Week One | September 28 | Mid Modern Bathroom
For the Fall 2022 One Room Challenge we are taking our guest bathroom down to the studs and starting over. This project is LONG overdue, and we can’t wait to get started!
Be sure to check in on all of the other ORC projects on the ORC blog here.
Shockingly, it is time for another One Room Challenge, and I’m really excited about this project — largely because this room has been stripped to the studs for months, and it is time to get things put back together again. For this round we are taking on a room which has several functions: our Guest Bathroom. I write “guest” but it’s really much more than that.
Situated downstairs, this bathroom is just off the laundry area next to our guest room and my home studio/office. Not only is this my bathroom during the work day, it’s also where I handwash laundry, soak vintage linens, rinse out paint brushes, and clean up after art projects. It is part-utility room, part-art studio, and also the guest bathroom. Multi-functional — and also really small.
Until recently, it was also one of the ugliest bathrooms on the planet — the victim of several misguided renovations and some serious water damage.
So, let’s look at some before photos…
The bathroom on the day we closed on the house. Cheap finishes and cut corners all around.
Honestly, I hated everything about this bathroom — mostly because there was no committment to a style — or even a color palate. And everything installed was the cheapest of the cheap. Doing something on a budget is fine, but choosing the cheapest materials just to put lipstick on a pig is wasteful. So, redoing this bathroom was always on the list, but ugly and functional placed it LOW on the list — until a few months ago.
I came home one day and heard the sound of running water. I went downstairs to investigate and found water pouring through the ceiling from the upstairs bathroom into the downstairs bathroom. And it had been flooding for HOURS. It wasn’t just water — it was waste water. It had saturated the floor, filled the light fixture, wicked into the walls, and crept into the fiberboard of the vanity.
So the entire bathroom had to be gutted.
After being stripped to the studs, now there is promise — and a potty in the bathtub!
Frankly, I’m thankful that the flooding wasn’t worse, and I am glad to find the silver lining in the deluge.
Notice something in that photo? The bathtub is partly green! That’s one of the “delights” of this house — original tubs. Sadly, the people we bought the home from had both bathtubs professionally refinished before putting the house on the market. They are both original tubs from the 1950s. But the refinishers did a terrible job. I have had the upstairs tub redone TWICE under warranty, but the finish started to chip off within months. It looks terrible again, too. It took longer for the downstairs tub to chip away, but it has — right to the water line for a bath.
Now I LOVE a vintage celadon green bathtub! They are so beautiful, and this is the only original bath fixture left in the house. But one of my projects for the ORC will be to attempt to strip the chipping finish off this tub and restore it somehow. Stay tuned. This isn’t something for which there is a manual!
But it’s that beautiful green tub that inspired the entire look for this bathroom. I’ve been able to see it in my head for years now — a nod to 1950s beachy-glam with just a few flamingos thrown in for some pizzazz.
Flamingo Fun & Functionality
There are millions of homes with this kind of bathroom: not luxurious or palatial, but functional. So many of the featured projects on Instagram and Pinterest are aspirational — projects which require such a large budget and square footage that they can be discouraging. This will be a beautiful, functional bathroom that feel luxurious with a nod to the home’s origins while also being within reach. We will do it all on a budget.
We will be doing some of the work and hiring contractors for some of the work, too. We are both so busy right now, this room would never get done without help. Plus: we want licensed pros doing the plumbing and electrical work.
Our vision: a clean and fresh bathroom with a nod to its MCM roots. Beautiful tile, DIY cabinetry (my husband's passion project), and stunning fixtures.
Inspiration board for our Mid Modern Guest Bathroom
Bathroom Inspiration
I’ve been collecting all kinds of inspiring ideas for this bathroom for years, and here are a few of my favorites from Instagram which will give you some ideas about where we are headed.
I have also been collecting ideas and inspiration on Pinterest where I have several boards devoted to bathrooms. I especially love the wallpaper ideas, and I’m excited to make decisions about that, too!
So thanks once again for following along on our renovation. I’m excited to see where this project takes us! If you are interested in our previous renovations and One Room Challenge projects, check out these links:
To Linda Weinstein, the creator of the One Room Challenge, I offer my most sincere thanks. Thank you for offering this kind of opportunity and for opening it up to anyone. And to Apartment Therapy, the ORC media sponsor: thank you for making this possible! And to all of the other ORC participants: I’ll be sure to stop by to admire your work! It is always fun to do this together!
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Here’s to a week of work and progress! More next week!
Cheers!
Angela
Thanks to my sponsors for this project!
Interested in being a sponsor? Let me know!
Next week I will introduce my sponsors for this bathroom renovation.
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