Room By Room: The Bathrooms

Ah, the bathrooms.  The master bathroom was a large part of why we bought this house in the first place, so I have a special fondness for it, or at least I'm as fond as you can be of a room with a toilet in it.

We sure as heck didn't buy the house for the bathrooms as they were.  The original bathrooms were like walking into a time warp to the eighties, complete with fake beige marble vanities, stenciled walls, random earth-tone flower tiles, and those hideous hanging light fixtures, which I'm sure have an official name but which Jer and I termed "nipple lights" for obvious reasons.  By far the biggest asset of either bathroom was the fact that the master bath backed up to a pretty large walk-in closet, making it ideal for remodeling into a larger roll-in shower.  Of course, we never anticipated that thanks to some amazing people we would end up with a couple of bathrooms as gorgeous as our new ones turned out!  Slideshows for both bathrooms are after the jump.

The master bathroom was expanded into the area a former linen closet and a bit of our master closet previously occupied to make room for a wet room area and a roll-in shower.  The vanity was moved onto the back wall, with a new roll-under granite counter top with a glass tile backsplash.  The entire floor of the room as well as the shower area was waterproofed, so that water could splash out onto the floor without damaging anything. 

The new master bathroom has more than enough floor space for Jeremy to do donuts in his chair without banging into any walls, and a three-foot wide doorway for easy access.  The comfort-height, elongated-seat toilet is much easier to transfer to and is positioned so that when Connor is older and heavier I can use a lift to get him on and off without trouble.  The curbless shower is perfect for Jeremy, Connor and me.  The faucet has easy-to-turn levers, so I can turn it on with an elbow when my hands are all dirty.  A corner bench and six shower heads-- a fixed head, handheld head, and four body sprays-- seem like total bliss after Jer's months of awkward sponge baths in our apartment's inaccessible tub.  Grab bars by the toilet and in the shower (not yet installed in these pictures) are placed to Jeremy's specifications and match the towel bars, hooks, and other hardware in the bathroom.  Beautiful porcelain tile, new paint, mirror, rocker switches, and lighting finish out the space.

We couldn't change the footprint or layout of the main bath without stealing space from Connor's room or the other side of our already-shrunken closet, so there wasn't any way to make the tight space fully wheelchair accessible.  However, a three-foot wide doorway and a roll-under sink ensure that Jeremy and Connor can at least wash their hands without trouble.  The new bathtub (just for me!) is extra deep and perfect for a good soak.  I'm completely in love with the curved granite vanity; I love the colors and the huge swirling translucent quartz inclusions are pretty amazing.  New tile, paint, mirror, toilet, and lighting all contribute to making the room beautiful.

The one thing both bathrooms are missing right now is storage-- we didn't want base cabinets that would take up a lot of floor space, so we're looking at a variety of options right now.  Wall cabinets are a possibility, as are corner cabinets.  We'll just have to see what we come up with!

Tomorrow, the master bedroom!

~Jess