Olivia Basement Bathroom

The second bathroom in the house, located in the basement, was blessed with a colorful floor tile, a dark, tiled shower and a water guzzling abode. We decided we needed to lighten it up. Although it is only a basement bathroom, the first floor lacks a powder room (common in antique homes!), and this led many guests to this embarrassing bathroom. However, keeping in mind the sub ground location, we did not want to pour a bunch of money into it and opted to do most of the work ourselves.

This first meant demolishing the existing tiles and fixtures. We donated every reusable material we could - here in Ann Arbor, the Reuse Center takes bathroom fixtures, and were happy to accept ours. We also found a newspaper under the shower pan, dating this bathroom's origination as 1982 (much more recent then our other bathroom, 1920!).

In the interest of lightening it up, we decided to remove the 3rd shower wall, and instead opt for a neo-angle shower, using an "in stock" pan and doors from Lowes. We also chose an Aqua Sense toilet, and a space-saving (and period-appropriate) pedestal sink.

I had seen in many antique houses a hexagon tile pattern, white with black flowers. However, the only place I could find this mosaic was online, and many customers had left negative comments (saying the white was far from white). Instead I decided to make my own pattern - and bought a bunch of white hexagon mosaic sheets, plus one black, cutting out one flower per square foot. For my first time tiling, it worked out pretty well!

After installing the shower pan, the next step was tiling the shower walls. Because I was tiling myself, I decided to continue the tiles around the bathroom as a tile wainscot. The only difference was the price of the tiles (not counting my sweat equity!), and subway tiles are pretty cheap. This also covered up many of the bumps and bruises on the bathroom walls.

Speaking of bumps and bruises, the bathroom ceiling was a mess after removing a wall, and replacing the light and fan. I thought I would try installing faux ceiling tiles (also period-appropriate), using textured wallpaper. I tried patching the holes and simply going over them with the paper... unfortunately this looked terrible! Note to do it yourselvers out there - know when to call a professional. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and well, drywall is not my strength. $250 later, we have a flawless ceiling, wall, and even a few holes in the laundry room walls are fixed, it was worth every dime.