ORC Week 1 Design Plan for a Mid Century Bathroom

What is the One Room Challenge?

The One Room Challenge is a design event that happens every Spring and Fall. 20 featured designers are chosen each season to transform a room and share their progress every week. In addition to the featured designers, anyone with a blog or Instagram (ME! Or you too!) can participate. The next few weeks will be filled with so much design inspiration, so be sure to follow the hashtag #oneroomchallenge on social media.

If you’re new here, my name is Bridget and I’m a food scientist by day and aspiring home designer by night. I recently (December 2019) bought my first house in the Chicago suburbs that I share with my boyfriend, Colin, and dog, Rigby. We’ve been having so much fun turning this 1958 ranch house into a home we love. Click on over to check out our Basement Renovation and Guest Room Makeover. But let’s talk about what room we are transforming for the challenge – our master bathroom! Take a little scroll to see the truly hideous before pictures of this room and our plans for renovating.

Master Bathroom Before Pictures

So here’s the specs of this room – it’s about 5ft wide x 7ft long. There is a window that gives great natural light if you have the door closed. Otherwise the door blocks the light. The mirror is not centered over the sink. The vanity is rotting particle board. The sink doesn’t drain, so we don’t use it. The shower doesn’t have cold water…so we don’t use it. I would like to note here that we do have another full bathroom that we use to shower! Let’s keep going shall we- the floor is asbestos tile. The “bath” is too small for an average human to bath in (about 3ft long). The tiles are plastic and falling off the wall. BUT. BUT – the toilet works! So we had that going for us. Overall, this room is a mess and we are so excited to have a functioning master bathroom when this is over!

Master Bathroom Design Plan

White Hex Tile, Mirror, Green Square Tiles, Sconce, Faucet, Benjamin Moore Jack O’Lantern, Roman Shade Fabric, Art Print.

When coming up with the design plan, I really wanted to respect the age of this home. I have always enjoyed the mid century aesthetic, but I don’t want to go total MCM with this bathroom. It will have nods to the style with aspects like the 4×4 tile and color scheme, but I also want to incorporate some of my own personal taste, which tends to lean a bit more traditional than full blown mid century. We’ll see how closely I follow this design plan throughout the next few weeks 🙂 Indecision is something I struggle with, as witnessed here when I first started thinking about this bathroom renovation.

One Room Challenge Renovation Checklist

1. Demo Bathroom
2. Replace plumbing ($$$$ yuck!)
3. Move electric
4. Install overhead light and fan
5. Lay plywood floor over subfloor
6. Acquire all bathroom fixtures
7. Move pocket door from kitchen to bathroom
8. Build wet bed for walk in shower
9. Waterproof shower
10. Install, tape, and sand dry wall
11. Tile shower
12. Prime walls and ceiling
13. Install hardi board on floor
14. Tile floors
15. Build and stain new vanity in same style as old vanity
16. Make Roman shade for window
17. Install and paint window trim
18. Paint walls and ceiling
19. Hook up water in sink and shower
20. Install sconce, fixtures, decor, etc.
21. Photograph space and edit pictures

In the interest of transparency, we got a head start on this room because the One Room Challenge was supposed to start the first week of April. The event was postponed due to Covid-19, which was a great decision. So technically we have already crossed off items 1-5. And thank goodness for it. We would definitely be stressed and scrambling to finish without the head start. Okay, I think that’s enough for this week. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the featured designers and other guest participants in this challenge. Good luck, everyone!