The West End: The Bathroom Renovation & Interior Updates

The bathroom renovation at the West End turned out to be one of my favorites and today we’ll take a look at how we renovated this space and updated the remaining interior rooms. If you’re new here’s a look at the Exterior Transformation of this sweet little historic house and the Kitchen Transformation, which helped to add a little more room in the only bathroom in the house. This bathroom is fully of old house charm and a perfect compliment to this historic home.

The Bathroom Renovation

The Before

The bathroom had a couple of good things going for it including the beadboard walls and the original clawfoot tub. However, the layout made it awkward since the vanity was essentially in the middle of the doorway. With just a couple of changes, we were able to make better use of the space.

The Bathroom Changes

If you’ll recall from the Kitchen Transformation, we tore out the brick column that was unused and taking up space in the bathroom. While it was a small change, every square inch counts in a space like this bathroom. By removing that brick column and flipping the bump out into the kitchen, we were able to create just enough room to switch all of the fixtures to the right wall. This gave us enough room to add a vanity, toilet and the clawfoot tub along the wall. We also kept all of the beadboard on the walls and patched as needed, using a trim piece to cover any seams.

The Bathroom Renovation

The After

The changes provided a much better layout and also allowed us to swing the door into the room, rather than out in the hallway like it was set up. I then painted all of the walls and trim one color, a design choice I love to make, in a pretty blue similar to the kitchen cabinets – SW9140 Blustery Sky. This design choice unified the space while giving it a lot of warmth and charm.

The original clawfoot tub was refinished and I painted the outside black. We then added a brushed nickel clawfoot tub and shower faucet with a shower ring, reminiscent of how it most likely looked originally. The clawfoot tub sits on a classic honeycomb pattern tile and the wood tones of the vanity add some warmth to the room.

With a few finishing details like the vintage faucet and accessories, this bathroom is not only functional, but beautiful as well.

Interior Updates

The rest of the interior received cosmetic updates in addition to updating the electrical. The hardwood floors were in pretty good shape so they were refinished. Meanwhile all of the walls and ceilings were repaired as needed and new crown molding installed throughout. To wrap up everything received a fresh coat of paint and new light fixtures.

Living Room

Dining Room

Along the back wall of the dining room I added some board and batten for depth and then painted it the same blue as the bathroom. This created a feature wall great for furniture placement and just gave this room a little personality too.

Bedrooms

Just like the living and dining rooms, the three bedrooms just need a fresh coat of paint and new light fixtures.

Original Features Preserved

Fireplaces

Each of the three bedrooms and the living room had fireplaces. While the fireplaces are not operational, they are the focal points of the rooms. So, they received a little refresh as well. We did this with new tile in both a subway tile pattern and the honeycomb tile in the back bedroom.

Door Hardware

And last but not least, I refinished the original door hardware. While some people might be tempted to replace the door hardware, I decided to leave it as pictured below. The longer I’ve worked on historic homes, the more I feel that original is always better even with the perfections. Once up against the black doors with glass door knobs, it looks perfect to me.

This little house was a fun project that turned out to be yet another one of my favorites. For all of the sources for the West End click here and if you need help with your renovation, reach out. I’d love to help!