Hall Bath: Before

view from door/hallway.

We believe the hall bath was original to the house, built in 1925. I’m not sure how it survived nearly a hundred years because it did not function as a full bathroom. It had no shower (tub only), no outlet, and no AC. As such, we used it mostly as a powder room. Our tiny primary bathroom had been updated, but was so small my husband claimed the hall bathroom vanity as his and used it to get ready after showering in our bathroom.

When we hosted friends and family, we all had to stagger getting ready and use our bathroom or send folks to the basement (which our realtor joked was the nicest bathroom in the house). Most everyone preferred to wait in line for our bathroom to avoid the trek up and down to the basement.

The hall bathroom did have a lot going for it though. It was a good size and flooded with East facing light in the morning which made it such a nice space to get ready in.

It was top on our list of spaces to renovate and I knew from the start that I wanted to change the floorplan. Originally, you walked into the bathroom and the tub was straight ahead with the toilet to the right and vanity across from the toilet. I thought walking into a tub was weird (though seemingly common in our area) and to add a shower, we’d have to add a wall which would’ve made the space feel smaller and the access to the toilet and vanity area tighter.

original layout

So, we moved the tub to the far wall where the vanity and toilet were originally. That allowed us to position the vanity front and center when you enter.

new layout

It is always more expensive to change the layout of a space because doing so entails moving plumbing and electrical. But this space needed considerable electrical work and we assumed there was water damage or structural issues in the floorboards because the tile was uneven in corners and broken up on the floor. So, we figured extensive work would be required and getting the best layout possible was worth it.

To our complete surprise, demolition revealed no water damage or structural issues. The uneven floor tile was likely due to additional toilet parts found in the center of the room. We’re not sure why or how there were toilet parts there (it makes no sense location wise), but we think someone may have made a mistake and simply tiled over it. A hundred years of weight and house settlement eventually caused the tile to break around the slight height difference caused by the extra, unnecessary plumbing.

you can see how the tile doesn’t line up on the wall in corner. also a break in floor tile

I’ll share the finish selection and design in a separate post. But, our selections were inspired by the original!