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Before: Dingy, Old Bathroom Gets New Life

by on May 13, 2014

Photo: Meghan & Al

Al and I moved into our very first home last year, and have since been tackling projects little by little. We bought the house knowing we would need to put a little work into it, and really, that was the aspect that was most appealing to us. After a few small projects, we decided it was time to begin putting our thumb print on this house, starting with our one and only bathroom.

We never imagined we would be the kind of people who would renovate the only bathroom of their one-bath house while living in it, but we thought, “Hey, we’re young and relatively low maintenance, so why not?” Four full days without a toilet and I began rethinking my self-titled low maintenance-ness. But once that big hurdle was over, it was smooth sailing at The 387 Cottage. After all, who really needs a shower anyways?

Light shines through a slatted shuttered window in a bathroom with gray walls.

Photo: Meghan & Al

The plan was simple: gut the whole thing and start a-new. At first glance, there wasn’t necessarily something wrong with every square footage of the space, but the closer you looked at the walls, floor, fixtures, etc., the more and more wrong you could see in every which direction.

dingy cracked tile

Photo: Meghan & Al
years of dirt and scum

Photo: Meghan & Al
duck taped fan

Photo: Meghan & Al

Yikes! These are bad. You would think that I’ve never cleaned a day in my life. But the truth is, scrub and scrub your little heart out but sometimes you just can’t fix old and ugly. And coming from an OCD neat freak like me, that means a lot. Oh, and if you were thinking you see duct tape behind the fan, you’d be 100% correct. Who needs screws when you can just duct tape the bad boy in!  But aside from the grimy, the two biggest offenses, in our minds, were the ceiling arch-way and the snake shower head. 

the snake shower head

Photo: Meghan & Al

Just don’t look directly at it and maybe it will go away. That thing still haunts me in my dreams. So it had to go– along with everything else in the space. We were going to gut, but first, we needed a plan. So we got online and clicked through Pinterest, Lowe’s.com and a few other favorite spots on the interwebs for a bit of inspiration to begin this journey. 

Inspiration Board with Chrome, Marble, and Grey Vanity

Here’s the direction we want to go in. A little Marble, chrome, and a dark grey vanity should do just the trick. You can see all the products, pictures, and materials that are inspiring our makeover on our Pinterest board:

Follow 387 Cottage’s board Existing Bath Ideas on Pinterest.

Now let’s see if we can actually pull this off… Stay tuned this week to see the final product!

This project is being sponsored by Lowe’s, and we’re excited to get their help making over our bathroom. However, all opinions are ours alone.

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4 Comments

  1. Oh man… that shower head is the creepiest. Can’t wait to see what you guys did with the space!

  2. that was my first thought too, that shower head looks vaguely medical and Dune-like at the same time.