See How This ’90s All-Wood Bathroom Transforms into a Modern Oasis (It’s Unrecognizable!)
Completely reconfiguring a bathroom to work for your lifestyle is a big effort — especially if you’re not going to work with the same footprint. During a recent full-home renovation, a creative director and her husband, Ken, turned their existing bathroom into a more functional space. And the final result of this transformation is unrecognizable.
“The bathroom was one large square room framed up by birch wood walls,” the homeowner says. Last renovated in the ’90s, the room had wood walls, plywood flooring, a stainless steel sink, and no storage. “Our family needed more privacy in the bathroom, and the stainless steel counter and the sinks were impossible to clean,” she explains.
Create a layout that works for a family.
With only one bathroom in the home, the couple needed to reconfigure the space to work for multiple people. “We put a lot of thought into how to make this space work for us, and came up with the idea of dividing it into two rooms,” the homeowner says. In this $25,000 renovation, one of the rooms is dedicated to the toilet and a double-sink vanity, and the other has a shower and walk-in closet.
The couple decided to paint the ceiling black to make exposed black beams blend in better, and they installed long industrial LED lights to maintain the industrial feel in the original bathroom.
“The bathroom area was really a game of inches for us, because we were really ambitious about how it would be used by a few people at once,” the couple says. Their recessed medicine cabinets ate up six inches of previously free space in the room. To make up for it, they went with a pocket door system that saved a few inches.
The couple also prioritized convenience when making some decisions for the room. A bathroom that’s easy to maintain? A dream. “We went with a floating toilet to make cleaning under it easier,” she says.
A new color palette provides a fresh update.
Tired of the “yellow-orange wood walls and floors” that covered the entire space, the couple landed on a color palette that made the room feel alive. “We wanted to keep the palette neutral and bright,” the homeowner says.
They used white paint on the walls, and a light gray, textured tile flows from the floors to the walls throughout both rooms. “The stone tile [is] also more durable and easier to clean than the wood floors we had previously,” the homeowner says.
The homeowners brought in a little more warmth with wood floors in the walk-in closet. They’re the same as wood floors used throughout the couple’s loft “to help it feel natural and warm.”
Details make all the difference.
The couple added small details throughout the bathroom that took it from good to great. “We love the globe light above the toilet and the way the tile feels on our bare feet,” the homeowner says. “Having all of the lights on dimmers is nice as well — especially in the middle of the night,” she adds.
“We are super happy with the functionality of the space,” she says. “One of us can take a shower, while someone else is brushing their teeth — and both people will get full privacy!”
The space is decked out with everything that works for them: a Sonos speaker in the shower, a broom closet specifically designed for their Dyson vacuum, and a pull-out jewelry drawer. It’s the definition of a custom room.
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