Craftsman

Little Cottage on Chester · More Info

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Farmhouse

Furlong, PA // Bathroom Renovations · More Info

Bathrooms are not CountryBath Land Theme Park inside a larger collection of Theme Parks. Your house has a style. And that isn’t compatible with Country Cute, or Mad About Marble. It’s a simple classic look that needs a simple classic style. As in plain ceramic, with possibly some liner accents.

Look to the 40’s and 50’s baths for what looks right in your home. None of the furniture vanities or concrete tiles or shiplap. If you want something really appropriate, pick a color for all of the fixtures and match that in the tile, with accents in black. Look at Palimpsest’s recent post on 30’s baths for inspiration. Just take it down a couple of notches in complexity.

You need something more Modest and Real. Less Theme-park issued Current Cliche Kit.

Since what you seem to like is not grotesquely incompatible with your home's exterior, I wouldn't worry that what you would do would be some kind of travesty. LOL. I live in a high rise built in 1965 but I don't feel constrained (nor do any of the other people living in the building) to decorate or remodel with a Bauhaus aesthetic. I started a thread illustrating how the same kitchen was remodeled in my building with vastly different styles and none of them seem to be a style anomaly.

[Same Kitchen - Multiple Designs[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/same-kitchen-different-design-choices-dsvw-vd~5266999?n=11)

I think you are the only one to decide what you personally like (assuming that there are no others living there who are concerned with decor.

Go on the internet and just look at lots of visual images of rooms - don't study them carefully but just save anything that instinctually appeals to you. Think of it as educational. Take some time since it doesn't appear that you need to start next week :-). Then study the rooms or elements more carefully and try to determine what appeals to you in terms of common elements or features.

Once you have decided what you like, you should find a good kitchen and bath designer as that person can help you translate your vision and tastes into something that is both aesthetically pleasing to you as well as functional.

With regard to decorating the living and dining areas, you can do the same but you can hire a designer who can give you a relatively cheap consultation - i.e. you provide her with your inspirations and the floor plan and he or she would then provide you with a game plan. This can even be done through the internet - or if your budget is ample enough, hire a designer the traditional manner in which they do both the design and the legwork. Or if there is a really good furniture store, there are often designers on staff to help you pull together something. Back in the day, this is how the bourgeoisie did it - my mother and aunts used the design services of W.J. Sloane or Bloomingdales.

When I added a bath I started with a list of what I wanted to gain with a bath addition. Storage was my top priority so I skipped a soaking tub to accomadate my storage needs. Ease of maintenance was my second priority so I only looked at porcelain tiles. I spaced permanent fixtures to allow my vacuum to fit between walls and fixtures. After I nailed down the whys of my project I used a bath designer to help narrow in on the aesthetic of finish choices. My finishes are more trendy than the age of my house may warrant but I am happy with my finished room nonetheless and the next owner can retile if they dislike my finishes. I wanted a room that met my needs and desires only.

I guess I am saying examine why you are remodeling first and than let the form follow.

Since you aren't in a rush and seem to be a design novitiate, take your time.

As I originally wrote, before hiring anyone, spend time looking at images of rooms that you like. I am currently doing a gut remodel of my condo and this is what I did - I just spend hours looking at images and if there was something that I liked I didn't think too deeply but just saved it.

I hired a designer and met with her and sent her my inspiration photos which she translated into a plan/design board. I lack the visual ability to pull together items -= let alone having the knowledge of Code and spatial requirements for cabinets (for example) to work together. I know what I like - and I like many different visual styles but realize that my choices (in my open kitchen/living area need to work well together without adhering to a specific period style if that makes sense. :-)

I really don't think that the exterior of your house means that you need to go in a certain style - especially since your stated taste isn't some kind of extreme ultra contemporary or some other kind of very distinct style like wanting to a room more suitable for a grand chateau :-)

Once you have some idea of what you like, then it's time to take it to the next level and hire someone to help you translate your vision.

I absolutely agree with roarah's post in terms of really thinking about how you want the place to function as well as the aesthetics. Within limitations, you can get the aesthetics (i.e. design details) with the functionality you want and need. This is where a really good kitchen and bath designer is critical.

The designer I am using is great but I am the one who is making decisions in terms of my specific functional needs - i.e. she suggested a wall oven - I opted for a side opening wall oven because I am short - and I requested toe kick step stools for the same reason :-).

I am having the horrible tub/shower combo removed and a larger shower replacing it. I showed her an inspiration bathroom which she translated into a design I love and she is familiar with Codes. I told her how I use the shower - i.e. I wash my hair towards the shower head so I had to tell her to place a corner shelf there for shampoo and conditioner and liquid bath soap. The larger niche towards the other end where the bench can hold additional items which I don't have to reach for with my eyes shut while washing hair :-).

And of course, there is a tension between form and function. I don't want high maintenance items but ultimately my choices were to go for marble in the master bath because I found it beautiful and my research (and discussions with friends) convinced me that I could deal with the maintenance and had no problem with potential etching - FWIW, on her advice I am going with honed because the look is softer and because etching is less of an issue.

Have a look at an on-line design site called Havenly. Their prices are really reasonable, and you can do a free on-line chat with them to see what you think of them.

Helen, I think high rises and conversions are a different species that a single family house. Most highrises of the 20th c. provide you with a relatively blank white box and the original bath was whatever was current, no matter the style of the building itself.

