My sister and her hubby have been living in and updating their 1998 house since they got married in 2000. They’ve done a lot of improvements over the years, including hardwood floors, finishing the basement, and updating their kitchen. I helped her with their master bedroom redo in 2011 and blogged all about that here and here and that space turned out so great. They spruced up the bathroom at the time, but nothing major was done. It was builder’s white all over the bathroom. But, now they are at the point that they are ready to tear out old tile and do some major updates in their spacious master bath. You know those bathrooms. It’s a big bathroom with his and her’s vanities, water closet, big bathtub, walk-in shower and a good sized closet.
I usually cringe when I see folks tearing out perfectly good things for an update, but I get that people do want to stay current as houses start to get some age on them. Making things better is a natural thing to want when we own and live in a house for years. Many of the homes in their neighborhood have already had bathroom renovations and there’s resale value to consider as well. Nothing like keeping up with the rest of the neighborhood! Since they will be living here a few more years, they want to enjoy the space themselves and not just do it strictly for resale purposes and I don’t blame them for that.
So, I met up with my sister this week at Floor and Décor and we browsed ALL the tile selections. One of the designers from the store helped us and narrowed things down out of all the millions of options that are available. If you haven’t been to a tile store lately, you might be shocked at all the changes that have happened in the last few years. So many tile selections to choose from, with planks that look just like real wood, to natural stone and accent tiles. More than you can possibly imagine.
With all the changes, it just makes it harder to decide. Making choices for the long haul is not always easy. Do you go neutral (always my preference on expensive and permanent surfaces) or do you add some colorful bling to those tiles?
If you missed my sister’s bedroom makeover from 3 years ago, check it out! It was an amazing transformation and they have so enjoyed their new space.
I call it modern glam and it’s still very fresh and current.
The master bath with the large white tiles on the floor and in the shower. I don’t have a complete pic of the shower, but you can see the brass surround to the right. The plans are to take out the big bathtub, move the shower to the middle, making it larger with a bench seat and fancy shower heads. Then they will take the current shower area and incorporate it into their long and narrow master closet, making it bigger and more functional. I can see that this will be a good move for them. So, the tub will be outta here. I don’t blame them for that either, since more and more folks are opting for a big shower instead of the tub. There are still 2 other tubs in the house, so it’s not a huge loss.
The current vanities. They painted and glazed the original laminate cabinets several years ago so have gotten lots of use from these and are still deciding on replacing or reusing. They might add feet to these and paint them dark brown.
If the vanities stay and get painted, they will replace the countertops with something more decorative and current. That door straight ahead goes into the master closet.
And this is a peek back towards the huge master suite from the bathroom.
This shot shows the crown molding around the top of the water closet and the shower area. Those areas will stay the same, with solid walls below.
The master suite.
As you can imagine, there are endless possibilities on redoing a bathroom with tile. It can be quite overwhelming!
This is a quick shot with my iphone of one of the tile choices that we narrowed down. This one is my fave and I think my sister is leaning towards this too. We’ll see what the final choice ends up being after she and her hubby put their heads together. That plank flooring above is actually porcelain tile and looks SO much like real wood. That would go on the floor. The large white tile with gray veining would be for the shower walls, and the blingy tile border would be an accent in the shower. The smaller squares would be the shower floor. I think all of this will be beautiful! She is leaning towards a gray look in there and this one is a warm gray. We also brought home some cooler gray options. Stay tuned for the final choice!
I’ll be sharing this renovation all along the way too and giving you some updates and of course, the final master bathroom reveal. It’s going to be fun watching this one happen and I can’t wait to share the outcome!
Have any of you done a huge master bathroom update like this? Feel free to link in the comments if yo have, so we can take a peek.
I LOVED the bedroom makeover and will definitely be following the master bath. We are getting ready to do a complete master bath remodel (ours is circa 1998, too). We are going to remove the swimming pool tub and put in a smaller one and make our shower bigger. I would be afraid to remove the tub because of resale. I think a master bath without a tub would be a deal-breaker for me since I’m a girl who loves a bath, but I know not everyone feels the way I do. I love the tile choices and can’t wait to see the progress along the way!
Love the blingy tiles. Are the shower tiles marble and if so what is the name? I’m leaning towards a marble shower and vanity tops with creamy cabinets and walls. Want to stay in the warm colores though as apposed to white and gray. Looking forward to watching your progress!
