Bathroom Remodeling Ideas???

[Hera]

Whenever I want to design a bathroom, I always do a little research into the style of the house so that I can keep with the architecture of the house. Chances are that a prospective buyer will most likely like the traditional/Victorian vibe of your home so I wouldn''t be too cautious with the paint color. I actually didn''t know that the pedestal sink was a period detail to that era (duh-when did I think it was?). I would love to see a victorian style or a more ornate mirror to go with the house. That was only if i could find a small cabinet that would fit the tp and other small items. I dislike storage over the toilet immensely (but that''s me). I do like the idea of hexagonal tiles and there''s even one in a basket style weave that''s pretty as well.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Herr, I''m not sure that a pedestal sink is true to the era, but is a common enough "look" to merge well with the overall decor and compliment the aesthetic. I believe they went with wall mounted basins or basins supported by almost a pipe-like structure.

Now, throw a big modern bath tub in there over a claw foot tub and I''d have a big "WTF is that" reaction as a buyer.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Hera ~ I like the idea of a big, ornate mirror over the sink. That''s why I''ve been considering doing a mirror over the sink (instead of a medicine cabinet), and then hanging a small cabinet on the wall somewhere (probably over the toilet, but it doesn''t have to be) so that we''ll have some storage space. And I like the idea of hex tiles! My only worry with that is, if we''re going to do the same tile throughout the kitchen (which is HUGE), will hex tiles work? I''d be afraid hex tiles would look a little too "busy" in a larger area like the kitchen. (Although I do think they''d look nice in the bathroom!)

Basically, this bathroom really has the feel of being an "accessory" to the kitchen, and I''m trying hard to make sure the bathroom ties in well with the kitchen. The door to the bathroom is actually tucked into a corner of the kitchen (between the side of the fridge and the wall), so you really don''t even see that the bathroom is there when you first walk into the kitchen. I''m just afraid that, if we take the bathroom and kitchen in two different directions, it might look a little too "disjointed" if that makes any sense?

BTW, I''m going to try to post some pics of our hideous bathroom today. I apologize in advance for disgusting you all!

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

IG I don''t think having different flooring in the rooms is going to make it feel disjointed. There are other ways to tie it all together, similar styled or the same light fixtures and style faucets, wall color, etc. But a smaller space should really have proportional floor tile. Similarly, a larger space needs proportional tile.

 

[ladypirate]

What about a soft warm gray? BM''s historical line has some lovely soft colors that are lovely while being muted.

Also, I love pedestal sinks! We want to redo our downstairs bathroom at some point to put in a pedestal sink and hex tile. It''s my favorite bathroom look!

 

[vc10um]

Date: 6/25/2010 9:21:33 AM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
IG I don't think having different flooring in the rooms is going to make it feel disjointed. There are other ways to tie it all together, similar styled or the same light fixtures and style faucets, wall color, etc. But a smaller space should really have proportional floor tile. Similarly, a larger space needs proportional tile.

Agreed 100%. And with a smaller room, smaller tile will be much easier to work with in terms of cutting and maneuvering and whatnot (the same going with larger tile in a larger room...more coverage in less time).

As for the storage...I love the idea of an ornate mirror. What's your opinion on something like this for over-the-toilet storage instead of a bulky cabinet? If you chose small victorian-style containers for items and possibly just hid a basket for TP on the back side of the toilet, I think it could be really stunning!

 

[Irishgrrrl]

OK, I hope nobody is eating breakfast!

Here it is, in all its glory:

This was taken from the door, looking into the opposite corner. Notice the fugly pink and black fake tile?

And this was taken from in front of the sink, looking across to the door. Notice the fugly CHIPPED pink and black fake tile?

This was taken from in front of the toilet, looking to the opposite corner. As you can see, a former owner had some sort of corner shelf hanging there. Also, if you look at the top right corner of the picture, you''ll see the "mystery stain," which looks like something was splattered on the ceiling. There is more of this at different spots throughout the bathroom, on the ceiling and walls. We have no idea what this is, but we DO know it won''t come out!

This is a pic of the little table that sits between our sink and toilet. This will probably stay, so we''re going to try to tie it in somehow. (Maybe sage green paint on the upper half of the walls?)

Ah, yes! A close-up of our gorgeous floor! This pic actually doesn''t do it justice. The colors look rather muted here. They''re much more "intense" in person!

I ask you, why in the name of God would someone do this to a bathroom??? It''s not like any of this sh!t matched when they were putting it in to begin with! Were they TRYING to build the world''s ugliest bathroom???