Although a "country" or "farmhouse" bath in isolation (which is how most people would do it, unfortunately, in isolation) would look way out of place in a highrise, no matter how current it is or tastefully done. I think you could do an entire apartment in a highrise in "country/farmhouse" or Versailles reproduction, for that matter, if the entire apartment is fully executed. A large, multi unit, relatively anonymous building does not need to impress its' identity on every unit.

That said, I think a bathroom or kitchen in a particular single family house has to work in concert with the rest of the house.

The above house is Minimal Traditional and could have been built any time from about 1940 to 1970, I can't really tell. And it's unlikely that the bath is original to the house if the house was built before 1967 or so because of the gold fixtures and size of the tile (Although Kohler had a precursor to Harvest Gold since 1953).

I think you could get away with a subway tile format because it's now so common, but the standard 4.25" or 6" square tile in a semi gloss or matte finish in white or a light color would never look out of place in that house. It might not look like you remodeled in 2018, but it would never look out of place. A mosaic floor: text, spiral pattern, 2-4" hex, octagon-and-dot, any of those would look fine as would something 8x8 -12x2".

Most people will tell you to get white fixtures and this makes a lot of sense especially if you have to replace the toilet someday. But a light grey or sand set of fixtures would look handsome in that house, and reference the era of the house because of the availability of pastel fixtures from the 1920s until about 2010 when Kohler killed off their actual colors.

I'm jealous of the glass block window. Keep that, not because it's trendy, but because it's cool. Are those large tiles or big sheets of laminate in the tub surround?

These are the Ice Grey and Mexican Sand tubs:

and Home Depot has Merola University or Academy tile in the text pattern although Daltile and Merola has plainer grey or beige options as well. You could get away with a modern shape on the floor if the scale was compatible.

White

Gray

Collect two dozen images of bathrooms you love and two dozen you hate. It'll be a lot easier to flip through the photos to see what style unifies what you like. Showing the ones you hate will also save time when you talk to a bathroom designer. Start by look at houzz's transitional bathroom photos, small size.

https://www.houzz.com/photos/small-transitional-bath-ideas-phbr2-bp~t_711~s_2112~a_30-231

If you are open to using a high window in the shower/bath instead of the glass block structure, look at bathroom photos with clerestory windows. The new window should go above the splash zone, like the ones in Hawaiian hotel bathrooms that slide open.

https://www.houzz.com/photos/transitional/bath/query/clerestory

Is this too modern for you?

I don't think most houses built for the middle class are so architecturally determinative that one can't, within reason, design to suit one's own sensibilities.

In Los Angeles, many homes are completely gut renovated and done in a very contemporary manner. The only homes that are lovingly restored are the authentic Craftsmen and the Spanish Colonial - perhaps a Schindler or other iconic MCM house might be restored. But other than that - for the run of the mill home that was put up, if it isn't torn down, it is completely gutted. Homes are routinely turned into open floor plans because that is what suits the new owner - but certainly completely unfaithful to whatever is the architectural style of the original. Even in NY, unless a brownstone has the original authentic period details, the interior is often gutted with completely contemporary feel and bathrooms don't even pay homage to the bathrooms of the original construction.

I am in very few homes for the middle class that have real architectural significance so I don't agree that for some reason a home built in the 1940's needs to be true to that era.

The picture posted of OP's exterior has no particular architectural style to me and so - just my opinion - there is nothing about it that would particularly dictate what the interior should look like - within reason of course because there are issues of scale or whatever that would preclude certain styles. Just as an example, it's not Craftsman style at all but if that sang to her, why not do a kitchen in Craftsmen replete with quarter sawn oak cabinets - or conversely I don't see why a very contemporary kitchen would be a design faux pas. :-)

The differences are that a gutted older house is often completely turned into something else cohesive. (Or they used to be, I am not so sure any more); and a shell that is turned into something contemporary or minimalist is a Forward progression, not a backward-looking one.

A contemporary kitchen or bath is not a faux pas in an older house, especially if the rest of the decor (if not interior architecture) skews contemporary. And the problem with almost all current interior fashion is backward thinking, not forward thinking. "American Farmhouse" is not contemporary, it is a return to a style (that actually never really existed as such, in the first place. )

But I think you can see that a Victorian style kitchen or bath would be a faux pas in a non-descript post war rancher. It would be the same thing as a craftsman kitchen. Why would you put something that was a copy of something pre-1920 in a house from 1970 or 80? It makes no sense. Perhaps if you were a craftsman collector and the entire house was decorated that way inside.

Of course one is alway free to do something that sings to you, but that's why there are so many stupid-looking renovations that the next person thinks are horrible and wants to remove. You may be nearly 80 and want to wear spaghetti strapped tops, stilletto heels and have hair extensions down your back; or wear board shorts and an open shirt and a black toupe if you are a man, and you might even have the physique for it. But the vast majority of people are going to look stupid doing that, and the majority of other people are going to recognize it. And a kitchen is more permanent than extensions or an outfit.

If you think it doesn't matter then why are these the sorts of things that most people want to undo when they buy a house? Because they recognize it when its not theirs. Of course it becomes a vicious cycle because they often want to replace it with the latest greatest out of place whatever.

Keep it simple.