We are rocking and rolling in our master bathroom renovation which also happens to be the smallest bathroom in the house, or at least it was. ;) No longer my friends! Today, I’m sharing a bit of the behind the scenes of our small bathroom renovation process, my favorite small bathroom ideas, our new small bathroom floor plan and all the products we’ve selected to turn this tiny, not so awesome bathroom – into the bathroom of my dreams.
Small Bathroom Ideas
It’s been fun so far. ;) So this master bathroom of ours has been a LONG time in coming. We’ve had this pretty bathtub sitting in our bedroom for the past year just waiting to be installed. Last fall, we thought we’d bust out the downstairs bathroom real quick before jumping into this one. Which you may know, took a LOT longer than planned. HA! But I’m learning that’s how this whole DIY house thing seems to work.
So after tackling the kids bathroom and finishing the basement bathroom renovation – we were finally ready to bring this bathroom some new life with so many small bathroom ideas I had in mind.
Here’s a quick before shot so you can see exactly what our small bathroom dilemmas were and here is my bathroom inspiration post, where you can see all the pretty ideas about the space.
I hoped to add more light, an enormous claw foot tub and a statement shower (all in a very small bathroom!). My hope was to make this space feel like it matched the rest of the house – instead of a run down motel bathroom. Which is the current vibe happening in these before shots.
*Just a note, the bathroom actually did have a glass shower door that we took out the first week we moved in, because EWWWW – it was gross. So for the last year or so we’ve had a shower curtain just stuck into the ceiling with push pins. We run things very high class around here! ;)
My favorite of all the small bathroom ideas was my desire to bring a new life to our floor with statement tile.
In all the other bathrooms we played it pretty safe with our tile selection – but being such a small space and one I’ll use everyday, we decided to go for it with bold patterned concrete tile. I can’t even start to tell you how much I love it! It brings such substance to the small bathroom and really makes the room feel like a special space.
Small Bathroom Remodel Ideas
Here are the 3 small bathroom remodel ideas that we decided to incorporate along the way to make the bathroom, even though it is small, work for us.
1. Open up the window
So the first thing that I will say to do in ALL bathrooms both big and small, is to bring in more light via a larger window! We did this in the basement bathroom as well and again up here. This has become one of my go-to small bathroom ideas to instantly make everything feel larger.
We took out the dinky, frosted window and installed a gorgeous one that takes up most of the wall above the bathtub. If you read our bathroom inspiration post, you’ll know I have big dreams of staring out at the mountains while I enjoy a glass of wine in our bathtub.
I realize large windows might not work in every bathroom situation, but thankfully this bathroom is on the second story and looks out to the trees so it works great for us. If you need ideas for more viable windows this podcast episode does a great job sharing tips for that.
2. Choose glass where you can
Instead of closing in the shower with walls on three sides, we chose this gorgeous paneled glass from Coastal Shower Doors. Having glass there instead of a wall instantly opens up the space and helps it to feel much larger than it actually is. The door itself is really pretty and was a cinch to install. I can’t wait to see how it all looks once completed.
We also opted for a large circle mirror that will hang on the far wall to further bring in light and the open feeling. The more glass the merrier is my new small bathroom mantra! Vanities are not the only place that you can put a mirror in a bathroom remodel.
3. Open vanities for the win
This last tip in my small bathroom remodel ideas was not necessarily a planned one. If you follow along on my IG stories, you’ll know we had originally picked out a pretty Kohler vanity and once we put it in place, because this bathroom is so small – it definitely did not work. We opted instead for an open source counsel table that we will be installing a vessel sink on top. The openness of the vanity makes the entire room feel large and fresh. It’s a great way to make a small bathroom feel large.
Small Bathroom Floor Plans
So our small bathroom floor plans included adding a bit more space to the bathroom. We ended up gaining what you see here, basically the shower and door space to make my small bathroom layout work. When we built out the master closet last year, it allowed us to open up our master bedroom to where the old closet had been, which then allowed us to bump out this bathroom wall about 36″ and not end up making the master bedroom look too small.
How we bumped a wall out and survived to tell about it! This is hands down the best of the best small bathroom ideas ever – just somehow, find a little more space if you can.
Bumping out the wall to make my small bathroom floor plans work, was actually one of the easier parts of creating this bathroom. We took out the flooring in the bathroom area and Matt put up studs, ran the electricity where we needed and and drywalled the entire thing. I’ll be sharing the other side of this wall, where we installed a fireplace for our bedroom soon.
After learning our lesson in laying our own DIY shower pan downstairs, we bought a kit to create a shower in the space. It was much much easier! Please if you’re going to ever attempt this, use a kit. Ha! We’ve learned a lot so far renovating these 3 bathrooms.
Once we had the layout all set up, it was time to pick out our products! The fun part. :) Here are all my small bathroom renovation ideas in product form.
1. Shower Tile // 2. Overhead Light // 3. Mirror // 4. Faucet // 5. Large Wall Mirror // 6. Open Vanity // 7. Fireplace // 8. Floor Tile // 9. Clawfoot Bathtub //10. Shower Head // 11. Glass Shower Door
The tile is being finished this week and then we just have the installation of everything and the last minute details to finish. We are working hard to get it done.
This bathroom renovation is being completed in partnership with Kolher, Wayfair and Coastal Shower Doors. I can’t wait to share the finished space soon!
