Pic of Athena Calderone’s bathroom

I’ve previously shared some details on phase one of our house renovation and while we haven’t completely finished these rooms, we’ve decided we’re ready to tackle phase two. This phase will see most of the outsourced work that has to be done inside our house completed. Unfortunately right after we committed, coronavirus and lockdown struck. As lockdown has started easing, the workers are returning. So we’ll finally get our master bathroom plumbed and tiled.

My husband and I are tackling the painting and woodwork ourselves. Hence why we aren’t finished with phase one yet. It is time consuming, but makes our budget spread a little further and also means we have less contractors in our home.

I like comparing the before, after and plans for other people’s renovations and thought you would like to do the same. It will take some months for us to finish off this bathroom, so I fully anticipate some details changing.

Before I delve into our plan, please enjoy our bathroom before in all its glory. The listing photo shows the short curtains, cream bath and 80’s tiling beautifully. While we still don’t love the arch, we have a plan to hopefully make it work.

We aren’t changing much in the bathroom layout, so the two biggest changes besides all new everything is the freestanding tub and no tiles on the wall (except for the shower area). The walls will be painted in the same warm white as our kitchen and we plan on eventually adding some wood trims where it makes sense.

Hopefully once the arch has been beautifully smoothed and painted it will frame the freestanding tub and relate more to the rest of the bathroom. We’ve already replaced the old wood window frame with an aluminium frosted glass one, so there is no need to add curtains. We might consider some sort of window treatment in the future to add warmth.

The whole bathroom centered around the freestanding tub and beautiful matte gold tapware from Vado. We’re so happy that we managed to score both on sale at Victorian Side Bathrooms. We almost definitely would have skipped on these with the current exchange rate.

We’ll be running the 30×60 cm marble tiles from floor into the shower and up the shower walls. Sourcing the matte gold tile trim has proved to be one of the trickier parts, but it should arrive here shortly and will hopefully be beautiful.

We’ll add the vanity in its alcove at a later stage, but we’re leaning towards a reeded finish for the drawer fronts. Otherwise we’ll go with a trusty shaker style. We definitely haven’t given enough thought as to the counter top, but we have some marble off-cuts  from our kitchen that would be the most budget-friendly option. As mentioned, this definitely is not a One Room Challenge situation. I’m just looking forward to getting the mess over and one with. This bathroom will be a labour of love likely taking shape over months. W

Overall we want a bathroom that feels classic, soft and warm with a few contemporary touches. Hopefully in a year’s time we will have that!