A “Dark and Oddly Shaped” Bathroom’s $600 Redo Makes the Most of 50 Square Feet
Small bathrooms are difficult to design, and they can be equally as difficult to renovate because there’s not a ton of room to lay out materials and move things around.
In Cat Vidal’s 50-square-foot bathroom, that was definitely the case, but she pulled off giving the “dark oddly-shaped space” a transformation with stunning tile and a more contemporary aesthetic. Before, “the space felt very uncomfortable and closed-in,” Cat says. Here’s how she made the most of the square footage.
A slim vanity works well in the small space.
Before, “the vanity was chunky, cumbersome, and was too large for the space it was in,” Cat describes. She installed a slimmer vanity with a more modern silhouette and also replaced the sink plumbing because the old plumbing was leaking.
She also installed new shimmery tile behind the vanity. Cleaning the grout was messy and a bit of a challenge because of the small space, Cat says.
The walls and floors got an upgrade.
On the floors, Cat removed the old tile — which, in combo with the blue walls, made the bathroom feel “cold,” — she says, and added a vinyl flooring option from The Home Depot. Laying vinyl sheet flooring was a DIY “first” for Cat, and one of the hardest parts was installing it around the outline of the toilet.
One of Cat’s favorite parts of the new flooring is how much easier it is to clean. “Grooming my dog makes a big mess that [was] difficult to clean up in that tight space with the old tile,” she says.
In addition, Cat painted the blue walls tan-meets-mauve, Benjamin Moore’s Cinnamon Slate (the brand’s 2025 color of the year!).
New furnishings make the bathroom feel more modern.
She also replaced the mirror, the vanity light, the shower curtain, and covered the storage area near the toilet with a roller shade.
“I love that I don’t have to see my shelves filled with things,” Cat says. “It took me almost three years to come up with a way to close it off because the toilet was catty-cornered. I tried building a folding door, modifying old Victorian shutters, et cetera, so I can actually use it for storage without having to look at everything on the shelves.”
The new bathroom is brighter, more functional, and more stylish. “It feels calm and inviting,” Cat says.
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