When I bought my 1930’s Craftsman, the right-side bathroom wasn’t bad. I do love simple white tile! However, it definitely needed some tender loving care.
The bathroom door opened into the small 6’x7′ bathroom making the room feel even smaller. So first thing, I set my handy-woman, Tanya, on the task of reversing the door so that it opened out of the bathroom—leaving the whole space open when you enter. The tile’s grout was dirty and looked disgusting, but after a steam clean from the professionals — it looked like new!
The bathroom contains a narrow cabinet at the end of the shower and beside the sink that has two shelves. I do not like narrow cabinets as things in the back are hard to reach or just get lost. To remedy this, I decided to add pull-out shelves. Rather than spend $200 on a Rev-A-Shelf cabinet filler, I saved money and made installation easy by buying a new navy pull-out kitchen cabinet on Marketplace for $25. A friend cut off the bottom (the space under the bottom shelf) to make it fit my cabinet height. (Thanks Paul!) When I placed it within the bathroom cabinet, the door of the new navy cabinet hung over the edge about .5″ which kept the white outside cabinet door from closing—it needed to sit higher. Simple solution, was to take the original wood shelf I had removed and stack in on top of the bottom shelf to make the height flush with the door opening.
Then voilà—the cabinet slides in and out perfectly. I added a handle to the bottom of the new navy cabinet door. Now all the space in the narrow cabinet is accessible, usable space.
To update the room, I painted the sink cabinet navy and the walls a bright white. I changed out the cabinet hardware, changed out the vanity light and mirror, and added a makeup magnification mirror. The room now has a modern mixed metals look—chrome and brass.
To get the bathroom ready for AirBnB guests, I added brass greeting signs that say “Aloha”, “Hola”, and “Hello”. My first guest was from Hawaii—I would like to think the Aloha greeting on the wall in my photos is what caused her to book my space. The shower curtain is an illustration of Paris’ cityscape.
My last project was to remedy the lack of countertop space. I took a shelf I found abandoned in the shed, cut it to size, and installed it over the toilet. Now that the room has good lighting, a big mirror, a makeup mirror, and “counter-top” space—it is bright and open and can comfortably accommodate any guest or tenant getting ready for the day.
