Bungalow Bath Finished!
Thanks for all the help, you wonderful Gardenwebbers! During the remodel process, I posted questions on the Bath forum, too, but I got lots of support over here on Home Decor, so here is the reveal!
We just finished a budget bathroom addition to our 1924 bungalow. We love our very original house and have been doing a (mostly) DIY full restoration for the past year and a half. But the house only had one small bathroom downstairs and we couldn't convert any of the existing rooms because of water supply and drain issues. So we hired a general contractor and had a gable addition put on the upstairs rear of the house for a “family bath” (it's essentially the master bath, but since it's off the hall, it can serve the other bedrooms, too). I designed the gable and layout, and sourced/purchased all the materials and fixtures. To stay within our tight budget, I bought from eBay, Craigslist, and sales/clearance at the local big box stores. We also laid the floor and painted. As expected with any old house remodel, we had a number of snags and unexpected changes, but we're very pleased overall, especially given our budget constraints.
The attic space before the addition:
And after:
And because my husband insists a bathroom needs privacy (although we overlook 30 acres of pasture!), here's a night shot with the cafe curtains I hung.
When I can stomach the expense, I'd like to install top-down, bottom-up cellular shades, but these are cute and cheap for the time being. The room still lacks the Craftsman wainscoting, the matching lantern over the tub, a doorknob, shelves for the niche, and some accessories. But we're so excited and relieved to be at this point. There were days I thought it would never end, and nights I feared my vision had run amok. But the pangs are over and I would do it all again!
I regret not having more closed storage, but it wasn't an oversight. To preserve the symmetry of the house, we matched the gable addition to the existing front gable. That gave us a rather square room with lots of floor space in the middle and large triple windows. We couldn't bump a closet into the knee wall space on either side of the gable, and I couldn't figure out how to build one in and keep an attractive and functional arrangement of fixtures. The new toilet ended up 15” from the wall because of a floor joist, so I had that section of the wall furred out and a built-in niche framed. I plan to have doors made eventually, so that will hide the less attractive bathroom necessities. And our downstairs bathroom has a large, deep closet, so lesser used items will just be stored there.
My other big regret is the flooring choice. I don't like tile, and we wanted a wood look in keeping with the 3” pine throughout the upstairs. We've used luxury vinyl planks in a bathroom before and were very happy. But I was limited in choices this time because only one brand came in a narrow width. Novalis has 4” planks, while everyone else has 6”. I took a chance on the cheap Novalis, and I regret it. They scratch, burnish, and dent like crazy. And they have a grooved texture that holds the dust and dirt so I have to sweep with the “grain” to clean the floor. They seem to stick pretty well and were easy to install, but I won't use them again. Hopefully the worst wear and tear is over now that the workmen are done, but I'll have to live with all the flooring scars.
If anyone wants the details, here are the basics:
Vanities: St. Paul 36” espresso (special buy at Home Depot)
Tile: Merola cobalt and white basketweave for shower floor and niche; Lowes stock subway tile for field; Lowes clearance white chair rail and pencil liner for accents; Mapei Silver grout
Marble: Home Depot thresholds for niche shelving and shower curb
Faucets: Delta Victorian chrome shower and vanity faucets; Price Pfister Savannah floor mount tub faucet and risers
Tub: antique 1920's Kohler from local flea market, painted BM Hale Navy
Toilet: Danze Orrington
Lighting: clearance exterior lanterns from Lowes
Flooring: Novalis vinyl planks in Gunstock
Comments (47)
grlwprls
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agopps7
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Professionals
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11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoLake_Girl
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cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoTxMarti
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amck2
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agocindyloo123
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoequest17
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoThanks Kellie. Yes, it did change the exterior, but we tried to do it sympathetically. I don't have any current exterior photos, but here is the front of the house and the side before.
The new bathroom is on the back of the house, an almost mirror image of the front gable.
Here are a few photos from earlier this summer when we got the house listed on the Alabama Registry. I have since refinished the dining and living room floors so they flow nicely with the kitchen we did last year.
Cyn427, here is the view from the bathroom window.
It's a beautiful view, but the horse boarders do come and go from the barn at random times, so I can't count on privacy. I give my DH a hard time about the curtains, but they are probably a necessity!
The upstairs is kind of hard to explain, but it originally had two large rooms on each side of the central hall and the little front gable. One of the large rooms was never finished, but the rest had all wood walls and a level seven foot ceiling. The new bath is a gabled dormer off the back, but the unfinished room will be our future master bedroom. We loved the higher ceilings, so we kept the vault in there. It lead to spray foam insulation everywhere, as it was the best choice for sealing an old house and let us keep the vaulted ceiling. Here is a photo of that room in progress where you can see the sloped ceiling.
Marti, the bath is technically just the upstairs hall bath, but it's right outside the door to our future MBR. We thought about trying to put a connecting door through, but it didn't work out because of the low sloping roof line beside the gable. Since we can't have kids, it'll just be us up there, unless we really have a houseful of guests. The downstairs bath is more like you were thinking; it has a door to the bedroom (the purple one I posted above) and another to the mudroom. So it could serve as a true master bed/bath combo if someone needed first floor living.
Here's a view of the upstairs floor plan with the new bath (although it was before the gable dimensions changed and the door swing had to be switched).
Lake_Girl, that's funny you had the same idea with the sconces. I'm sad Lowes discontinued them, but it allowed me to buy them on clearance (although I had to go to two different stores to find enough). I'm not from Alabama (ninth state I've lived in in just over three decades), but we've adjusted over the past few years and found many things to like about it. Are you near Lake Guntersville, by any chance?
Lake_Girl
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agocyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
11 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
outsideplaying_gw
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoequest17
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoLake_Girl, you might still be able to order the lanterns online, but they aren't available in Lowes anymore. I actually bought the displays at two stores and got the last one in the box. I bought one of the larger lantern size and am in the process of converting it to a pendant version to hang over the tub. I hope it works out, but if not, it was cheap and no big loss.
Thanks so much Cyn. I wish I had photos of the living and dining rooms with the refinished floors. It really brightened it up. We've come a very long way from the almost condemned condition in which we purchased the house, but it's generous praise like yours that makes me realize we aren't crazy for loving it so!
Outsideplaying, thank you for commenting. We were really blessed to have the loadbearing walls and water/drain access; that is what kept the budget fairly reasonable. And I accumulated deals for about four months before construction began, so having a big shop in which to store everything was great!
I'm probably about an hour from Lake Guntersville. I've actually never been, but I hear it's beautiful. I don't know where the family historically sailed, but we're just a mile or two from the Tennessee River, so I imagine it was there. The heir (from whom we bought the house) keeps a big sailboat down in Pensacola now, so it could have been anywhere!
Just like Maria Von Trapp, here are a few of my favorite things about the bath!
Furniture style vanities:
(BTW, thanks everyone for input about the mirrors. We went vertical and I really love it, but I think horizontal would have worked, too.)
Floor mounted faucet:
Shampoo niche:
Open faucets:
Those cute onion lanterns:
Ilene Perl
11 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
nosoccermom