Bigger doesn't always mean better

I'm talking about bathrooms of course!  I was happy to see the article in  Better Homes and Garden about stylish smaller bathrooms, which shows some great pictures of smaller sized bathrooms with tons of character.  Having a smaller master bathroom myself I was excited to see how beautiful some of the bathrooms were in the article. Here is one of them that they showed (click on the link above to see them all)


Better Homes and Garden

I mentioned in a previous blog about how we went through the effort of having our master bathroom gutted. We didn't take this one on ourselves, thank goodness. I think the guys told me they removed almost 2 tons of weight out of our small bathroom, including tile floor, wall tile and a 500 lb. old original garden tub (I don't think they were very happy that day).

We had to utilize the space as much as possible.  One thing we did that I think made a big difference was that we had them take out the old door that opened into the bathroom and replace it with french doors that open into the bedroom instead, creating a space behind the door to hang a towel rack.  We also made the footprint of where the old tub was smaller and added a knee-wall and frame less shower door to give the appearance of having it seem more open and larger.  One fun thing that I love is, I had them build two niches between the studs to hold shampoo etc. and had them tile it with beautiful multi colored stones that match nicely with the tumbled marble.  We added a new vanity and granite counter top with sleeker-looking lights and an old antique mirror.  Somehow in my album of pictures I lost the before pictures, which showed the old pink and gray tile, outdated wallpaper and a huge garden tub that didn't even allow for the door to open completely.  Here are pictures of some of the demo (go to my projects for more) and some after. 

I haved lived in a few old houses, first one 150 years old, second one almost 90. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of having a bathroom in your bedroom, so this is a first for us and I have to say small as it is I prefer it to some of the huge bathrooms where you could also house a sofa!  So sometimes size is really all you make it to be.