 

[Irishgrrrl]

OK, you guys have me seriously thinking about hex tile now! LOL!

And vc10um, I like that rack thingy! Great idea!

 

[Clairitek]

Date: 6/24/2010 7:48:07 PM
Author: Irishgrrrl
Thanks so much, everyone!!!

NF, your bathroom looks FANTASTIC!!! And I do love that sink!!!

Clairitek, I remember your bathroom remodel . . . I was totally stalking that thread! LOL! I love how you guys laid your tile on the diagonal. I''ve been trying to convince DH to do that with ours!

OK, here''s some more relevant info: One of the reasons we want to stick with earth tones is because we want the bathroom to tie into the kitchen, since they''re adjacent rooms. The kitchen looks like hell right now, but the plan is to remodel the kitchen next. We already kinda know what we want to do with the kitchen, and it involves beiges and earth tones. We have one of those cool cabinets with the glass fronts, which is where we display our dishes. And we LOVE those dishes! The pattern is Pfaltzgraff Mission Flower. So we were thinking beige or tan walls for the kitchen, and we were going to continue the same floor tile from the bathroom into the kitchen.

BTW, NF and Clairitek, your ''before'' pictures of your bathrooms look WAAAAAY better than our bathroom does now. Seriously . . . it''s frightening!!!

Thanks! I love the way it looks, but it was a royal pain in the rear to lay it that way. A ton more cuts to deal with (thankfully my friend was the one running up and down the stairs 9248237 times to do them

)


I wouldn''t worry about the flooring being different in the bathroom and kitchen. Put in a threshold (I used marble ones I bought at Home Depot or Lowes) to separate the two floors. Since your kitchen is larger you wil probably use 12x12 tiles in there and that will completely overwhelm the bathroom. I used 9x9 tiles in my bathroom. The whole room is about 8x8 (including the tub and linen closet). 9x9 was as big as I would go in there. People have adjoining bathrooms and other tiles/hard floored rooms all the time so I don''t think its totally expected to have the same flooring in either.

You could do the white hex tile and use a tan grout. I don''t recommend using a white grout because it will get dingy really fast. Tan grout will help you keep those earth tones present.

My friend who has that Memoirs sink has a family of 4 using that bathroom. She just has a medicine cabinet in the bathroom for storage and there is a linen closet in the hall. She said the Memoirs sink has plenty of horizontal space to rest a soap dish, razor, or toothbrush. I think that she may have insalled a shallow glass shelf just above the sink to make a little more space but the few times I''ve seen this bathroom there hasn''t even been anything on it.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Can we see a picture of your kitchen? I think you have enough room for the small vanities I listed which I think would be more victorian looking.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 6/25/2010 10:06:47 AM
Author: Tacori E-ring
Can we see a picture of your kitchen? I think you have enough room for the small vanities I listed which I think would be more victorian looking.

LOL! Ohhh, Tacori! You don''t know how long it took me to work up the nerve to post pics of the bathroom!

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Okay, at least the floor? I think if you do hex you can bring in the beige in the wall color or accessories.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 6/25/2010 10:21:37 AM
Author: Tacori E-ring
Okay, at least the floor? I think if you do hex you can bring in the beige in the wall color or accessories.

Oh, FINE! I'll take some kitchen pics when I get home tonight!

ETA: Guys, I'm looking at hex tile online, and the price is freaking me out!!!

 

[lilyfoot]

I think a sage-ish green would look great with the rest of what you plan to put in the bathroom

. It''s also neutral and an earth-tone, to tie in your kitchen, and make it a "safe" color for re-sale.

 

[Clairitek]

Date: 6/25/2010 10:22:41 AM
Author: Irishgrrrl

Date: 6/25/2010 10:21:37 AM
Author: Tacori E-ring
Okay, at least the floor? I think if you do hex you can bring in the beige in the wall color or accessories.

Oh, FINE! I''ll take some kitchen pics when I get home tonight!

ETA: Guys, I''m looking at hex tile online, and the price is freaking me out!!!

What material are you looking at? White ceramic hex tile is around $2.50 a square foot at HD or Lowes. Natural stone will run you a lot more though.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 6/25/2010 11:13:56 AM
Author: Clairitek

Date: 6/25/2010 10:22:41 AM
Author: Irishgrrrl

Date: 6/25/2010 10:21:37 AM
Author: Tacori E-ring
Okay, at least the floor? I think if you do hex you can bring in the beige in the wall color or accessories.

