Remodel of 1940's bathroom

16 years ago

Hi-

We are getting ready to remodel our 1940's bathroom (the only one in the house). It has a tub (no shower) and everything (tub, toilet, sink, tile) is that wonderful shade of peach.

I want to design a bath that will complement the character/age of the house, a colonial. That being said, I want it to be clear to anyone looking that it is a new, clean bathroom, not just a spiffed-up original.

Where can I get some inspiration and photographs? Anyone have their own experiences to share? All of my google searches have been fruitless, except to get me to this forum.

Thanks for your help!

Featured Answer

kec01

16 years ago

Jane Powell's Bungalow Bathrooms in awesome. It has tons of pix of period bathrooms and they aren't required to be in a bungalow.

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Comments (10)

bananafana
16 years ago
Have you seen Jane Powell's book "Bunglow Bathrooms"? It might give you some inspiration on interesting older styles that you can work with and give a modern twist. I really like her books.
calliope
16 years ago
Go to the HGTV site and mess around there. I found one section of it with HUNDREDS of pictures of bathrooms done in all styles from modern, to arts and crafts, to traditional.
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Couple of questions, do you know what type of walls are in use in the rest of you house. In construction from the 30's they applied a cement type of material on typically on a metal mesh for bathroom locations. I can't say I've dealt with 40's bathrooms. In my former mid 30's home the previous owners had removed old tiles and retiled over the base. For the most part it held good expect for an area where they had patched the opening for the recessed soap dish with a non water resistant material. I used a concrete patch to fill in the gap, and then used tile repair material available at most home stores. I had a tile guy come in for my 1/2 bath at that home to determine how to deal with some cracked and loose tiles and he mentioned that product is quite strong and it doubles as grout too. Just follow instructions.
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I don't know where you are, but B&W tile in Riverside (and Gardena), CA has reproduction tile. I've been to their Riverside store, and I seem to recall seeing tile with that kind of texture to it. I recommend calling them (their website doesn't show any glazes, just tile shapes) to ask. The Riverside store is (951)715-4630. Here is a link that might be useful: B&W tile
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I got the cabinets through Home Depot (20% off) they are not higher end but they have held up extremely well and we’ve been happy with them. I don’t remember the brand, but the color is cognac on maple. They’re standard kitchen cabinets. We got 2 regular drawer banks, 1 extra wide drawer bank, 2 sink cabinets and the closet you can see in the picture for about 1800 w/the discount. We bumped the shower wall 6 inches into the bedroom to make the shower bigger, pulled the cabinets out from the wall a couple of inches to provide more counter top. And curved the edge the counter for interest. Just for fun, this is what we had to start with. The tub was rusted and there were two doors, 1 from the hall & 1 from the master bedroom, we closed up the hall door. I think we got our moneys worth. LOL As for the labor, I found my Contractor through a plumber I had hired to put in a kitchen faucet. I asked if he had someone good he could refer and he referred Matt to me. Matt had his own company but just him and his guys. All of his work was by word of mouth, he didn’t advertise or push for business, he didn’t need to. I think I got fair pricing from him because he didn’t have the overhead a lot of the larger companies might have. He wasn’t the least expensive and he wasn’t the most expensive. Finding someone who was willing to work on our schedule and not having to have it done ASAP is what really helped me to be able to keep our costs at a minium for both labor and materials.
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We renovated recently and removed an old cast iron tub that had been reglazed badly several times - it was tough for our plumbing team to find someone to cut it up and get it down the narrow stairs.. we opted for an acrylic model for our replacement, I absolutely love old things too but definitely appreciate the new pipes that our team was able to run to the new bath as well as a nice level subfloor 😅
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dainaadele
16 years ago
On ebay, do a search for old bathroom advertisements. I went looking for some to use as artwork in our new bath, and I had had a free history lesson in the search process.
kimteague_tds_net
13 years ago
Hi, I realize this is a posting from 2007 but when I read it after all the web surfingI have done and found nothing to help me I couldn't believe it, I thought I had written this myself. I have the same bathroom issue and color and was curious what you ended up doing In your bathroom. I have the peach tile from 1940 chest high and the small subway mosaic tile on the floor. I also have a chest high tile modesty wall between toilet and sink? I can't figure out what color to paint since tearing out the tile would be very expensive and I'm not sure I rally want to be rid of it. I feel like it's much more sanitary. I want to remodel but am having so much trouble finding a sink to fill in the area. It is so small and the door opens right next to the sink. I'm guessing they designed much differently in the 40s. I'd love to see pics of your remodel. Thanks, Kim Teague
skyedog
13 years ago
Kim,
I don't know if you've been to the Retro Renovation site. They have a lot of pics and articles on colors from the era etc. I think there's info on sourcing fixtures too.

I have three bathrooms from the 40's and have decided to keep them intact but have been looking for ideas to "update" them so I feel your pain. You really have to search around the site, I don't think it is organized very well and I often miss info I'm looking for the first go around.

Here is a link that might be useful: retro renovation
kimteague_tds_net
13 years ago
Thank you skyedog for the link, it was very helpful. I think I have determined that I have the original Crane tub (color- Sun Tan), unfortunately the toilet and sink were removed before we purchased our home. I did find one link to purchase a "new" Crane sink in Sun Tan that someone found along with the tub, toilet, etc the whole set, imagine that, such old stuff found in original packing and never opened. Whether or not it is affordable remains to be seen or whether it is still available, maybe I will hear back from the gentleman today. If not, I think I will keep looking for the original sink style and color and hold out, sooner or later one has to turn up that is affordable....right? Lol. Now my biggest hurdle is finding a paint color to go with my sun tan fixtures, lighter tan tile with salmon trim.......all my samples are yuck! matching the salmon trim looks to fleshy and since I have no sample to color match it's a trial and error thing. I'm thinking sable brown might be the way to go rather than color. Anyway, thank you for the link.
columbusguy1
13 years ago
Kim, try the link I"ve added here--lots of pics of period rooms, especially kitchens and baths.
You might keep an eye on Craigslist for the fixtures, if no one else has them. Also, Freecycle.
How about a nice light coral for the color? Sherwin Williams had a nice period color I used in mine.

Here is a link that might be useful: Picasa House Pics
ideagirl2
13 years ago
Could you carefully remove the vanity wall, using some of the tile from it to patch the wall it abuts? I don't know what you could use to patch the floor... But anyway, just a thought on how you could get a bit more room for the sink.
kimteague_tds_net
13 years ago
That is a good suggestion and when I mentioned it to my husband he thought so too but after looking at it we both just really like the wall....go figure. I think we have decided on a wall mount sink in bone until we can find the correct vintage color sink to match the tub. Everytime I think I'm sure of the color I find another that is so similar. I wish there was a clue at the brand of tub and color somewhere on it. I did go to sherwin williams and get their period paint samples and found a color I like. It was almost comical when we took the light fixture off there a small spec left of the original paint color. I guess when we took the wallpaper down and painted ourselves when we first bought the home we had forgotten about the peach paint (it matches the sherwin williams sample perfectly) now to figure out the color of the tub.

Remodel of 1940's bathroom

kec01

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bananafana

calliope

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