Where to start?
Where to start would be finding someone to work on it. Contractors are really booked right now from playing catch up from projects delayed by COVID. I would really like to get this project done before we moved in since it is the only bathroom in the house.
Layout
The current layout looks okay in that picture, but what you can’t see is the shower/tub is really narrow. What you can see is how the shower curtain is not vertical because of where the rod has to be placed due to the door and door frame. What that all means is you get “attacked” by the shower curtain. It only wants to suction to you and not hang like it’s supposed to. I thought about getting one of the curved rods to give more space for now, but I’m not sure it would work with the door opening. And the shower curtain would probably have to be longer to be effective. Another fun part of the bathroom and shower is the light switch is actually located IN the shower. Yeah, that wouldn’t pass any inspections these days.
So what I’m thinking might work is to move the shower over by the window (if we lose that window it’s fine with me), move the toilet where the sink is, and move the sink where the shower/tub is now. Currently across from the toilet is a linen closet, which is great. It provides lots of storage, so I’m hoping we will still have space for something similar.
The door swing may be changed to allow more room in the bathroom as well. It swings into the room now and that takes up a lot of potential space. I’ve also looked at a split door which may work, too. The square foot area of the bathroom isn’t terrible, but the layout doesn’t use the space as efficiently as it could.
What’s next?
Besides finding a contractor, the one thing we did do was pull up the carpet (yes, carpet) that was on the floor. It had been there a long time.
I think that the original floor was probably wood and was rotting since it is a bathroom and was wet a lot. Then they put another layer of wood on top because you can kind of tell in the picture that it’s not level with the floor in the hallway and the boards are going in opposite directions. Then when those boards started to rot (there’s evidence of that) they slapped some carpet on it and called it a day.
The walls are not drywall or plaster, but some kind of paneling. It is very rough. Every time Morgan has to take a bath she says “We’ve GOT to do something with this bathroom.” I swear she thinks we are just going to redo the rest of the house and leave what is probably the worst part as is. Oh, Morgan.
Colors and decorating
I have a color picked out for the walls. It’s a dark green. Not the same as the Green Room upstairs, but it may get changed to that because I like that color a lot. I think the bottom half or 2/3 will be either board and batten or a bead board that is white. That style goes with a Craftsman house and would look nice. I don’t have a picture of the medicine cabinet, but I plan to refinish that and use it above the sink.
So, stick around and see what actually happens with the bathroom. And when it happens since it might be more in the long-term than short-term.