The Horrid Bathroom

Thanks all for your kind words about all the projects and the little bit of decluttering I got done last month.

During the third week of November, my husband has another week off. He has promised me we will work on the downstairs bathroom.

I want you to know I am profoundly embarrassed to show these photos. We have let things get really bad because no matter what we do --it doesn't look good.

1. We need to fix the wall


2. and remove the nasty plastic wall surround.


3. Then, I will install white tile.

I regret that I purchased square tile for the project: I would rather have brought the bathroom into this century and used subway tile. Instead, I chose to keep the bathroom in the era in which it was originally built. Oh well. We purchased the tile last spring so we'll be using it.

I have been going back and forth on the decision whether to outline the edges with a 2x3 bull nose black tile. One reason to do it is to add more visual interest without adding colour. Another, is, again, to give the bath something of a retro look.

I was happy to see that the current bathroom at Young House Love has the old square white tile with the outline in black.


We plan on installing ours only in the bathtub/shower area and not all over the whole bathroom as theirs is. As well, I would run it as close to the ceiling as possible.

Reasons against: there is a false ceiling in the bath. There isn't a lot of space between the shower head and the ceiling.



Usually the "line" defines the edge where the tile stops and wall begins. We don't have any wall! If I put a black band around the top it may feel claustrophobic. (And I tend to feel claustrophobic in there now.)

This is what a "normal" height bath looks like:

source: bhg

source: bhg

I can't believe how high the ceilings are in these images.

This one is lower: but still higher than in my bathroom.

source: bhg

I'm afraid with the black edge we may just wind up with a bath which looks and feels even more cramped than it is. White all the way to the top may open things up.

Maria Killam design via Colour Me Happy

This is beveled subway tile and it is professionally and beautifully installed--mine won't look as nice, but you get the idea. Take the green wall at the top out of the picture and you get an idea of what my bathtub/shower surround area could look like with one solid colour.

What do you think? I'd love to get another opinion on this. I'll have to order the black bullnose pretty quickly if I do decide to go that route.