We remodeled our 1940s bathrooms when we bought this house, so five years ago. We have two bathrooms, so one is mine, the other is DH’s. My bathroom is 8’x8’. If you mentally divide it into quarters, one quarter is the shower (rain shower head plus handheld shower), one quarter is the bathtub–a 40" round Japanese soaking tub that’s 33" deep (we cut down into the basement so that its ledge is 24"–steps up, sit on edge, swing legs over, step onto seat, step down into deepest part, sit down to soak)–the rest functions as the house powder room, with toilet, cabinet with drawers below and glass shelves above, pedestal sink at 31" (I’m short and I hate 36" sinks), standard toilet. Got the Kohler extra-slick easy-to-clean toilet, and it actually is easier to clean than other toilets I’ve had. Italian bathroom heater that also functions as a towel heater. In-floor heat I rarely use because I notice the hit to the electricity bill and it bugs me more than cold feet. Just one hook for my bathrobe and a towel bar. Almost everything lives in well-organized drawers in the wall cabinet. Towels–lots of them, rolled for neatness–on the glass shelves. I like an uncluttered look. Reading light in the wall over the bathtub.
I have distinct prejudices in bathroom design and didn’t follow any of the usual. I like a pedestal sink because you have no place for clutter to accumulate. I like low toilets. I like the shower separate from the tub. I want a shower door so there’s no draft. I’d rather have a deep tub than a long tub. I love my deep tub because it takes “only” 45 gallons and thus doesn’t take long to fill, nor does it use all the hot water.
DH’s bathroom is very different–very luxurious shower with three showerheads, heated floor which he uses, high toilet, huge cabinets. No tub. His cabinet top is always covered with things. I’m delighted not to share a bathroom with him
@arisamp – could you leave the linen closet where it is but annex a portion of it for use in the bathroom? We stole space from a really large hall linen closet and built towel shelves in the bathroom. Added a stacked W/D unit on other side of hall closet and still had storage space in side we annexed.
@FlyMeToTheMoon, there is no current kitchen thread, but if you start one, I’ll be there! DH and I moved into a 1963 house two years ago and dramatically updated the kitchen and the attached family room and powder room. I have ideas!!
We’re planning on expanding and renovating our master bath and have done a few things already. I love our new Toto toilet. It’s not the dual flush one because I wanted the handle on the side. It has a lid that goes down slowly so no crashing. And I don’t like comfort height - I’m only 5’4" so I prefer the standard height.
We only have a big, cast iron tub in the MBR and needed to replace the enclosure and so we matched what was elsewhere in the house:
Totally rock-sold and beautiful! The shower head doesn’t look like much but it works really, really well. We have some older ones in the house, before there were low-flows and they’re just insanely good!
We have a window where the bottom panes are etched for privacy. I don’t like it that much but it’s easier than dealing with blinds or curtains. We may leave it.
I just put radiant heat floor in my daughter’s remodeled bathroom. We all love to go in there with our socks on and stand on the floor. It wasn’t even expensive. I haven’t gotten the bill from the electrician yet but I think he said the unit was only $350.00. Also, he put in a exhaust fan with a timer in there. She just punches and # (10, 20 or 30) and it shuts off automatically.
We redid our master bath last year and my wife comments almost daily about how happy she is that we did this. Our MBR is on the first floor. Aside from the usual, nice big tile, high countertops, really beautiful granite countertops, the 2 sort of unusual things are, 1. No bathtub. We never used it and we don’t miss it now. It is a large space, so we could have easily fit one in… and 2, the good size shower has a zero threshhold, ie no curb. We joke that when we get older we will be able to wheel right into the shower, but meanwhile it is very smooth and clean looking to have no curb to step over to get into the shower.
The master bath in our first house had a bidet, so H and I became “hooked” and put them in all of our full bathrooms when we built our current home. Could never do without it now…akin to brushing one’s teeth before bed.
We put a European-style bidet in our house in the US. But now having tried different bidet configurations:
European-style standalone bidet
Separate sprayer on a wall-mounted hose (an easy solution in tropical climes were tap water is of comfortable temperature)
Japanese-style washlet (a single integrated toilet with bidet spray system)
I prefer the Japanese washlet for ease of use, space saving, heated seat.
For the European-syle bidets, I don’t like the delay of waiting for hot water. And I don’t like the inconvenience of getting up from the toilet to move to the bidet. <>
We redid our bath about 7 years ago. Two areas where I would do it differently:
I designed the countertops after these gorgeous octagon sinks that went with the overall look of the tile (kind of a Roman bath look). But the countertop is “bumped out” as a result, and so I’m farther from the mirror when I’m at the sink, which is not good as my eyes get older. I had to get a small mirror that sits on the countertop for makeup, etc.
I got a deep steeping tub - I do love soaking in a tub - but the jets are fairly high up, so it’s got to be almost all the way filled to use them. In hindsight, I would either not do jets, or find a model that has them low in the tub. The model we got sold has colored lights, which are really stupid - I don’t need to glow green, blue, red when I’m in the tub.
I have a pretty small sized bathroom. if I could renovate it, i would put in heated flooring and then tile it. I’d also get a new tub without the surround that is currently there. I’d tile it instead. I’d also try to find a way to build in more cabinetry. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Since this isn’t in the budget, i’ve been researching heat lamps for overhead similar to what they have in hotels - Lol.
PG - we recently renovated our outdoor whirlpool and installed LED lights that change color…the red is the creepiest - and I fail to see the point. Apparently, the option did not add any additional expense, and with the changeover to LEDs we’re going to see colored lights pretty much in every lighted product available. My youngest S and his friends do seem to appreciate it the most…at our last baseball team party, I counted 15 boys in the glowing red tub.
So - we think we are going to put in a double shower and take out the tub. We will have a tub in the house. I am going to build a make up/ jewelry, accessory place instead of the tub. The master is not huge - it’s an older house. I know it eliminates some buyers without a master tub - but I feel like a bigger master closet for the woman and this big area for her stuff will make up for that with a lot of folks. AND I want it!
We just downsized and remodeled. Our big decision was to take our son’s entire room and morph it into a huge master bath and master closet. Instead of keeping 3 rooms for 3 kids who will not be home much ever again we made an executive decision. He can choose to sleep on the pullout sofa in the office or in one of the other bedrooms if his sisters aren’t home when he comes to visit.
We put in a huge cabinet with double sink; comfort height toilet (with super flush!); lots of lights; tiled shower with shower head that can turn into a handheld.
We also put a deep soaking tub in the other bathroom to replace the shallow old tub in case we ever need to soak.
Replaced kitchen and dining fluorescent lights with daylight LEDs. Just replaced the ceiling light near the master toilet with the same. Now H can read his magazines on the throne easily! Already have some fluorescent tubes with cooler light in baths (kept from original when redid things). We like the brightness- and so do our aging eyes. Consider lighting types in the bath.
Don’t forget grab bars. If you will be aging in place, you will appreciate them as you get older. I insisted on grab bars when we redid the bathrooms at our lake homes. Love them.
