It’s one of those transformations that’s super hard to believe it’s the real deal, and I only know it is because I lived through that!
This 1940’s bathroom makeover is one of my favourite makeovers to date. The brief was relaxed coastal with some touches of luxury. We worked to a budget, but we definitely spent more on certain touches for that luxurious feel. When designing bathrooms, creating a spa like, hotel feel is always at the forefront of my mind. It’s used everyday, and it has to make you feel good, as well as serving a functional purpose.
If you like coastal inspired interiors, or just want to see how on earth we transformed this dated and quite small bathroom into something beautiful, join me as I reveal all of the good stuff.
Relaxed Coastal Inspired Bathroom Makeover You Won’t Believe
1940s Before – Our Starting Point
This is what the bathroom exactly looked like on the day we moved in.
The house hadn’t been lived in for one year but it had been neglected for a number of years, and I’d say a good 20 years since any decorative work was done in here.
On the left image you can see a door – this built in space really encroached into what was already a small space. This housed the immersion heater for the house, the only way we could get any hot water, with a series of lead pipes that ran throughout the entire house.
Much like the rest of the house, this was a skeleton job. Everything had to be stripped back, new plumbing throughout the entire house and we had to start again.
Whilst fairly small in size, we actually wanted to take a bit of extra space out of this bathroom to make the master bedroom a little bit bigger.
The Vision
The brief was a coastal inspired bathroom with luxury touches. When planning a bathroom I start in the same way as all rooms and think about how I want to feel in the space, this then leads with the tiling and colour choices. Fixtures and decor accessories come next.
The bathroom is south facing and gets swathes of beautiful light throughout the day, so I wanted colours that were relaxed, soft and would balance the intensity of the sun.
After having such a tiny Victorian bathroom, it was really important for me to have a large vanity unit that would double as storage, but make those everyday tasks feel a little bit more luxurious.
What We Did
It really was a full skeleton job and we had to begin by ripping everything back to the beginning. The only things we were left with were a bath in the centre of the room so we could still maintain some kind of hygiene (thanks to our lovely plumber) and our immersion heater, before we could get the gas connected and the new plumbing supply connected.
Don’t believe me? This video pretty much sums up how we lived for weeks, yep really.
At this stage we knocked down the stud wall into the master bedroom, taking 30cm from the existing bathroom and building a new stud wall, leaving us with a slightly smaller bathroom, but still generously sized for what we needed. Because I wanted taps fixed into the wall for the sink, this actually made the plumbers task a little bit easier, and less messier for us as we could conceal the pipes with the new stud wall before plasterboard went up.
I make this part sound easy, but with doing a lot of the labour ourselves it did take us around 2 months to get to a stage that we were ready for plastering, tiling and new plumbing fixtures to go in. What I call, the exciting part!
The After – Coastal Inspired Bathroom
Let’s have a look around the new space! What a transformation.
As soon as that immersion heater came out, we had so much more space to play around with. I always talk about how important layouts are and even changing the swing of a door can make a room feel so much more usable. We moved the bath around to face the window. A few reasons for this. It made it tucked away and a key feature as you step through the door, but the bath now faces the window so you can soak in the tub and enjoy that evening golden hour too.
Let’s talk colour. I chose Wevet from Farrow and Ball as the white in the room. If you’re looking for a gorgeous white shade for a sunny south facing room, this is the one. It has a slight grey undertone to it and just adds the most subtle softness to the bathroom.
I then introduced my accent colour Parma Gray, also Farrow and Ball on the vanity unit and woodwork in the room.
Nice vanities can range in the high hundreds to a thousand, and instead I sourced one from Facebook Marketplace for £15! With the paint it cost around £80 for it and it’s just everything I wanted, and more.
The unit has so much storage and a large top to handle a well proportioned sink from Rak Ceramics, and plenty of space for spreading skincare and makeup out in the mornings. This baby blue shade is cool yet bright at the same time, and such a fun colour for a bathroom.
To avoid the room feeling cold, I opted for brass hardware throughout which adds warmth, but also that luxurious touch that I wanted in the scheme. I carried this through to the mirror, my best advice when choosing a mirror for a bathroom, always scale up! It will make your room feel so much larger, whereas hiding away with a small mirror can make a room feel much more inferior in size.
I combined 3 different types of tiles in the space for interest. Using too many tiles can feel cold, so we opted for a half wall of tiles on the vanity side. Terrazzo tiles are a huge favourite of mine for the floor in a colour like this, it instantly grounds the room and, grey grout, never shows dirt like white grout does.
The shower tiles are a real favourite feature of mine. Zellige tiles are trendy and a much better alternative to standard matt or gloss tiles. Each tile has a slight different colour variation and you engage with a different colour, no matter what angle you look at them in the bathroom. They’re a tile choice that just keeps giving!
Instead of tiling horizontally, we went for vertical stacked tiles. A top tip if you’re looking to make the bathroom feel larger than it is, as they virtually draw your eye up as you look at them.
The final tile choice was these white textured tiles which we carried through to the bath panel. Visually interesting and they bring an almost 3D effect to the bathroom. They’re minimal, relaxed yet have a touch of luxuriousness to them that fits in so well in a coastal inspired room.
I can honestly say this bathroom is just a joy to be in. The calming colour scheme makes it the perfect place to retreat and relax in, and every little detail combined pulls together so well for a relaxed, coastal feel. It’s hard to believe we lived through the mess and chaos before now.
Every detail and decor piece in the imagery is linked where possible below:
What do you think of this small bathroom makeover? If you need any help or design advice with your own space, do leave a comment below and I’ll come back with my recommendations.
Fabulous makeover😬
Thank you!