Before and After: 63-Square-Foot Bath With a Space-Saving Design
A family bathroom gains a spa-like look and a large tub-shower, separate toilet room and linen closet
Style. “Their style is very midcentury modern, but we didn’t want to be slavish to it,” Alfin says. “They liked the idea of a more organic, spa-like feel that was still clean and practical.” Although they were going for a clean and calm look, the designers did not want the ambiance to skew cold or antiseptic. So they brought in a variety of textures, including warm oak and a patterned mosaic brick tile.
Function. This is one of the home’s two bathrooms; the other is off the master bedroom. Because this bathroom is near the public areas of the home, it serves not only as the girls’ bathroom, but also as a powder room for the whole family and their guests. Having places for everything was a must to maintain an uncluttered and comfortable space.
Toilet: Veil wall-mounted, Kohler; wall paint: Chantilly Lace OC-65, Benjamin Moore; floor tile: porcelain field in Charcoal Gray, 8½ by 9¾ inches, Annata; browse hexagonal floor tile
Function. This is one of the home’s two bathrooms; the other is off the master bedroom. Because this bathroom is near the public areas of the home, it serves not only as the girls’ bathroom, but also as a powder room for the whole family and their guests. Having places for everything was a must to maintain an uncluttered and comfortable space.
Toilet: Veil wall-mounted, Kohler; wall paint: Chantilly Lace OC-65, Benjamin Moore; floor tile: porcelain field in Charcoal Gray, 8½ by 9¾ inches, Annata; browse hexagonal floor tile
Layout. The plan was for the bathroom to accommodate a generous 60-inch tub-shower combo, a vanity with lots of storage space, a separate toilet room and a linen closet. The biggest layout change was combining the tub and shower to make room for a separate toilet room. “We knew creating a separate enclosed toilet stall for privacy would make it easier for the girls to share the bathroom when getting ready for school in the morning,” Alfin says.
The original bathroom footprint was 45 square feet. To make the space accommodate everything they wanted, they had to borrow square footage from two other areas adjacent to the bathroom. One one side, they bumped out the bathroom’s entry wall into the hallway, which was wide enough to accommodate some lost square footage. This included taking over the linen closet space you see in this “before” photo. Then they borrowed some room from a deep bedroom closet that backed up to the existing bathtub (this extended the footprint out just 8 inches in that direction). This gave the designers a total of 18 additional square feet to play with, bringing the total square footage to 63 square feet.
Other space savers included using pocket doors on the bathroom entry and water closet, which meant they didn’t have to worry about the space taken up by door swings, and using a wall-mounted toilet (the tank is in the wall, accessible through the panel with the dual flush buttons on it).
The original bathroom footprint was 45 square feet. To make the space accommodate everything they wanted, they had to borrow square footage from two other areas adjacent to the bathroom. One one side, they bumped out the bathroom’s entry wall into the hallway, which was wide enough to accommodate some lost square footage. This included taking over the linen closet space you see in this “before” photo. Then they borrowed some room from a deep bedroom closet that backed up to the existing bathtub (this extended the footprint out just 8 inches in that direction). This gave the designers a total of 18 additional square feet to play with, bringing the total square footage to 63 square feet.
Other space savers included using pocket doors on the bathroom entry and water closet, which meant they didn’t have to worry about the space taken up by door swings, and using a wall-mounted toilet (the tank is in the wall, accessible through the panel with the dual flush buttons on it).
Vanity. The custom vanity grounds the design with warmth. It is oak with a honey-colored stain and has a white quartz countertop. It also brings strong lines to the room. “We used push-open doors because hardware would have interrupted the flow of the lines,” Alfin says. It has two pullouts for efficient storage, one for each girl.
Tub-shower trim: Loure in polished chrome, Kohler; bathtub: Tea-for-Two drop-in, Kohler; shower wall tile: Match Point unpolished field in Pure White, 12 by 24 inches, Daltile
Tub-shower trim: Loure in polished chrome, Kohler; bathtub: Tea-for-Two drop-in, Kohler; shower wall tile: Match Point unpolished field in Pure White, 12 by 24 inches, Daltile
Mirror, sink and countertop. A bright white quartz countertop provides crisp contrast to the honey-hued cabinet doors and mirror frame. Soft curves on the mirror frame, faucet, sink edge and sconce offset the straight lines of the vanity and tile wall. The area behind the hand towel ring is the side of the new linen closet.
Mirror: bentwood rounded rectangle, Rejuvenation; sconce: Arnold, Arteriors; sink: Caxton rectangular undermount, Kohler; quartz on shelves and countertop: One in Morning Frost, Daltile
Mirror: bentwood rounded rectangle, Rejuvenation; sconce: Arnold, Arteriors; sink: Caxton rectangular undermount, Kohler; quartz on shelves and countertop: One in Morning Frost, Daltile
Faucet. The faucet’s clean silhouette and shiny polished chrome finish give it modern style.
Faucet: Loure in polished chrome, Kohler; browse modern bathroom faucets
Faucet: Loure in polished chrome, Kohler; browse modern bathroom faucets
Shower niche. A lengthy niche in the shower repeats the quartz seen on the vanity and the brick mosaic tile from the wall behind the vanity. It provides plenty of room for the products the sisters need to store in the shower.
Shower before. The space where this shower stall once stood is now the water closet.
Open shelves. These recessed shelves add flair to the compact toilet room. For these shelves over the toilet, the designers pulled in the same oak they used on the vanity, unifying the room. LED tape lights add extra glow and highlight pretty objects.
Tile. Here’s a closer look at the tile used on the vanity wall, tub surround and shower niche. The tile surfaces are chiseled, scraped and hammered, adding subtle texture throughout the bathroom.
Tub, vanity wall and niche tile: Shift brick mosaic in white, Walker Zanger; check out more bathroom backsplash tile
Tub, vanity wall and niche tile: Shift brick mosaic in white, Walker Zanger; check out more bathroom backsplash tile
Before-and-after floor plans. Here you can see in black where the walls were pushed out. On the “before” plan, the original shower stall is marked with the X, and the portion filled in with red below it is the hall linen closet they incorporated into the bathroom’s footprint. The new linen closet is across from the toilet room’s pocket door.
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Bathroom at a Glance
Who uses it: Two sisters, one in grade school and the other in middle school
Location: Miraloma Park neighborhood of San Francisco
Size: 63 square feet (5.9 square meters)
Designers: Sabrina Alfin and Darcy Tsung
Before. This bathroom had not been renovated since 1959. While that old pink tile can have its charms, the layout was not working for two sisters who needed to get ready in here in the morning, and the whole family was ready for a clean, calm update. In other words, it was time to say goodbye to the jungle mural.
“Overall the space was just way too cramped. Originally the bathroom had an inadequate tub and a tiny separate shower stall,” says interior designer Sabrina Alfin, who collaborated with architect Darcy Tsung on the San Francisco project.