Cassandra.org
Before and After
Before (sink view)
Before (alcove view)
Before (tub view)
Final (sink view)
Final (alcove view)
Final (tub view)
Story
The master bathroom in our house was in need of some moderization. I'd been thinking about remodeling it for more than a year and had worked on the design in spurts over that time. The first designs considered moving walls and effectively gutting the room. This was abandoned because I could not quite settle on a design that retained all the existing nice features. In the end, it would have been a lot of work for not a lot of gain. This is a testament to how well it was designed in the first place. Instead, I opted to only change things cosmetically by redoing the walls, ceiling and floor.
Phase 1: Designs
April 2014 - January 2016
I used the Blender modeling software to create and visualise the designs and went through a bunch of iterations before starting. The design would evolve as the project went though, so the design at the start was a bit different than the end result. More details of the designs can be seen on the Bathroom Redesign Page.
Aborted Design Render
Early Design Render
Final Design Render
Phase 2: Stone Veneer Accent Wall
January 2016 - February 2016
A stone veneer accent wall was the one invariant from all the designs and it was the first of the actual work we did. Details of this can be found on the Bathroom Stone Veneer Wall Page.
Before Stone Veneer
After Stone Veneer
Phase 3: Wood Slats for Main Ceiling
February 2016 - April 2016
After the stone work, we moved onto adding wooden slats to the main ceiling. Our bathroom actually has three different ceiling areas since there are is a recessed ceiling above the sinks and another lower ceiling in an alcove-like area by the shower and toilet. Details about this first ceiling area are on the Bathroom Main Ceiling Page.
Before Bathroom Ceiling
After Bathroom Ceiling
Phase 4: Wood Slats for Sink Recess
September 2017 - November 2017
Above the sinks is a recessed ceiling that had a couple flourescent light fixtures that I grew to despise. Besides adding wood slats to match the main ceiling, replacing these lights was just as big a motivation for this phase of the project. This would be the most difficult phase since I opted to round off the ceiling to wall transitions with wooden slats. You can read more about it on the Bathroom Sink Recessed Ceiling Page.
Before Sink Recess
After Sink Recess
Phase 5: New Extra Wall Cabinet
January 2018 - March 2018
With the main ceiling and recessed sink areas complete, the alcove area with the shower and toilet was the last ceiling section in need of the wooden slat look. However, before I could install this for real, I had to first complete the new wall cabinet I planned to build because it was in the alcove area and adjacent to this ceiling. This new cabinet was also adjoining a display shelf that was part of the remodel, which meant the new cabinet had to be done before that too.
Because all three of these phases were intertwined, I wound up working on all of them at the same time. For more details on the new cabinet construction, see the Bathroom Extra Cabinet Page.
Before Extra Cabinet
After Extra Cabinet
Phase 6: Wood Slats for Shower Alcove Ceiling
January 2018 - March 2018
With two others sections of wood slat ceilings completed, it was relatively straighforward to do the remaining section in the alcove area by the shower and toilet. The geometry for this section was a little funky, with the light and exhaust fan helping to make some interesting angles. See the Bathroom Alcove Ceiling Page for more details.
Ceiling and Walls Prior to Installation
Installation Completed
Phase 7: Wood Slats for Display Shelves
January 2018 - March 2018
Built into the curved bathroom wall is a recessed area that has some glass shelves which serves mostly as a display place for knick-knacks. With the sink area also having a recessed look, for consistency, it would be good for this recessed area to match. This meant putting some wooden slats on the top and sides. More details of this are on the Bathroom Wood Slats Shelf Page.
Before Display Shelf Area
After Display Shelf
Phase 8: Final Painting
April 2018
A friend told me we should paint the wall white. I told him that was a stupid idea, then we decided to paint the walls white. It looked good.
Before Painting
After Painting
Phase 9: Wooden A/C Register
April 2018 - May 2018
There is an A/C register in the main ceiling area that needed a solution. I looked on-line for something to match, but did not like the choices. You can read the details about how I made my own one on the Bathroom A/C Register Page.
Before A/C Register
After A/C Register
Phase 10: Bathroom Skylight
September 2018
For the skylight opening in the bathroom ceiling, I wanted to put in a piece of stained glass. I created a few candidate designs based on Frank Lloyd Wright windows and put together a Bathroom Skylight Designs Page that I could reference for the people that would give me a quote. Most of the quotes were higher than what I wanted to pay, and the one that was acceptable eventually fell through due to some life/work conflicts.
One day I will make this stained glass myself, but until then I decided to put a placeholder in place that would at least give the general look of what it might be one day. The placeholder is a decal on a piece of glass that has our preferred design. See the Bathroom Skylight Page for more details.
Before Skylight
After Skylight
Phase 11: Wooden Storage Bin
September 2018
There was an existing storage bin that we have under the sink that was not the prettiest and was now even more out of place wit the new bathroom motif. I decided to upgrade it by redoing the structure to match the rest of the wooden slatted bathroom. See Bathroom Storage Bin Page for more details.
Before Storage Bin
After Storage Bin
Phase 12: Privacy Screening
October 2018
Our bathroom has a french door to the outside that lets in a lot of light. Though there is a bit of a privacy wall from the outside geometry of the house, it is not quite as much as we need. Rather that add curtains which would block the light and have to be drawn and undrawn, I made an addiitonal privacy screen on the outside that would always provide the necessary screening. See the Bathroom Privacy Screen Page for more details.
Before Privacy Screen
After Privacy Screen
Phase 13: Bathroom Trim
November 2020
More than 2 years after originally adding the mahogany ceiling slats to the bathroom I decided it would look much better if I added some trim instead of being able see the ends of the slats. This was far trickier than you might imagine. See the Bathroom Trim Page for more details.
Before trim
After trim
Phase 14: Bathroom Floor
April 2023
Our master bathroom had carpet. That fact is should be enough to motivate why we needed to do something. The initial plan was to use ceramic tiles as described on the Bathroom Floor Tiles Page, but we eventually went with an engineered hardwood floor as described on the Bathroom Hardwood Floor Page.
Rug floor (before).
Hardwood floor (after).
Phase 15: Stained Glass Skylight
July 2023
After living with the skylight placeholder for five years, I was finally able to realize the full and final vision of having genuine stained glass. Details are on the Stained Glass Skylight Page.
Placeholder glass (before).
Stained Glass (after).
Final Views
July 2023
Final (sink view)
Final (alcove view)
Final (tub view)
Skylight and sink
Skylight
Skylight and door