"Dial 911"

There are so many things wrong with this bathroom design that I hardly know where to begin, but what I dislike most about this bathroom, I suppose, is that it’s mine! Almost sixteen years ago my wife and I fell in love with this house and bought it, but the three burrs under the saddle have always been the kitchen and the two bathrooms, all of which are in serious need of remodeling. And, just to compound the problem, enlarging these rooms is out of the question, because it would require a major remodeling that we are not willing to undertake. All I can do, I told my wife, is make of these rooms a jewel box with my cabinetmaking skills. The actual making of these jewel boxes, though, has proven to be something of a problem, which brings us to the subject of this blog.

With any 911 call, the first thing the police or firemen do is assess the damage, so let’s do that. Because of the size, or more precisely, the lack of size, everything in this bathroom is on top of everything else. The sink vanity is by the toilet is by the tub/shower. But that’s just the beginning.

It was almost impossible to take these pictures because the light bounced off the walls, and because I couldn’t really get the angles I wanted, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that the vanity has no drawers at all, just a pair of doors that opens on a space under the sink. This means, in turn, that the paraphernalia any bathroom needs (or is that accumulates?) is jumbled under the sink in a catch-as-catch-can hodgepodge. And, to add insult to injury, the manufacturers of this particular vanity cut more corners by giving it an eight-inch toekick, thereby requiring less material for the doors (hollow-core, of course!).

The countertop is porcelain old as the house (37 years) and looks it, having begun to craze. The porcelain-clad sink is chipped, and there is no place to put a hand towel or tissue holder. The tub/shower is preformed plastic of some sort that has been in there much too long, and the shower curtain gives me the heebie-jeebies. The mirror over the sink vanity is the absolute cheapest available, as is the medicine cabinet.

Finally, there is the issue of the dimensions of the existing pieces, especially the sink vanity, which is only 37" long. The wall behind the medicine cabinet is actually the back wall of the hall closet, which means that I am stuck with this truncated vanity. Well, not this particular vanity, I assure you. That baby is going straight to the dumpster. But what I am stuck with is the actual size of the unit, as I cannot exceed these dimensions with anything I eventually design for the space.

With all this to work with, then, the question now becomes, how in the world am I going to remodel this bathroom and make it look, not just refurbished, but luxurious? I bring that up because many of the readers of this blog have the same problem in their own homes. Yes, they’re willing to remodel. No, they are not willing to go to the expense of a "tear-down-the-walls" remodeling that will expand the size of a minuscule bathroom. So, what does one do with such a space?

Well, to be honest about it, I don’t know myself at this moment. But what I do know is that I do not want to replace this bathroom with a new vanity and new appliances that look pretty much like the old, the only difference being that they’ve just come out of the box. I want to do something different, something better, and because I’m only going to do this once, I want to make very certain that what I do is the best that can be done for this space.

Well, that decision is some time off, because as I said, I want to be sure of myself before I proceed. In the meantime I have been searching the Internet for bathroom ideas, in part for my own bathroom, in larger part for anyone’s bathroom. There is an astounding wealth of ideas these days, and my partner and I have been exploring them on our sister site.

In time I mean to make of this disaster the jewel box I promised to my wife, and when I do I will share the details of it with you on this site. Between now and then, though, you may want to join us on CFT411. No matter what you’re looking for in a remodeling of any room in your house, we will eventually cover it because we’re cabinetmakers. That’s what we do.

Joseph