Design opinions wanted! Tile and cabinet placement

14 years ago

Below is the current layout of my master bathroom, with some pictures. (You can see why we need to remodel this room in the first place!) We are going to remove the wall between the sinks and tub, shorten the vanity, and add a tall cabinet (actually a pull-out kitchen pantry cabinet) next to the vanity. Storage is more important to us than counter space.

We are also going to remove the short bit of wall (3" or so) behind the toilet that separates the vanity area from the tub/shower area. WeÂll leave the portion of that wall that borders the closet.

1) Which side of the vanity would you put the high cabinet on? This is a pretty small bathroom and one of my goals in this remodel is to make it feel a little more open - I worry that putting the high cabinet on the LEFT (between vanity and tub) would keep the room "choppy". But if I put it on the RIGHT side of the vanity, the towels, etc. stored in the cabinet arenÂt as close to the shower, and the pull-out function would only be accessible from the side, because of the wall behind the vanities.

2) I love the look of white subway tiles going halfway up the wall. I definitely NEED to run the tiles behind the sinks and tub. So at a minimum, they will be on two walls (sink/tub wall on the right side of this picture, and window wall on the top side of this picture). For several reasons (mostly cost), I was thinking of just having it on those two walls. Would it look weird not to have it on every wall?

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Comments (4)

spacechallenged
14 years ago
Hi,
I am not a design expert by any means. I'm in the middle of a bathroom remodel started in January. It's going slow, but nearing the end finally. If it were my bathroom, I would want a storage cabinet in between the tub and vanity area that was accessible from the front and perhaps even from the tub itself for towels. But there are those that are more swayed by function and those that are more swayed by the way something looks. I am going to choose function first even if I have to sacrifice what might "look" best. My bathroom that I am remodeling is very small also so I am trying to get storage wherever I can find it including recessing areas in the wall. As far as your tile wainscott, I think if your bathroom is divided into "areas"...the tub area, the vanity area etc, you can do it however you like, especially if you tie things in somehow. I did a tile wainscott and had to stop it on a wall because I have a pocket door for the hallway inside on one end of it (the last 3' of about a 12' wall). Mine will look like a step down from 43" to underneath a recessed towel bar niche and recessed cabinet which is 20", then step down to whatever size tile baseboard (probably 3 or 4"). But hopefully others will weigh in here and help you out because I know there are some very talented people on this site:)
jjaazzy
14 years ago
One thing I noticed was the closet has a bump out that is probably hard to utilize. It would probably make a nicer shower if you got rid of that recessed area in the closet and gave it to the shower. With that you will gain a nice big shower and also make it easier to fit your walk in closet. The other thing I like to do in corners is make them shoe closets. I did this for my closet and you get a ton of storage for shoes, purses, sweaters. They are great. To add light to the shower area you could remove the wall between the toilet and shower and make that wall glass, then put in a nice modern glass door.
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kgsd
Original Author
14 years ago
Jjazzy, we're actually planning to do that! We are going to extend the closet about 3' into the bedroom (bottom wall in this picture) and get rid of that awkward nook at the top. We can't bump out the sink side because the entrance to the bedroom is in that corner.

Also, I have some really nice shoe/purse/etc. storage in the closet. Although it's small, we have some nice built-ins that make for a lot of storage. They're actually IKEA kitchen cabinets (the shoe storage is a fantastic setup from the Container Store), and we're going to put the same cabinets in for the vanity. I think that will give a nice look.

For fun, here are some pics of the closet. You can see we don't *quite* have enough space for the hanging clothes, one thing we hope to remedy by bumping the closet out. This shoe setup fits 74 pairs of shoes in about 4 sq ft of floor space!
jjaazzy
14 years ago
wow that does hold a lot. I wish I could post my pictures but havn't taken the time to figure it out yet. I like how you incorporated them into the text. Easier that way.