Hubs and I have decided to start putting away money & slowly start buying things we need to renovate our main bathroom. It is not going to be easy. The bathroom is so dang small. Probably about a 6 x 6 square. The items in there make it feel very small so one of the main goals is to find ways to make it appear and feel larger then it really is. And nope, there is no way to make it bigger. On one side is our dining area, the other is our son’s bedroom, the back is the outside of the house and the door is at a 90deg angle for the door to our son’s room. And is partially blocked by the vents for our heater – which is way too expensive to move.

But! This can be a good thing because we won’t be tempted to make this HUGE fancy bathroom like you see on the tv. No room for a tv or coffee maker. Just one that works for our family of three. One doesn’t have several different tiles in it (shower, non-shower walls and floor) that don’t match. 

With wanting to make it feel larger, we are going to have to do some eye deceiving tricks. Our vanity is a large wood one that goes from the floor to the sink in a black formation. No openings to make it feel lighter or more spacious. It does seem someone else had attempted to make some changes by painting it white from the original dark wood. Unfortunately, they did not paint it correctly so its very streaky and you can see clumps of dirt in the paint. The same goes for the vanity mirror with medicine cabinet – which is wall mounted. Our goal for this area will be to make it feel more open. The sink area is right next to the door so it would be nice to open it up a bit.

Sink Area

First goal – buy a recessed medicine cabinet. It would be nice to just have a mirror but with a bathroom that is so small, we need all the storage we can get. This will give us several inches of space that will no longer be taken up by (once again) a badly painted medicine cabinet. Maybe then I can have a towel holder that is more then just a hook or another recessed storage space for the side wall. Would be nice for some smaller things like cotton swabs, etc.

The next is the sink and cabinet. We have been ‘floating’ around the idea of a floating cabinet with a simple sink. Hubs likes the idea of a corner vanity which would give us a bit more room around the toilet. Both are good. We have been watching a lot of House Hunters International esp ones in older cities where they have very old buildings for homes with limited space in them. Kind of like our bathroom space. What have they done to theirs to make it feel luxurious and roomy but with limited capacity. You don’t see too many spa like bathrooms in the tiny apartments of Paris or London but they are well done. This will come down to research and pricing. Ikea has floating vanities for around $300 and corner vanities that don’t look cheap can be around the same amount. More then we want to spend so we will be doing a lot of shopping to see what we can find. Looks like we will be making some trips to the Habitat for Humanity store and the Extras (places they sell left overs from stores) store to see what they have on hand.

Painting

I think I am going to attempt to keep the bathroom the yellow we already have it painted. Its bright and it makes the room feel less claustrophobic. I would like to take the tiles off the walls that are not in the shower area and just paint to the floor. I don’t see a reason for tiles on the walls in non-showering areas. They are pain to keep clean. If not, maybe a nice wall paper but with a small space, I want to keep it simple. A basic light yellow would work wonders.

That is all for now… more later on ideas and planning for a renovation of our bathroom. We are aiming for about 6 months of planning, researching, and buying before we start. Spread it out.