Oh, FINE! I''ll take some kitchen pics when I get home tonight!

ETA: Guys, I''m looking at hex tile online, and the price is freaking me out!!!

What material are you looking at? White ceramic hex tile is around $2.50 a square foot at HD or Lowes. Natural stone will run you a lot more though.

I think most of it has been porcelain. It looks like Home Depot has it for about $5 to $6 per square foot, which is still more than we were planning to spend on tile.

 

[Steel]

Date: 6/24/2010 5:02:53 PM
Author: neatfreak
Just snapped this, not much accessorizing going on yet but it shows how nice the sink looks. Hard to get the right angle with the photo but it does the job.

I love your basin. I would have loved to find something linke this. Grerat job.

 

[pennquaker09]

I didn''t get to reply yesterday, but I was going to saw get the Memoirs sink too! Apparently we all think the same here at PS.

The best remodels have a combination of high and low materials. Like, something in the space needs to be a splurge. Personally, I would put marble on the floor. And, just because you''re going to put it on the market doesn''t mean everything has to be beige.

If it were me, I would get Crema Marfil or Thassos marble tiles (like a 12x12) for the majority of the floor. Find a simple mosaic with some black in it for an accent border, and then use the same field tile for another border. The hex tiles with the black would make a great accent border.

Alternatively, they make a wood look floor tile now and it''s absolutely gorgeous.

I''d paint it either Fieldstone (Benjamin Moore 155 or Silver Crest (1583). Paint the beadboard and crown in White Dove.

Simple classic nickel fixtures.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 6/25/2010 3:50:23 PM
Author: pennquaker09
I didn''t get to reply yesterday, but I was going to saw get the Memoirs sink too! Apparently we all think the same here at PS.

The best remodels have a combination of high and low materials. Like, something in the space needs to be a splurge. Personally, I would put marble on the floor. And, just because you''re going to put it on the market doesn''t mean everything has to be beige.

If it were me, I would get Crema Marfil or Thassos marble tiles (like a 12x12) for the majority of the floor. Find a simple mosaic with some black in it for an accent border, and then use the same field tile for another border. The hex tiles with the black would make a great accent border.

Alternatively, they make a wood look floor tile now and it''s absolutely gorgeous.

I''d paint it either Fieldstone (Benjamin Moore 155 or Silver Crest (1583). Paint the beadboard and crown in White Dove.

Simple classic nickel fixtures.

Penn ~ Sounds fabulous, but marble is completely out of the question. Our "splurge" is remodeling the bathroom at all. We are on a very strict budget for this project, unfortunately.

 

[Steel]

Date: 6/25/2010 4:31:43 PM
Author: Irishgrrrl
Penn ~ Sounds fabulous, but marble is completely out of the question. Our ''splurge'' is remodeling the bathroom at all. We are on a very strict budget for this project, unfortunately.

2 words: Price around.

I wanted marble for all our tile and in the end decided against in the the bathrooms because of staining. I chose limestone (jura red & jura grey) in the end and love it. It was really cheap in the end - cheaper than the cost of polished porcelain in the high end stores.

But I took 5 months to choose all the tile. It paid off in price but I cannot bear to look at any tile showrooms anymore; I get a rash

.

 

[pennquaker09]

Steal, you beat me to it, but you''re right it''s all in how you shop. Marble doesn''t equal expensive if you know how to look for deals.

 

[neatfreak]

Thanks everyone for the compliments. It took us months to do it so I am so happy it came out so nicely!!

Irish as to the tile situation, HD and Lowes make a tile they call Octagon I think? Similar to hex, I really wanted it on the floor initially but ultimately chose something else to add some color and reduce upkeep (the amount of grout involved with hex or similar tile is insane and grout is hard to clean). But it's like $2.50/sq ft and would fit nicely with the look you are going for IMO. Only comes in white though.

And big tiles actually can look great in a small room IF they are done right. We have huge tiles in our tiny bathroom but I laid them in a herringbone pattern and they really look great and make the space. I don't think that they would have looked good though as large squares. Those belong in a bigger room IMO.

 

[neatfreak]

This is what we were working with before:

 

[neatfreak]

And this is what we got after. And we spent VERY little money on the tile. I think this tile was like $3.50/sq ft. It''s porcelain and it has graining almost? Looks really cool. It looks washed out in this photo because I took it right after installing and hadn''t removed all the haze yet.

