a tale of three bathrooms

Many of the homes we looked at during our search were seriously lacking in the bathroom department. Even homes that went for over a million required eventual bathroom remodels. We knew with the purchase of our current home that we were likely going to remodel the powder room (for less than $5,000) and would make cosmetic changes to the two full baths while saving up for a full remodel on the full guest bath. We are now moving forward on some of these projects and I'm sharing an update on recently made decisions and future plans with more in-progress photos to come.

POWDER ROOM

This room has been a sore eye from day one. It was covered in ghastly cream colored vinyl wallpaper (which I've mostly peeled off by hand), had a miniscule vanity that was actually too small for the space, and was accented with polished nickel hardware (my least favorite metal finish).

After several months of trying out wallpaper samples and scouring the internet for quality but not terribly expensive vanities, I settled on the following:

The wallpaper is from Anthropologie's Rifle Paper Co. collection and struck me as fun but still sophisticated and goes well with bronze or gold hardware. This Room and Board Berkeley vanity is 26 inches, which is a few inches longer than the current vanity. It has a white quartz sink and a walnut finish. Above the vanity, we will mount a rectangular mirror with rounded edges, perhaps this one from Pottery Barn. Lastly, we will add gold hardware and a gold vanity light. I love this Anthropologie sconce. We plan to keep the marble flooring. The vanity is backordered until the end of February (story of everyone's life) so our contractor will start on the remodel then.

PRIMARY BATH

The primary bath is on the lower level and has a lower ceiling due to the HVAC. This creates a bit of a cave vibe, which I am channeling into a "spa" theme for this bathroom. Current state of the primary bathroom:

The first step was a fresh coat of paint in the above photo. We wanted to find something that went with the stone and chose Benjamin Moore Cashmere Grey, which I really love, even though I was not looking for something with green undertones originally. I am planning to keep the polished nickel hardware for now since it's already in the shower and would be a hassle to change out throughout but may look to update the light fixture.

Old paint color here (a grey that felt meh). The next step of this project is to change out the vanity, which feels heavy and outdated. The floors are already a dark charcoal and I want to lighten up the vanity area so I'm looking for either a floating vanity that fits in the space or I may work with my contractor to build a floating vanity.

I'm aiming for a vanity similar to the below photo:

The dark floor in the below bathroom is very similar to the one in our primary bath.

I love the simple feel of this bathroom and contrast with the blue tile (below).

If I do change out the hardware, I would probably go with chrome but might entertain gold since it looks so good here. This would really be the big change in the primary bath. Otherwise we love the shower and feel and this bathroom meets our needs for now.

GUEST BATH

This bathroom is on the main level and situated next to the two guest bathrooms so it is used frequently by guests. The walls are painted this yellow-y cream, which isn't awful but feels very bland with the dark vanity and yellowish floor tile.

As a first step, I'm in the process of painting the bathroom Benjamin Moore Wind's Breath, to provide more brightness and feeling of "clean." As a next step, I'd like to switch out the lighting with gold/bronze sconces similar to the below and change up the mirror, maybe a big round mirror. We really haven't done anything in here and just threw in some coral Horchow towels for now. I also want to get rid of that sink ASAP.

Additional work will require our contractor. This isn't in the budget at the moment but we'd love to hack the current shower and turn this into a standing bath/shower area. Inspiration below.

This structure for the bath/shower would work in the guest bathroom if we moved a few things around.

I love the neutral tones and tile in this bathroom and might aim for something like this with gold undertones. We would also switch out the vanity to something more mid-century. With free standing tubs around $1,000 and estimates for vanity removal/installation and tile, we would probably expect to spend around $10,000 for this project so we're aiming for next year.

While this month has been a bit challenging due to the COVID surges and endless snow, it has also been an optimal time for home improvement and brainstorming on future mid-century design. Do you have any projects planned for your home? Tell us in the comments!