But I went to the chain bookstore in the area. Sat at a table in their coffee shop and thumbed through decorating magazines. If I saw something I liked, I bought the magazine. For the websites, I searched bathroom remodel photos and saved them to my computer. After going through all the bathroom pictures, I had a general idea of what colors, fixtures, etc. I like.

you can start by doing the demo- take everything out. A full size walk in shower stall with walls is the same length and width as a full size bathtub- 5 feet.

Don't know the configuration of your bathroom hard to give advice- but I can tell you tile goes easy without obstructions such as the toilet or the vanity.

The last bathroom I did tile tub wall to ceiling on the tub surround and tile half way up the wall the rest of the space.

Paint on the upper walls and ceiling.

12 by 12 inch floor tiles on the floor.

That bathroom is 5'by 7'.

New tub, toilet and vanity' new facet bathtub and sink ,new lights and towel racks .

Turned out very nice. Didn't cost all that much. $3,000 something like that - sale on tile 2 gals. of paint - $350.00 spent on vanity -$400.00 on tub -$100.00 new valve assembly -$70.00 sink facet. -you get the picture.

The plumbing was all good so little change to the pipes.

A do it yourself bathroom remodle book is about $15. 00 at lowes or home depot. Has plenty of color pictures.

If you are hiring out the work- if you can find a contractor to do it on time and materials -or time and you buy the materials , pick it all out and bring it home- you can save money that way.

On that one the client did half the work- I made my money ,it turned out great and they sold that house !

We have a very small master bath and wanted to replace the tub with just a shower. I googled images first and was able to find lots of pictures with the same configuration as our bath.

My husband ripped everything out. Ordered the shower pan, soap niche, and shower seat online. Took out the drywall around the fixtures. We did bring in a professional plumber to replace the plumbing behind the wall. Husband did part and plumber did the rest.

We found tile in a local store and husband did all of the tiling. Already had a new toilet waiting to be installed. Found a vanity/sink combo that we liked and bought it. We had previously purchased the faucet set. Found a new light fixture and fixtures for the shower. Still need to purchase towel bar, toilet paper holder, towel ring, and switch plates. Husband bought 6 inch boards for the base trim and we still need to look for some molding to cover flaws near the ceiling. We discovered why the previous owner had installed the molding, lol.

We ordered a door for the shower but it has not been installed yet.

I chose the paint and am not totally thrilled with it but it is so much brighter than before so we'll live with it for a while.

I plan to total all the expenses once we're done but as I talked about in an earlier thread, the real cost seems to be labor! I consider this a middle class remodel because we didn't need custom everything or high end fixtures. This was a 50's bathroom so the change is dramatic even though it did not cost a fortune.

Try 'small bathroom design' or something like it.

Also, because your space is small, it might be easy to find enough tiles on craigslist or something.

hth

Last edited Mon Oct 8, 2012, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)

The 5'by 7' bathroom done in tile half way up the walls was done in plain old inexpensive white tiles.Nothing at all fancy.

The house is a one story rambler and it was put on the market.
The objective was simply to do something about the awful appearance of the bathroom which was an eye sore.

What turned out to be amazing is how much of a difference and how bright the plain old inexpensive white tile made the bathroom look. It actually seemed bigger .

Choosing tile can be a task in and of itself because there is so many different patterns and colors to choose from.

Is it all about showing your friends and neighbors your beautiful bathroom ?

The point being sometimes simple is better. Five days in a 5'by 7' space sucks even when it's gutted.

At the finish result that space actually did seem bigger. I don't think a fancy patterned tile effect will have made the same difference- surely it will have looked nice, but there is only so much you can do in a small space.

... I was thinking about tiling 1/2 way up, or maybe wainscotting -- this bathroom hasn't been remodeled since the early 1980's - colors are mismatched (the old walk in shower stall is a grungy beige) and the tile grout is about shot - also beige so half of the bathroom looks like it was vomited on - water damage to the surrounding drywall and baseboards ... I'm sure there's a healthy stash of mold back there too ... so its not about 'showing off' to friends/family ... its about finally doing the remodel to suit ME rather than just tolerating the musty skanky bathroom that came with the house I bought 5 years ago & couldn't afford to renovate at the time.

I'm not at all good at DIY but I do have a handyman who quoted me a reasonable price & timeframe if I supply the majority of the materials (obviously he doesn't expect me to know pipe sizes etc) ... I just can't find any deco ideas that really grab me and say "THIS is MY bathroom". I really like the modern stuff but it wouldn't jive with the rest of the house, which is just ... basic ... hardwoods, clean lines, but not super hi-tech gizmos/gadgets etc ...

