A new bathroom!

Our house was built in 1940, a four room cottage. Not an original farm house, but 1940 is venerable in house age in the township. The man who built the house, Mr. Amity, converted the attic into livable quarters, the Boyd’s, from whom we bought the house, added the studio wing that exceeds the size of the house—the reason we purchased. The original footprint of the house is unchanged, and my bathroom is still six by eight and a half feet. A galley bathroom!

The house was gutted and redone when we moved here; the first real upgrade since the sixties. I “enlarged” the bathroom then, by reducing the size of the vanity and substituting a shower enclosure for a tub. It’s an adequate bathroom, but oh, so eighties, and developing behind the walls and under the floor issues. Sounds like a new bathroom to me.

Jim, the man who builds it all, came round to take measurements the other day and see what I wanted. All the hours of Home and Garden TV notwithstanding, they will not write She Designed a Fantastic Bathroom on my tombstone. Not that they could; I will be tossed.

I only have two must halves for the new room: a higher toilet and a longer shower stall. That will leave fifteen inches for shelving along the shower wall. It will be open shelving; I’ll store a cupboard of stuff in neat wicker baskets, just like the designers do. Shelves over the toilet, more baskets, a new vanity, some grey paint on the walls, over and out. Jim suggested I go look in a big box store at fixtures and a vanity, and I was up for that.

Ninety minutes Sunday I walked the bathroom aisle at Lowes, eventually realizing there was no shower there I would step into and no vanity I could face in the morning. I came home determined to do a better job on line. I started with showers. There are mighty sharp shower enclosures out there, but I’m way over my head understanding them; that will wait for Jim to come back. I see I need toilet advice, too.

Well, perhaps I could pick a vanity. I found them either boring or ugly. On to the next. Then, look what I found:

Bead board. And that’s what I’ll do. Bead board wainscoting, light grey walls. A grey marble top for my bead board vanity, brushed nickel fixtures. I’m back to the internet for the perfect shower interior, and when I find it, Jim can figure it out.

That’s the plan. My two granddaughters can spend the summer removing eighties wallpaper, and gardening. I've planned the bathroom for late fall, so Jim and his crew have an indoor job.