Those tiles are all porcelain tiles. The maintenance of real marble or stone is more than tile would be and the look-a-likes to stone out there now are remarkable, so I think they will go with tile inside the shower instead of a stone material.
I’m excited for another transformation in action!
Love her master bedroom! The choices for the bathroom will bring it up to date and coordinate beautifully with what she’s already done.
One question, I love her bedding. Do you remember where you got it or who makes it?
Carole, she had the duvet custom made (the one folded at end of bed). If you check that source list linked above (2 posts on her bedroom) you can see some information about the fabrics used on the bedding.
I am so excited. I love tranformations. And your pictures are unbelivable. I feel like I am right in the room. You need to do photography for some of these design magazines. Their pictures always leave a lot to be desired.
Thanks, TAS
If the bath turns out as gorgeous as the bedroom, we may all want to live with her!! Great job, Rhoda!
I can’t believe the bedroom makeover was three years ago! Time flies. Gracious.
Great transformation! The rug is fun and fabulous. I would love t step out of the tub onto it. The vanity with the cool lamp and SHADE and bonsai is great.
The bedroom is beautiful! I have to say I like the current bathroom as well. You see I live in a home that was built in 1965 and that’s about how old the bathroom fixtures are as well. I wish I could rip it all out and have a do-over but I am a single mom with a kid in college. That’s not going to happen. 🙂 I just love your blog and would love to see you post about some real basic makeovers. Ya know, the ones that you can only do with maybe a little paint and trip to Home Goods, Walmart or Target. Some of us just can’t rip anything out or tear down walls etc.
HI, Donna, I can definitely appreciate that! Lots of us haven’t ripped out everything and I’m still living with my 1979 bathrooms with painted vanities. I did the best I could with both my bathrooms and not sure when I’ll ever rip them out. If you haven’t followed my current house renovation, you’ll get lots of inspiration on what I did to this house with lots of paint and imagination.
Love those choices…very nice. We are hoping to do our master bath next year and so I will be looking forward to see how your sister’s looks.
In our house hunting adventures, I keep thinking about ripping out tubs and replacing with a bigger shower. Glad I’m not ca-razy! Now if we could only find the house…. 🙂
OH, good luck, Sheila on all of that! Hope it’s going well with the move.
Hi Rhoda!
Dan and I just started a remodel of our Master bathroom. It’s a small space. We are actually incorporating a hall closet, the very small, awkward bathroom closet and moving a wall in order to have room for a tub. There was just a tiny little shower in there when the house was built. You can check out my Facebook page and look at the Master Bath Remodel 2014 photos.
Demolition is the pits, but the end result will be terrific!
Great, Heather, I’ll check it out!
The master bedroom is gorgeous and I can see a little of your style in there. I must admit I do LOVE that chair in the ensuite. It will be great to see what they do when they re do that bathroom. We have one bath in the house and two bathrooms but I am also thinking about getting rid of the bath and having a large shower as the bath never gets used anyway. It would be nice to have three bathrooms though 🙂
Lee
This is the difference between interior design & garden design, “I call it modern glam and it’s still very fresh and current.”
Gardens must be designed to stay fresh & current. Forever.
Design the bones using the best from Italian/French/English gardens of the past several centuries. Keep it simple for ‘styling’. Voila, fresh/current.
If clients felt their garden design was ‘tired’ after 3 years or 10 years my career would be toast. Have been designing for clients grown children, who now have children, for years now. Don’t know how I will feel finally doing my first garden design for the grown grandchild of past clients. It is coming. May have to book a cruise ! Celebrate & ponder.
Amazing the parallels & divergence of interior/exterior design.
Would love for you to do a post on fresh/current interior design vs. timeless. The interior decorator on my team does timeless in a manner that is fresh current. In her mid 60’s it’s obvious with every room, it’s not her first rodeo.
Another post I would love to read from you ….would be about the differences between age groups in what they ask of you. How it has changed over the past 20 years.
Too fun for you & your sister, getting to play house with each other. Still.
My sister keeps hiring decorators from storefronts. And calls me to complain. She could have flown my interior decorator to her town more cheaply than the cost of her mistakes. Oddly, she has done her patios to my design. But she has left the landscape untouched, ugh.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
Love the new choices, but I’m a bathtub girl too (especially in the winter, nothing like a hot, bubbly soak) and we just did a bath remodel, it would have been so much easier with the walk in shower with bench, but I think the TUB is a deal breaker and without will decrease the value. At least she does have 2 other tubs though…LOVE what you did with the Master Suite! Timeless!