I cringe when I see these old photos of the bathroom before we moved in. The bath alone makes me reevaluate why we bought this house. We were nuts!

It does look pretty darn good now that its 95% complete. We still need to refinish the door and window, but its ready to reveal!

Doorway view: Before and After
  

The old bathroom was poorly configured. We are fairly certain it originally had a clawfoot tub as once we removed the tub, it was stamped 1949 underneath. Your knees would knock when you used the toilet as it was too tight. We decided to ditch the old configuration and go with a corner shower instead. We added a clawfoot to the attic master bath and a jetted tub to the basement bath, so this teeny bath would mostly serve as a guest bath anyway.

Medicine cabinet: Before and After
  

Before and After: Corner built-in is now a corner shower
  
The problem with the tub is that the drawers wouldn’t open all the way on the bottom. Doh! I didn’t like the idea of losing the storage, but it was a trade off for long-term usability. We salvaged all the drawers and doors and stored them in the attic.

The details: Custom hex design and restored antique deco light
  

This was the abombinable Sears catalog ad the yellow decor came from. This dated the last bathroom remodel to 1976. Yay for faux marbelized wall board!

Luckily, it was easy to remove. We also found a message that the previous owner left his wife. “I Love Agnes. DC+AC (heart)” Very cute. You can also see some of the old layers of marmoleum we found under the tub.
 &nsbp;

If you’d like to see the whole remodeling process in photos, visit the full Bathroom Remodel set on my Flickr!

Bye bye old bathroom!

You can see a bit of the old bath on film in a3o Studios, “Abe Team.”

9 Responses to “Original Bathroom: Before and After”

1. Joe says:

   May 22, 2009 at 7:59 am

   That looks fantastic! I am lucky because a previous owner did a halfway decent job of remodeling my bathroom sometime in the 80′s or 90′s. The inside of my medicine cabinet is that same yellow, so I imagine it looked very similar to yours at some point.
2. Kumi says:

   May 22, 2009 at 10:30 am

   Dawn, this looks incredible!! xo
3. Dulcie says:

   May 22, 2009 at 12:32 pm

   The bathroom looks amazing! Very inspiring as the main bathroom in our ’25 bungalow is also in dire need of a remodel. Love all the tile.
4. Joy says:

   May 22, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   Yeah….we call our bathroom in the house we just bought “80s faux pharaoh” ….it’s lovely with black and gold ( a theme throughout the house) with little almost-egyptian looking touches…anyway…it’s bad, but it’s big, so we can work with it. I love the new configuration of your bathroom…and the hex tiles…I LOVE hex tiles, they’re my favorite. I think it definitely makes sense to just do a stand-up shower in there….and my favorite part is definitely the medicine cabinet, I love the way you’ve restored the former glory of all the woodwork in your house!
5. Cara says:

   May 22, 2009 at 6:57 pm

   WOW – that looks incredible! What a difference you have made! Congrats on a job so very well done…
6. David says:

   June 2, 2010 at 8:57 am

   Where did you find that sink? I recently purchased a 94 yr old Craftsman that I’m remodeling and I’ve been looking for a sink just like that for my downstairs bathroom renovation.

   Love the blog. It’s been a lifesaver as I’ve been going through a lot of the same renovation issues.

   -d
7. Dawn Peterson says:

   June 2, 2010 at 6:05 pm

   Its an American Standard Console Table/Lavatory like shown here:
   http://www.mercantila.com/p/american-standard-standard-collection-console-table
8. Michelle says:

   November 1, 2010 at 8:32 am

   Hi! We were wondering what color grout you went with for your hex tile in the bathroom, and how it has held up. It looks amazing in the pictures!
9. Dawn Peterson says:

   November 3, 2010 at 10:15 pm

   The grout color is called Alabaster. If we had to do it over, I probably would’ve done black or gray on the floor. It looks OK but even with the little amount of traffic that bath gets, the grout does get dingy in places. If used everyday and bathed in, darker grout is always better. :)