This “Beige and Boring” Bathroom Got an “Art Deco Retro” Makeover
Homeowner and DIYer Patsy Daley’s (@patsyplayshouse) design style is maximalist, retro, and partial to pink. (See her staircase makeover and curb appeal project to prove it.) She also gave her bathroom — once “beige and boring” and “sad,” as she recalls — a makeover that’s a little bit retro, a little bit whimsical, and, of course, a little bit pink. She describes the “after” as “Art Deco retro.”
Patsy and her husband started with a 12-year-old tan bathroom when they moved in a year ago. “We started with demolition,” Patsy says. “This is where our amazing grandson helped immensely. Between the three of us, it divided the workload immensely.”
Patsy’s husband is a professional builder, so the trio reworked the bathroom with new pink and white tile plus separate zones for the shower, toilet, and vanity.
The “quirky tile choices are perfection,” the homeowner says.
The bathroom “after” is “brighter and bold,” Patsy says. “It appears a lot larger, totally losing its dinginess from before. I’m so happy I never wavered from having the color and elements I wanted.” Patsy’s favorite part is the new tile, but installation was also one of the hardest parts of the redo.
“We ran out of wall tiles and had to improvise when we couldn’t source the same ones,” she recalls. “We were one tile short also in the floor tiles so had to reorder a whole box.” (The floor tile is from Coco Tile and Mosaics.)
The shower is great for aging in place.
To mimic the curve of the oval-shaped tile, Patsy and her husband added a rounded shower glass, eliminated the tub, and instead created a walk-in shower.
“We also have a built-in shower seat for when we age,” Patsy says, adding “I love the separation of areas from each other … giving added privacy, especially with the toilet at the end.”
The vanity adds retro vibes.
As mentioned before, the bathroom is divided into distinct zones, and in the vanity area, there’s a DIY project worth noting. “I wanted a funky quirky bathroom vanity, and our choices here in Australia are limited when it comes to that,” Patsy says.
She bought a metal cabinet locker, her husband built a base and added hairpin legs (painted pink) to it, plumbed in a sink, and voilà! The pair has a one-of-a-kind vanity. “She’s without a doubt ‘our hero piece’ … the first ‘piece’ that you focus on when you spy our en suite,” Patsy says.
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