Three Bathroom Reno Project: Upstairs Bath
It’s time for the before & after of the second bathroom for the Three Bathroom Reno Project! In case you missed last week’s reveal, I started with the downstairs guest bath, which you can see right here in all its glory. And just like last week, if you’re looking for sources, I’ve listed them out at the bottom of the post!
**Update! The primary bath reveal is now LIVE! Check out its full before and after in this post.
This time we’re going upstairs to the lone bath on the second floor. This one is shared by two bedrooms and definitely won the award for most awkward layout. Though the house’s roofline definitely limits the way you can design the space, the old layout always felt like it didn’t quite work functionally.
We completely revamped the floor plan to work with the architecture of the home to make it feel like the bathroom fit naturally into the roofline and improved its functionality - it’s hard to believe this is the same space! I’ll share some more details about that as we get into it.
To kick things off, let’s start with the original space!
The Before:
See what I mean about all those angles making things tricky? The bathroom felt tight and choppy. Functionally, the shower head was too low and with the ceiling angle, if you were taller than a child, you ended up leaning to one side and squatting to use the shower. Not great!
Then on the opposite wall, while it did have an amazingly long vanity, the mirror and lighting situation on the angled ceiling was really funky. The angled part starts at about 5’, so you really had to lean in and hunch down to use the mirror.
I couldn’t wait to open this space up and reorient things to make better use of the highest part of the ceiling!
The After:
This is the same view as the first before photo! It has a cozy, modern cottage feel to it and I’m just thrilled with how it came out.
As you can see, we moved the tub from the right wall to the back wall centered on the window. This offered us a way to have a full height shower head so a person can stand in the tallest part of the room to bathe easily.
The ceiling angles are now highlighted in a way that works with them, rather than trying to work around them. It feels more like a cozy cottage bathroom than a wonky one. 😉 This also left us a little space on each side for some small built-in shelves for storage. They’re the perfect size for extra towels and linens, or for people to store their toiletries while they’re visiting. Since this is a second home and the homeowners host a lot of different guests, it’s nice to have flexible storage when there’s a full house.
The shower/tub “nook” just turned out to be so charming. The zellige style white tile surrounds the entire space - even the ceiling! It makes it feel like the coziest shower spot. And don’t worry, there will be a shower curtain - I just took it down for the shoot so you could see it in all its glory!
The tile installers did an incredible job here with all the details. They even installed tiny tile pieces to frame the window perfectly. As an aside, the window is fiberglass, so it’s completely water resistant for this wet location.
Now stepping over to the vanity wall, let’s take a look at the details there!
A couple of structural changes happened here to make this a better space. If you have a keen eye, you might notice that we removed a linen closet that was on the left side of the bathroom as you walked in the door. This allowed us to shift the vanity down a little bit to accommodate the new bathtub placement and it helped the small space feel more open. We also enlarged the closet on the right side just slightly make up for that lost storage and with all the new open shelving, there’s plenty of storage space in here.
We also bumped out the wall behind the vanity about six inches. Why would we sacrifice some width in here you might ask? Well, it’s so we could add a little bit of height to the wall for taller mirrors! We also used pivot mirrors to gain a few more inches. You can see this best in the photo above.
This creative solution allowed the mirrors to be as high as possible in this bathroom so they’re at a more natural height. They’re still not super high, but it’s much better than before.
The freestanding white vanity has an open base, which really works well in here and adds an airiness that the other one didn’t. If more concealed storage is ever needed, it would be easy to add baskets underneath to hide items away.
We mixed the same metals (polished nickel and brushed brass) as we did in the downstairs bathroom, and even in a mostly white bathroom, it feels warm and inviting! I also love that we included v-groove paneling here too. It’s painted in the faintest light blue - just a tiny bit of color!
Looking at the floor, the penny tile has a variegated look that’s kind of like marble, but it’s a porcelain tile, which is super durable and low maintenance.
Turning around to the toilet wall, though it’s not the most exciting to see, it is another super functional area! I popped a few towels onto the shelves for scale. The shelves are fully adjustable, so the homeowners will be able to move them around as needed, offering lots of versatility.
This little bit of wall space also gave us a great spot to hang towels. Since this bathroom is shared by two bedrooms, having several hooks here (along with a couple on the back of the door) offers good hanging space.
To wrap things up, let’s zoom out a bit to see the whole tub/shower nook! I really love how this turned out.
I can’t wait to share the last bathroom with you all next week - the primary!
Sources
Pivot mirrors (similar - hardware is slightly different, but same retailer)
Bathtub wall tile (similar)
*Note that these links may be affiliate links, which means Mix & Match Design Co. earns a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you.
