem rather dated before the rest of the bathroom is. It already has a very 1970's flavor, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Oh well, I guess that's a problem for the next owners!
OMG, your 'before' looks like my bathroom's twin. Nice to see the "after" for inspiration (and motivation to save up some $$$ to get it remodeled!).
Congratulations on your beautiful new space.
Great job Christina! Love it!
Very pretty! May I ask where the sconces are from?
very nice- well done!
Beautiful results!
The tile for the floor: Was it very difficult to cut? Roughly how much was it sq/ft?
That looks so great! You transformed a typical before into a really unique and stylish after!
love it
Thanks everyone! We couldn't be happier with how it turned out. We know that the flooring is a very unique choice, but before we did the renovation, we sat down and talked about it and decided we would probably live in this house for the rest of our lives, so to hell with neutral resaleability! That really made this a lot more fun.
The flooring comes from Tierra Y Fuego, a company based here in San Diego (though they sell online, too):
www.tierrayfuego.com
They have amazing black and white encaustics, too, if you were going for a more glamorous look!
The vanity is the "Caesar Picasso Teak Vanity" and it came from surplusdecor.com. There's a really nice matching mirror, too (though we decided we'd rather have sconces than the shelved mirror). The sconces are West Elm. :)
Would you be able to give the dimensions of this bathroom? We have a space that looks to be a similar size that we want to convert into a bathroom and I would love to compare.
It looks great--I love the floating vanity!
Thanks so much for posting the after- your original post was really exciting to me, and I've been visualizing the after for weeks!
You've done a beautiful job- I love the sconces you picked and how they mimic the shape and color of the floating vanity. The tile is beautiful, the colors harmonize perfectly, you've got a great blend of textures... congratulations!
Duzer - our bathroom is 5'x9' (well, 4'10"x9', really), so it's about as small as small can be!
Oh, and to the question about flooring, we had our contractor cut the tile - he just used a saw blade made for cutting cement, and didn't seem to have any trouble with it. The floor was pretty expensive - about $9/tile (each tile is 10"x10"), but we saved on the subway tile by buying the $2/sf tile from Lowe's, so it sort of evened out the cost.
Something to keep in mind with this tile is that it has to be sealed BEFORE you grout (that delayed the project a day), or else the grout can haze the tile. It's also REALLY thick, so we used Ditra as subfloor (we have a floating foundation - if you have slab, you could lay the tile right on the floor, i think) to keep the thickness down.
like the new floor and the color you decided on going with. I remember thinking that I didn't know how the floating sink would look in the room, but it looks great. Just wondering, did you end up going all the way to the ceiling with the subway tile? I thought that the person saying that no room is PERFECTLY plumb made a valid point and was just curious.
Beautiful job...not often that bathrooms exhibit such warm and stylish personality, but this "after" certainly does!
WOW. Those tiles are amazing. It is something that I would probably think is tacky when looking at the samples, but they look AMAZING in your bathroom. Excellent job!!
That floor is fantastic! What a beautiful job!
Thanks for the info!
And can't get enough of that floor.
Looks absolutely gorgeous! Beautiful choice of tile.
Those floor tiles aren't to my taste, but they do add a lovely spot of color.
holy cow it looks SO similar to my dream bathroom, especially the vanity!
hi! congratulations on your beautiful bathroom! you must be thrilled!! would you mind sharing the name of your contractor? thanks so much!
I LOVE how your bathroom turned out. I especially love that pale blue paint color on the walls. Would you mind sharing the name of it and who makes it? I've been looking for the perfect shade of pale blue and I think this is it.
Our contractor's name is Victor Gastellum. He's in the San Diego area - if you're in the area, email chrysalis5@yahoo.com and I'll send you his contact info.
The paint is Behr, and the color is "Sage Tint." It looks a little greener than pictured in the morning light (a little more robin's-egg), but in the evening, the color is pretty much exactly what you see there.
re: tiling to the ceiling, we did tile to the ceiling in the bathroom, and the walls aren't perfectly plumb, but they were close enough that the imperfection doesn't show through the running bond (the contractor ran the tile to the corners so that all of the tiles were cut - none were laid along their finished edge, which really helped hide any warp). Seeing the results, though, I wouldn't try this with a grid pattern.
mediocrates,
What are the dimensions of your bathroom? You vanity is beautiful! I'd love to see if it would work in my bathroom.
Wow, that floor is stunning! I'm so glad you updated - I've bookmarked the tile website. Your bathroom looks great. :)
Oh my GOODNESS this is gorgeous and stunning. Wonderful and inspiring! I have a teeny bathroom. Acually much smaller than this. The toilet is across from the sink.
Its really hard to find a teeny vanity to fit the space. We just have a small, vintage sink bolted to the wall. The step stool sits under it, but my little girl bonks her head on it. I want a vanity!
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I am LOVING the floor. That's the first thing that struck me. I love the sink too - unconventional shape. And the width of the mirror makes the bathroom appear a lot bigger than it actually is.