Make sense?

I'm not a big fan of vanity cabinets in a small bathroom. Too many places for dirt to hide between the tub and vanity... or toilet and vanity. I prefer a pedestal sink.

I really like the Kohler Archer series pedestal for a bit of a modern flare to a classic design. The Archer has an accompanying toilet. You can see it at Home Depot ( it seems to be a big seller for them) and, better yet, buy it on-line at faucet direct.com. Save a few bucks AND sales taxes. Most of their stuff is free shipping for orders over 99 bucks.

I'm in Chicago so I, and all my friends, have small bathrooms. I feel your pain when it comes to magazines and websites featuring huge opulent bathrooms. What about us little guys?

I guess my main advice would be to don't get too stressed out or overwhelmed. You ain't re-inventing the wheel in a small bathroom. The floor plan is pretty much fixed (unless you want to move plumbing).

Stay away from super cheap faucets. Stay away from some of those house brands like Pegasus and Glacier Bay - complete junk.

I like the clean, uncluttered look of a pedestal but there is no storage in the bathroom so I have to have a vanity (and probably a medicine chest of sorts). My towels etc are all in the linen closet in the hallway.

We're getting ready to start his small 5x8 bath. He wants a vanity and I'm pushing the pedestal.

I like to be able to see the new tile I just installed on the floor

Maybe go with something on legs for a furniture look. Or floating See below.


Check out "Bertch" brand cabinets. I just installed them in two bathrooms and I was really impressed with the quality (soft close drawers etc.). The price is reasonable not a whole lot more than what you find at big box stores. You will probably only find them at a plumbing/bath showroom - ask for a contractor discount.

This is a 36" vanity on legs. It's hard to see (the other pain in the ass about small baths is taking pictures).

That's a china integral top. Very nice and reasonable compared to solid surfaces like corian or quartz. You can get granite pretty cheap these days.

The toilet is a Toto Aquia dual flush about - $430 at faucet direct , IIRC. (we gout ours through the plumbing supply locally)

The medicine chest/mirror combo is a Robern 16x36 inch recessed - about $275 locally (I think faucet direct carries that). Super clean look with nice interior. really good quality.

On legs:
The foot print in this bath is 67x67 Plus the inset for the walk in shower.



before caulking

Larger bath:
Floating large Bertch double (2x36=72) vanity with a very expensive corian top ($2k). They both picked the same 12x 24 porcelain floor tile. You can see it works in both large and small baths :

spending on those bathrooms, and as a rule in my work a bathroom remodel is only part of the job.

What I was getting at is you don't have to spend a lot of money on fancy color patterned tile, sometimes simple is actually better.

Plain old white tile or off white tile is the least expensive. Point being you don't have to go all out on tile to have a nice bright clean looking bathroom.

Been there at the $20,000 range- and when they go that far they usually put off spending the money where it is more important, that would be the kitchen .

My comment was not meant to offend you in any way.

The point is ,sometimes simple is better- .

And you are making good sense.

good luck with your project.

another small bathroom person here.

on your floor tile you can choose a tile that has a base color that compliments your wall tile -on the 5'by 7' we used a non gloss white base 12"by 12 " flooring tile with light grayish swirls.About $22.oo is what the flooring tile cost on sale . The home owner picked out the floor tile and took my suggestion about white wall tiles. I think the soap dish was about $15.00.

The home owner found the wall tiles on crags list ,a tile contractor sold him what was left over from a very large tile job -for $50.00. You can find some pretty cool deals if you look around. The search field he used on crags list was building materials.

I forget sometimes that what I'm seeing is in my head/in the bathroom and not visible to everyone else

But try to figure out why something works instead of spending $20k.

Bathroom seem bigger? Well, that's because they used lighter color paint on the walls.

Really like the tile wainscoting with fancy imported Italian marble? Well, you can do pretty similar with basic white tiles.

And so on. Get the ideas from the expensive remodels, but take a bit to figure out why those expensive remodels work. That'll give you insight into how to do similar on a reasonable budget.

You can plug in anything you want to get a ton of photographs of such as tubs, sinks, bathroom storage, etc..... and then put them on your own board of photos to keep. Sort of like Pinterest, but just dedicated to architecture, interiors, etc.. I have spent hours on that site and gotten some really good ideas. then you have them all in one place on your own collection.