Anyway, just to prove that big tile can work in a small bathroom if you are too lazy to deal with all the grout that small hex tile leaves you with!

I promise you can do a nice bathroom on very little money.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

NF, that looks awesome!!!

I asked DH last night about the hex tile, and he didn''t seem very receptive to the idea. This is his first time installing tile, so I think he wants to keep it simple. He was thinking largeish tiles (like yours) because he feels like that will make the room seem larger. I kinda agree, especially if we lay them on the diagonal, like Clairitek did in her bathroom remodel.

Date: 6/26/2010 12:19:12 AM
Author: neatfreak
And this is what we got after. And we spent VERY little money on the tile. I think this tile was like $3.50/sq ft. It''s porcelain and it has graining almost? Looks really cool. It looks washed out in this photo because I took it right after installing and hadn''t removed all the haze yet.

Anyway, just to prove that big tile can work in a small bathroom if you are too lazy to deal with all the grout that small hex tile leaves you with!

I promise you can do a nice bathroom on very little money.

Oh, I''m pretty sure we''re too lazy to deal with cleaning all that grout! LOL! I hadn''t thought about all the upkeep that would go along with that much grout, so I''m glad you mentioned it! I''m definitely NOT into spending a bunch of time on housework, especially when it comes to tedious things like cleaning grout. So, I think we''re going to skip the hex tiles and go with a larger (maybe 12" x 12" or so) square tile, and hopefully I can talk DH into laying them on the diagonal. I just love that look! I think the diagonal grout lines really open up the room.

BTW, I agree about the octagon tile being beautiful. I saw some stone octagon tile (I think it was made by Daltile) that was GORGEOUS, but it was like $26 per square foot!

 

[neatfreak]

I think those are both smart choices! Cleaning grout SUCKS. I have tiled countertops in the kitchen and I just can't get the darn grout clean and it is even gray in color. I cannot wait to do a kitchen remodel.

One thing I really wouldn't do with big tiles is just lay them square. I don't think that looks great in a small room. But if you do rectangles in herringbone like I did, or diagonals like Claire, or even a running brick pattern I think you will be fine. I think the "big tiles don't look good in small rooms" is really just if you have long straight grout lines. IMO of course.

Can't wait to see what you do!

P.S. I personally did all the tile work in our bathroom including the floors. So tell your DH it really isn't hard. I had never done it before and even a "complicated" pattern like herringbone was pretty easy IMO. I just read a lot about it first and watched some videos online so I knew what I was doing. It was pretty easy overall.

 

[Irishgrrrl]

OK, guys, tell me what you think of this idea: A darker brownish floor tile (similar to this) set on the diagonal, with light cream beadboard and trim (like Behr''s Powdered Snow) and brownish walls above the beadboard (like Behr''s Toffee Crunch). And we''d have a plain white sink and toilet (maybe the Kohler Memoirs suite or something similar). Does that sound like it might work?

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 6/26/2010 11:23:31 AM
Author: neatfreak
I think those are both smart choices! Cleaning grout SUCKS. I have tiled countertops in the kitchen and I just can''t get the darn grout clean and it is even gray in color. I cannot wait to do a kitchen remodel.

One thing I really wouldn''t do with big tiles is just lay them square. I don''t think that looks great in a small room. But if you do rectangles in herringbone like I did, or diagonals like Claire, or even a running brick pattern I think you will be fine. I think the ''big tiles don''t look good in small rooms'' is really just if you have long straight grout lines. IMO of course.

Can''t wait to see what you do!

P.S. I personally did all the tile work in our bathroom including the floors. So tell your DH it really isn''t hard. I had never done it before and even a ''complicated'' pattern like herringbone was pretty easy IMO. I just read a lot about it first and watched some videos online so I knew what I was doing. It was pretty easy overall.

NF, I''m so glad to hear that you didn''t have much trouble with the tile! I think DH is really worried about that, so he''ll be glad to hear that too!

 

[packrat]

NF I LOOOVE your bathroom tile! We''ve got plain ole linoleum in ours, same as what''s in the kitchen-but we''re FINALLY doing the bathroom in the next couple months so..yeah I''ll totally be doing a thread too for help!

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I personally would be careful putting cream on the bead board if your bathroom fixtures are a stark white. Make sure the two colors look good together. Hex tiles come in a larger sheet so it is not more difficult to lay. They fit together like a puzzle.

NF, I LOVE the tile and pattern you chose. Very modern and cool.