Inches Matter

I’m exploring the renovation of my 1950’s cottage main bath. Overall, it is a cozy and minimal home which includes the bathroom. The dimensions are 5’x7’. As my main bath, a lot of function has to fit into a small space. It isn’t something I could piece together without careful planning. And what you don’t see in my sketch is a window on one wall and a door on the other so I’m limited to just the one wall for everything to function.

My bathroom elevation

That wall not only has the usual suspects of the shower, toilet, sink, and storage. This wall also contains the plumbing, electrical, and heating/cooling. Currently, the toilet is wedged up against the sink. The bathtub is narrow. So, I’m carefully making inch-size adjustments to expand the tub just enough and center the toilet appropriately. The main light source over the sink is not centered from previous renovations. This means before that wall can be finished it needs to be mostly removed to adjust plumbing and electrical sources to be centered to fixtures.

I’m choosing to tile the entire bath in a matte white rectangular tile. This will help the bathtub and toilet blend in giving it a more spacious feel. The tile itself will be oriented vertically to give it height and I’m choosing a matte finish to take away any busy reflections. A matte finish tends to retreat into space while a gloss projects outward. To ground the space, add warmth and give it a vintage feel I’m using an earthy, warm terrazzo tile. The vanity will be of wood with recessed door panels in cane to tie in the 50’s vintage cottage feel.