Small Bathroom – Big Appeal - Thomson Remodeling Company, Inc.

Small spaces can be challenging, especially when working with a three fixture bathroom in a tight space. As a bathroom designer, I love seeing my designs come to light and after working on small spaces for over thirty years, I may have a few tricks up my sleeve. But interestingly, this was no ordinary client! I had the privilege of designing this bathroom for my wife! The stars don’t always align, but when they do, the constraints are gone.

Our Mid Century Modern house was designed in 1966 and built in ’67, so basically, my house and I are contemporaries and we’ve both had some updates over the years. The bathroom in question however, is our guest bathroom and we had some challenges, with the first being a deadline of the weekend before Thanksgiving. With guests coming into town, we needed a functioning bathroom. It didn’t have to be 100%, but functioning fixtures would help.

I discovered that this bathroom was remodeled after a fire in 1988 and the packing slip for the old cabinets was attached to the top of one of the vanities. We discovered the color of the cabinets, which we never could understand how that was a choice, was “Ginger Spice.” So, “Ginger Spice and the leaking mauve-ish shower tile, had to go.

The other challenge of this room was that the old copper pipes and bathroom drain were corroded and the chance of a blowout or leak was pretty high! Our plumber ran new PEX to each of the fixtures, solving that concern. Another “issue” was that the old vanity drawer couldn’t open all the way without hitting the toilet. Did I mention that it was a small room? This problem was solved by a new, smaller wall hung walnut vanity with doors that don’t interact with the toilet or it’s pilot.

I was able to give the room a larger and more cheerful feel by reducing the size of the cabinetry, which overwhelmed the space. A clunky obscure glass shower enclosure further gave the room a cramped, dated feel. Furthermore, the larger format tile tends to give small spaces the appearance of more room and in the shower, we took it to the ceiling with a contrasting accent wall. Furthermore, the back wall was a solid mass of white painted drywall. We gave it more depth and height by adding the Antiqued Lux Positano tile up to the skylight shaft. Finally, with two large constantly shedding dogs, we had to do a dark floor and the Azul Bahia Matte was perfect. The shower walls are Azul Bahia Polished with a Niche enhanced by Bleu Bliss Mosaic from Walker Zanger surrounded by polished chrome Schluter.