May 2013: The 3x4 bathroom closet

This is the renovation I'm proudest of (so far).  All the houses in our neighborhood have these teeny little "powder rooms" behind the kitchen.  The realtors claim these houses are "1.5 bath" but in reality the rooms are so small that it's more like one and a quarter.

Anyway, ours was in rough shape.  Hideous brown tile on the floor, hideous pink tile on the wall all the way up to the ceiling, an enormous beast of a toilet that didn't flush properly -- or didn't STOP flushing -- a square sink that was far too deep for the narrow room, and inexplicably, a medicine cabinet mirror and toothbrush holder.  Why would there be a toothbrush holder when the room is too damn crowded to even stand up straight in, let alone brush your teeth?  It's a mystery.

Aside from the ugliness, the room also smelled bad.  Whether it was from mildew under the ancient tiles, or an imperfect seal between our toilet and the sewer, we didn't know and didn't want to know.

We endured the bathroom for a year and a half because the renovation of the upstairs full bath had been so traumatic that we were loath to do another one.  But it was during my baby shower when we had a lot of people over, and we were sending even the pregnant guests all the way upstairs to pee because we were so ashamed of this powder room, that we realized it was time to fix it.  I mean, it SMELLED BAD in there, for goodness sake.  We hired a contractor to do a complete rip-out down to studs and replace everything.

We added an electrical outlet, even though it was totally unnecessary, because the electrician swore that it was required to be "to code."  We also added a light switch so that one switch controlled the overhead light and one controlled the vanity light, and then ran a dedicated circuit from the bathroom down to the circuit box.

We went to an upscale tile store to pick out the tile, because as the contractor pointed out, in such a small space, you can splurge on really nice tile and still not break the bank.

Finding fixtures that would fit in such a tiny closet was the biggest challenge.  After tons of research, internet searches, and comparing dimensions down to the tenth of an inch, we settled on an American Standard dual-flush comfort height toilet, and this sink, only 9.3 inches deep!

I fell in love with a waterfall faucet in brushed nickel, which then informed the rest of the accessories choices (towel bar, toilet paper holder, etc.).

We picked out a tilting mirror to accommodate all our guests, both short and tall.  And I spent days on the internet obsessing over hundreds of light fixtures until Steve pointed out that no one was ever going to look up in our bathroom, because the view of the lower part was so nice.  :)







Everything went in and then it was time to paint.  I wanted something rich, intense and colorful to stand up to the wall tile.  We chose Behr "Wild Sage".  I was a bit nervous about putting such a dark color in a small room, but I'm so happy with the choice.

And voila, the big reveal of before and after!

Before: Claustrophobic nightmare in brown and pink

After: A roomy and relaxing spa retreat!  Okay, not roomy, but better.