Today, I’d love to share our main floor bathroom restoration/refresh with you. Two years ago, my husband and I purchased what we envisioned to eventually be our dream home. We love old houses and had always dreamed of eventually finding one we could restore. Of course, this wasn’t going to happen the quick or easy way! At the time we were house-hunting, our city ranked nationally as the top most popular and competitive market. We looked for over a year and put down 5 other offers before we found ‘The One.’ But I’m happy to report, she was worth waiting for!
Good Bones
Our house is a 1927 Tudor Cottage and luckily for us, it has only had a few owners over the years and they’ve all taken wonderful care of her. The house has many features we love, including built-ins, original chandeliers, hardwood floors, and even lots of space – something that can be hard to come by in old homes!
Every inch of her needs some TLC, though. While she offers pretty much every item on our wish list, at the same time she also has many problems that were originally on our deal-breaker list. She needs a lot of BIG ticket items including the foundation needing to be raised in one corner, new electrical, new custom windows, and I’m sure the plumbing is super old and gross. Our Christmas present to each other this past year was a new sewer – romantic, I know!
Older homes are always going to need work and they are truly a labor of love for their owners. While we will need to wait a few years more to take care of those larger items mentioned above, there are plenty of smaller things we can tackle now, one by one. Over the past year while we’ve all been home during the pandemic, it’s been an excellent time for home renovations and projects. One of the key ones we’ve been making progress on over the last year is our main bathroom.
Below is a walkthrough of what we’ve refreshed in our main floor bathroom thus far. For the photos, I tried to get the same angles as much as possible because I know it’s super annoying when online magazines and blogs show before and after photos that don’t match! 😂 I have lots of pics to share so let’s get started!
Our Diamond in the Rough
Before we bought the house, I believe the last time anything new had happened in the main bathroom was a 1980’s addition of the lovely oak mirror, light fixture, and towel rack shown below. And everything was VERY pink, lol
The plumbing under the shower was also leaking so we had to have our handyman come in and take care of that. We have three bathrooms in the house and at the time of purchase, none of them worked fully. It was truly a magical day once all three had everything in working order!
Painting
One of the first things we usually tackle in any room reno is a new paint job. It’s a fairly inexpensive way to create a large impact in a short amount of time. This bathroom is located on our main floor and serves as the guest powder room along with being the main bathroom I currently use for showering, etc. So she has to look pretty while still being practical.
We chose Farrow & Ball’s Off-Black for the paint color. It’s a beautiful black with a very slight navy undertone. I love a dark dramatic color in a smaller space, especially paired with gold/brass accessories. It’s such a timeless and elegant look. It also makes it so simple to switch up towels, shower curtains, and other accessories whenever you want because everything will look great with that color scheme as the backdrop.
Restoring the Medicine Cabinet
Our vision has always been to restore our home as closely as possible to its original 1927 glory in terms of aesthetics, while having it function as well as a modern home does. As shown in the photos above, when we first moved into the house everything was pink and oak in the bathroom. We hoped to change out the oak mirror, light fixture and towel bar as quickly as possible. And it only took us two years to actually do it, haha!
We found this very cool 1920’s medicine cabinet door at a local salvage yard. They also had some beautiful small glass knobs to choose from and lots of original door hinges. We picked out our favorite treasures, brought them home and… the door leaned against the wall above the sink for about a year, lol
Vintage hinges & knob found at a local salvage yard
Before we called our handyman to install the door, we wanted to have a new light fixture as well so he could install them both at the same time. We searched long and hard for the right piece. I wanted something unique, beautiful and appropriate for the era of the house. I settled on a pretty art deco style one from an Etsy shop (see also shopping links near the end of the post). Finally, the time was right to call our handyman and have him install everything that we felt was a little over our heads.
Little Touches Make a Big Impact
Some other little odds and ends we’ve upgraded in our bathroom are the heat vent register, light switch covers, towel bar, sink hardware, vanity pulls/knobs, and decorative hooks. We’ve also installed simple white shelves to display candles and tchotchkes. These are little touches that are not expensive to pick up here and there, and over time they create a big impact on the overall look of the room.
