Before & After: A Sloped Bathroom Shapes Up
Faced with an awkwardly shaped ceiling, Catherine and Bryan had to get creative and totally rethink the space of this bathroom.
From Catherine:
This bathroom was the only room in the house that needed some {major} love. It was the only bathroom on the second floor, and awkward was an understatement.
Our biggest priorities when renovating the space were:
1. Ditch the tub and replace it with a shower that’s more comfortable to use (and prettier, of course!).The tub was small, right by the door, and almost entirely in the slope, which meant lots of head bumping was going on.
2. Create a sink/vanity/mirror situation that doesn’t involve bending backwards and bumping heads. Previously, you had to look up to do your make up, and you would almost always bump your head when bending down to use the sink.
After tossing around a million different ideas, we ultimately decided to reconfigure the entire space to get both the shower and vanity out of the slopes and into the center of the room. This would allow our clients to stay the highest part of the ceiling while they’re showering, brushing teeth, etc. instead of having to go into the slopes. Being that one of our clients is 6’10”, this was super important!
In our new layout, we moved the shower across the room and doubled its size, added a wall to the middle of the room to separate the new vanity area and toilet area, and created built-in shelving & barn doors in the unused knee wall area.
Everything in the bathroom had to be customized because of its unique space. On the left of the room, we built custom shelves and barn doors to close off a laundry nook where rolling laundry carts could be stored. We moved the shower to the back of the room and tiled the entire inside and outside with crisp, white subway tile.
We also replaced the old vanity with a custom vanity that Bryan built out of cedar 4x4s and pipe. We stained it with a mix of classic grey and dark walnut, and added a marble top that we cut and installed ourselves.
During demo, we found an exposed brick wall that was painted white. We couldn’t get all of the paint off of the wall where the shower used to be, so we worked with it by hand painting a fun vintage sign on it.
Thank you, Catherine! You can see more of the space on Catherine’s blog Beginning in the Middle.