Small Bathroom Remodel & Visual Space

This bathroom remodel started with the customer's ideas – chocolate brown and lots of tile, including tiled walls up to 4 feet. The next step was a palette of colors and textures, our decorator's interpretation of giving our customer an elegant, masculine bath.

From concept to the final results, it was an amazing journey with lots of twists and turns. Some changes were made to give the small bathroom more visual space while other changes were made to reduce costs as there are always trade-offs to be made. The customer loved the results!

The Best Plans Change During Any Remodeling Project

You might think you've identified all the project steps, fixtures and materials before you start a remodeling project. Regardless of the planning you've done, there's always new information that causes you to re-think your strategy.

When ordering the shower base, we discovered the building codes had changed since original construction and the existing shower space was smaller than required, causing us to review our options. We could have continued with the existing tiled walls but came up with a better solution that involved removing the wall and going with a glass enclosed, neo-angle shower. The customer loved the final result as it made the room feel so much bigger!

Original Plans	Changed	Plan Changes
Floor tile	No	Installed tile recommended by decorator
Chocolate vanity	Yes	Original vanity on back order; couldn't wait
Sink/counter top	No	Customer picked from 3 choices given
Bronze hardware	No	Picked faucet to match vanity & sink; remaining hardware same finish
Tile walls	Yes	Replaced tile walls with lower cost, tile chair rail Picked 1 of 3 chair rail, tile designs (take a peek at 3 choices) Went with 2 piece design, with cove rail above the design Picked smoother of 2 textures for shower tile “above the rail”
Shower pan	Yes	Building codes changed & shower now 36 inches (was 30)
	Yes	Removed wall & moved window to provide 36 inches
	Yes	Replaced tile shower plans with neo-angle, glass enclosed shower
Paint colors	Yes	Picked from choices given to match tile colors; not original chocolate Picked lighter of 2 colors for “above the chair rail” Picked darker of 2 colors for “below the chair rail”

It's difficult to capture all the details we dealt with during the project. We moved a window which meant finding matching siding (customer couldn't tell the difference). To accommodate the larger shower, we also removed a wall and the plumbing that was there, shifted to another wall. There were a few pieces to sort out to integrate the new vanity, sink and faucet with the tile chair rail but it all worked … with some creativity and patience.