Real Life Happens
So, nothing in life is perfect, especially with a vintage house! We’ve had all sorts of quirky things happen as we’ve been working on this house. This room alone has had its fair share of things that didn’t go exactly as planned. We actually bought a new toilet for the room shortly after moving in only to have it dawn on us that the current toilet is a wall-installed model. So some major plumbing work will be needed to install the new toilet, which is the standard kind that installs into the floor. And at that point, we might as well restore the floors, too. Dominoes!
We also realized after we installed the light fixture that the beautiful deco-style shades were HUGE. Our handyman had to be very strategic in how he installed it so we could still open and close both the medicine cabinet door and the door leading into the room.
And finally, our handyman installed the cabinet door centered with the sink (which is going to be replaced eventually) instead of the light fixture so everything is off-center and it’s driving my OCD crazy! He also forgot to install framing on the wall around the cut-out for the medicine cabinet, which would have made the whole thing look more professional and finished. So we’ll have to tweak a few things down the road. Live and learn!
Some Different Ways I’ve Styled the Room
So now, for some decorating! Again, this color scheme is so versatile, it lends itself well to having a lot of fun switching out towels and accessories. Here are a few different ways I’ve been styling it:
Matchy-matchy, all grey + white
Fun with waffle-weave!
A splash of pink! I mean, all of the fixtures in here are currently pink so why not?
Get the Look
Off-Black Paint by Farrow & Ball (at Anthropologie)
Skyscraper Shade Art Deco Wall Lighting (at Deco Creation Studio’s Etsy store)
We got our towel bar from Rejuvenation and it appears to no longer be available but you can get a somewhat similar look here, here, and here
Organic Cotton Turkish Bath Towel in Slate Grey (at Crate & Barrel)
Waffle Weave Towels at Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and Nordstrom
White Floating Shelves (at Wayfair)
Signature Hardware Ballas Steel Wall Register in Antique Brass (at Amazon)
Vesla 2-Handled Gold Bathroom Faucet with Swivel Spout (at Amazon)
Figue D’Ete Artisanal Hand Wash from Bastide Aix-en-Provence (at Anthropologie)
Aēsop Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash (at Aēsop’s Amazon store)
Still More to Come…
There’s lots more on the list to do in this small room. We have the aforementioned toilet to still install, a pedestal sink to purchase and install, and flooring to change out. We need to figure out what we’re going to do about the shower area. Keep the current set-up and paint the tub white? Install a shower instead? And there’s also the question of the (original) wall tile. I love it and in a perfect world, I’d love to keep it. But once we yank out the sink and start messing with the floors, I have a feeling we’re going to run into issues. So it’s possible all of that tile will have to be replaced, too. Again, dominoes!
What about you? Do you have any fun house projects you wish to tackle this summer? Updates are so fun! Tell me your plans in the comments! 😎🛠🏡
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Oh my gosh, I had no idea I could feel this way about a towel rack! 😍
Hahaha! I know, right?? 💖 I’m so disappointed they don’t seem to carry it anymore because I was tempted to put it in my other two bathrooms, too, when they get remodeled some day!
That black paint is slick! And the Art Deco shades, while large, are AWESOME.
Thank you!! 💖 I love that fixture. It really fits the bill of both being period-appropriate for the house and unique.
Dominoes indeed! Looks great though, and I love all the ways you design it. Looks great every time. I’m looking forward to seeing it in person someday 🙂 And I adore the toilet humor, it’s the best. I was laughing about the 80s and 60s accents. 80s and oak, good thing it didn’t have wicker and pastels as well 😉
Our apartment is smallish and I am a clutterbug, so my goal is to reduce the amount of stuff in view, and finish putting up the pictures we have framed. That involves moving about what we already have on the walls, so a two person project. B’s approach includes precise measuring and stud finding, while my approach is more of a this-looks-good-enough-i’ll-just-put-the-nail-here, so the larger pieces are better for him to manage.
Awww thank you!! We would love to have you over soon! Our game night plans a year and a half ago got cancelled due to covid so it’s definitely time to reschedule! 😊
Hahaha we actually DO have the wicker in the upstairs bathroom! Well, technically it’s caning on the vanity. Which is actually back in style now lol It’s so funny how things come back around. And remember a few years ago when ‘Millennial Pink’ was all the rage? Our pink walls were actually stylish again! 😂
lol I’m EXACTLY the same way. I always just eyeball it. I swear, the times I’ve tried to measure it out, it never looks as good! 😂 I would love to see pics when you put your pics up! 💖