This Bathroom Makeover Moved the Tub to a Funky (but Functional!) Place
Rachel Thompson’s bathroom renovation was a labor of love — especially considering where it started. It looked like “a public park bathroom,” or “like a bathroom in an abandoned train station where nightmares go to hang out and relax,” as Rachel says. Needless to say, it was unkempt and dirty, with not much square footage to work with. “The bathroom needed to be completely gutted,” Rachel adds.
One of her main goals for the space was to separate the bathtub and shower areas — to her, that makes an en suite feel “luxurious” — but there wasn’t much space, so she had to get creative. Here’s how she reworked the layout to separate the shower and bath, and added style to the room to boot.
The tub now sits on a diagonal.
The toilet shifted to the left, and the tub (the same one as before, just cleaned, refinished, and “minus the nightmares,” Rachel says) moved to the wall across from where it once was, though it points outward from the corner.
Rachel says this is the design feature that stands out the most about the bathroom — and it allowed her and her husband, John, to add a standing shower to the right of the partition. She also shouts out her father-in-law, Dan, for doing much of the physical labor so that the total project cost could stay under $5K.
The art deco tile is spaced out to save money.
Rachel and John did hire a pro tiler for the project. “We had to leave the shower unfinished for almost a year because we didn’t have the money to hire a professional tile person for a while,” she says. “But then I had a vision! I really loved those big green art deco tiles but knew I couldn’t afford to do the whole shower in them, so I came up with the idea to scatter them about in a pattern.”
And speaking of tile, “I made the little tiled medicine cabinet, and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever made,” Rachel says.
Red walls add even more personality.
Rachel and John painted the walls of the bathroom Behr’s Mars Red, and the complementary colors demonstrate Rachel’s love of “tension” in interior design. “I love brown and green,” she previously told Apartment Therapy. “I love lavender and red.” To read more about Rachel’s design style and see the rest of her home, check out her full house tour.
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