Project #4 (2023): Our Primary Bathroom

It has taken me a long time (over a year!) to finish telling you about our house projects of 2023!  But I like to finish what I start, so here I am to tell you about our biggest house project of that year. 

Having my dad living with us for several months gave us a first hand view of some of the practical challenges that older people face. So late in spring of 2023 when Ron said that he would like for us to update our primary bathroom, I knew that it was not the yellow 1960's ceramic tile that was the impetus for the change. Rather, Ron wanted to update the bathroom to make it safer and easier for us as we age. He wanted to replace the bathtub with a walk-in shower. 

We did have that yellow tile though. Lots of it. 

It's a teeny tiny bathroom, but it was covered in yellow tile. The whole tub surround, including the ceiling. The vanity. The lower half of the walls. All yellow tile. 

The floor was mostly white tile but with small squares of yellow interspersed. 

Here are some "before" shots. This bathroom is very difficult to photograph, partly because it is so small, partly because it is a fully enclosed room with no natural light. The lighting/color is a bit off and the lines are distorted. 

We called the contractor who had converted our porch into a sunroom and began to make plans.

Of course, the yellow tile would have to go! 

When we moved into Pineapple House in 2016, we moved from a house with one bathroom into a house with two full baths and one half bath (and an additional half bath in the garage!). I was so grateful for this luxury that I determined not to complain about the yellow tile (nor the pink tile of the half bathroom). I remained grateful (truly!) . . . but in seven years, the 1960's yellow tile was still not my favorite. The 60's style did not fit our colonial vibe and the sunny yellow color did not fit with anything else in our house.  

I was not sad to give up the yellow tile! 

But, because we were doing this remodel for practical reasons, there were specific things that we wanted. These were:

• Walk-in shower
• Grab bars 
• Comfort-height toilet 

Those were the essentials for the remodel, but getting those things meant that we had to gut the bathroom! 

Good-bye yellow tile!

And good-bye yellow ceramic toilet paper holder and yellow soap dish and yellow toothbrush holder. And good-bye fluorescent light over the medicine cabinet. Good-bye crumbling grout, dripping shower head, and crack in the floor. 

At the beginning of the summer, we began to choose all. the. things. Yikes! So much was happening in our family at that time (my dad had entered a nursing home, I was visiting him daily, and he was nearing the end of his life) that choosing tile and shower units and fixtures felt overwhelming. It was a stressful process. I remarked more than once that I would not want to have to build a house and make all of those choices. (I am sure that many of you have done exactly that. I applaud you for it! But I don't think I have the mettle for such a thing.) 

We chose tile for the floor and a slab of granite from the remnant section because we only needed a small piece for our countertop. We pored over the books of shower enclosures, comparing ones with seats and without seats, ones with one niche, two niches, three niches. We chose fixtures from the same book. 

When our contractor came back to get our choices, he measured the space to see exactly which size shower unit to order. OOPS! Because of the hot water baseboard heating pipes, there was not enough room for even the smallest shower unit to fit. He called the company to see if they had anything smaller and they did not. 

At this point, our only options were to abandon the whole project OR to have a custom tile shower built. We weighed our options, but since our primary goal was to have an elder-friendly bathroom, we decided to proceed with our plan. 

There was another OOPS. The floor tile that we had chosen did not come in a smaller cut, so we had to choose something else. Ugh.

Back to the tile store. Not only did we have to find a new choice for the floor, now we also had to select tile for the shower, for the niches, and for the shower floor. We got more samples and brought them home. We couldn't get the same shade of flooring as our original choice and we worried that a new choice wouldn't go as well with our granite selection.

So. Many. Decisions. And in the middle of overwhelming family issues that required much of my time and emotional energy. 

Okay . . . let me shorten this story! 

I was ready to abandon, or at least postpone, the whole idea, but with Ron's encouragement, decisions were made and demo began two days after my dad's memorial service. Kati and her little ones were still here (take note of that) but flying home later that day, so we all got ready and left the house early to avoid the noise and chaos of the demo. Ron and I were so glad that the project was underway! 

The next month was full of change and adjustments and business . . . and lots of work in the bathroom! We had told our contractor, Joe, that we had family coming for Thanksgiving and he kept the job moving towards a timely completion. Joe, Curt (the tile guy), and Ron were all working on different parts of the project. 

And the bathroom was completed just before Kati and family arrived for the Thanksgiving holiday! Hooray!! 

Here is the finished project, and we couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

(Again, very small space and not natural light makes photographing this room a challenge.)

Ron made the vanity out of wood taken from the sunroom remodel. It was a fun way to repurpose the wood, continue its use in the house, and take advantage of the patina. 

He made paneled doors and attached them with black iron butterfly hinges. Up close, you can see the character of the old wood. 

Our contractor, Joe, put it all together with the granite countertop, oval sink, and simple black faucet. 

I wanted to keep this small space simple with a colonial vibe, so I purchased an antique mirror to hang over the sink instead of a medicine cabinet. We found a pretty vanity light on eBay. (I had originally ordered it in Pearwood, but after I saw it, I realized that the black would look better in the room, so we exchanged it. I'm glad that we did because it echoes the black fixtures.) 

Several years ago, we had happened upon a small chandelier in an antique store and purchased it for a song, knowing that we'd used it somewhere, someday. This bathroom was the perfect place for it. 

Joe installed the comfort-height toilet. ✅

Of course, the walk-in shower was the primary purpose of this remodel. We love it now, and will appreciate it more and more as we live in this house. No regrets . . . even though I have taken baths instead of showers my entire life! ✅

Despite the extensive variety of choices in the tile store, I had my heart set on something simple and chose a 4-inch square white tile. I wanted a simple, clean look for the basics, preferring to have the eye drawn to the details (mirror, chandelier, vanity, pottery). The contractor, tile installer, and tile salespeople all suggested contrasting tiles for the niches, but I stuck to my vision and had those done in the small white tile also. We did take the tile installer's advice to use pieces of our granite for the niche shelves and corner shelves, and for the "curb" for the shower, and I love how they look. We went wild and crazy with the shower floor, going with a pebble mosaic tile. :) 

And there are three grab bars in the shower. ✅

A few more details . . . 

All of the fixtures (shower head, faucet, drain, toilet handle) are matte black. Again, I love the clean look. We ordered a black wrought iron toilet paper holder and hung a colonial spade hook on the back of the door.

I found my shower curtain at Target, a matelassé medallion design. (Unfortunately, it is no longer available, although there are currently a few for sale on eBay.) 

Ron made a Shaker style peg rack to hang our towels. We had a peg rack in The Farmhouse bathroom and I loved it. Not only does it fit our style, but I also find that a peg rack will hold more towels in less space and the towels dry more quickly. I found these towels at Target that have loops for hanging! 

We painted all of the trim in Quaker Green, an Olde Century Paint color. 

Sixteen months later, we are still happy that we made this change and remodeled our bathroom. Not only do we love how it looks, it is also an investment in our golden years!

(And I still don't miss the yellow tile. 😉)