Great job. What a transformation from the original.
ohmygoodness. i was just googling encaustic tile for my bathroom reno, and this is pretty much everything i picked for *my* bathroom, down to the colours! eep! well, it's nice to know that what i had envisioned will actually work out beautifully :)
I. WANT. THAT. TILE.
unbelievable- i've been giving our bathroom serious thought recently, and here's this post with a mirror image of our bathroom, with almost the exact tiles i've been dreaming about! thank you AT for re-posting!
Wow, your floor is drop-dead gorgeous. The funny thing is, from the picture it doesn't look like your old tile was so bad! I probably would have kept it. Great job with subway tile too - that was a great decision. Well done!
I feel I should clarify re: the old floor. When we bought the house, it had individual 12" peel-and-stick vinyl flooring in "pink granite."
The flooring in our "before" is vinyl-by-the-yard from lowe's. :) It was our "until we find the tile we want" fix. :)
Great job! Love the tile!
Beautiful, and yes the tile is gorgeous!! Thanks for sharing! :)
uh why was this post literally reposted im confused?
this is gorgeous!!! all-around a great "after". congrats and thanks for posting all of your sources and tips. definitely a post that I'll be referring to when I get to re-do a bathroom.
http://mylittleapartment.blogspot.com/
I am in the San Diego area and for some reason the name Victor Gastellum is very familiar....
Wonderful floor! I am getting ready to redo my bathroom with the "splurge" item being a Talavera sink.
WOW that's amazing! The floor is great -- it adds warmth and pattern to a modern bathroom. Modern design can sometimes be a little too stark, but here you strike a wonderful balance. I really dig it.
"slippery toddlers" :) that really made me wistful for when my kids were little!
really love the flooring...rather interesting as I would expect most people to uproot the AFTER floor to install the BEFORE.
great choices on the details
Except from the sink and the cabinet under, I think the first one is better. I hate shower curtains. They look dirty even if they are not and not hygienic looking compared to shower cabin. I can never understand the shower curtain love.
Lovely, just lovely. I disagree with the shower curtain comment, I think that shower curtains are great for lots of reasons, such as they help absorb sound. I hate a super echoed bathroom. To each his own. :)
The floor tile is great, looked at the website and saved the link for many many years down the line when I can do a reno like this. Thank you for sharing.
DISCLAIMER: I love this bathroom. With that said, I'm pretty confident saying that these floor tiles will be this generation's version of a 1950's powder pink bathroom. But, again, totally love it.
The shower curtain has got to go.
I just referenced this to find the website where we bought our vanity, and thought I should post an update. So, now that we've been living in the bathroom for a while, I feel like I can more honestly say what a good idea it was.
We definitely use the area under the vanity for toy storage, and it seems like it won't be long before we'll put a stepstool under there for tooth-brushing time. I'm grateful every day that we got rid of those sliding doors. It's hard enough to get our daughter out of the tub when we have full access! I have also been really glad we got a washable curtain; the first year as parents left us a little behind on housework, and it's so much easier to just throw everything in the wash than to make time to get in and scrub.
Thanks again for all the comments, everyone. :)
*facepalm*
Oy. Well, if the comments here regarding the floor tile are any indication of current 'tastes'... then there's absolutely no need to remodel any of the bathrooms or the kitchen in my place that were originally done in the late 70s.
I suppose if one waits long enough, they can save themselves a tremendous amount of money on remodeling since stuff comes back into style again.
I guess its true that even the ugliest fashions always come back in style eventually. Heh. *chuckles and shakes my head*
@Chauca but are your bathroom and kitchen floors tile, or vinyl? I didn't like this at first, but the idea of a really interesting floor when everything else is neutral is growing on me.
I definately wish designers would opt for floating cabinets in family bathrooms. I'm so dang tired of kicking the stepstool in our downstairs bathroom out of the way just to open or close the door. And since the builders made the counters 43" high, we've got probably another year of needing them.
(Yes, they tried to tell me that high counters were the new trend. I didn't beleive it then, and still don't. But my 6'1" husband likes them, and when they visits, my 6'4" and above brothers love them. )
Christina, I love this!! What an improvement! I bet you are overjoyed with the results.
I would like to do the same thing to my bathroom. Could you give me an estimate of how much your remodel cost? My bathroom is a similar layout and a similar size.
The floor's definitely not for everyone, I'll admit, but we love the look of it, and it's really held up to all the abuse our little tiger has thrown at it so far.
@niabassett, it cost around 6k including labor, but we did have to really hunt to save money. If you read the post, you'll see the places where we found our savings. ;)
Hi there, I looked through all your posts and I cannot find what brand your vanity is? Where did you get it? We have a small bathroom too, and got a much larger quote from our contractor! Love what you did with it, and after reading this and expecting in Feb, I think my husband might have won the shower curtain over glass door argument.
Thanks.