Progress in the parlor bathroom has been, well…. essentially none. Part of the holdup is that I can’t decide what toilet to buy. I know we want a high tank toilet. But beyond that, the logical brain and the lizard brain are in great conflict.
Scott won’t let me have an actual old toilet (I already made that argument multiple times and have been vetoed every time – something about the possibility of leaking sewage and such). Continue reading
(except for my laziness to write about it) Continue reading
You know when you buy stuff and stash it away for future use, then you forget you bought it until you come across it years later? That is exactly that happened with this liquid soap container. I purchased it years ago, well before we bought the Pink Lady.
Growing up, these were the standard soap dispensers in Brazilian public restrooms. While going to a public bathroom was a gross experience, getting to use the soap dispenser was something I always enjoyed. Yes, weird child I was. Anyway, this thing mounts to the wall, and when you want some soap, you flip it upside down, while holding your hand under it. Gravity does the rest and flips it back to its upright position.
Pretty excited to find this (again). It will eventually be put to use in our powder room. Not totally period appropriate, but making an exception on the account of nostalgia.
Our house is a work in progress. It’s livable, depending of course of what your living standards are (in this case, a notch better than camping). We knew going in that it would be a lot of work and we were OK with that. There was electrical and plumbing work that needed to be done. Asbestos that needed to be removed. Rotting floors, crumbling plaster and leaky skylights. Whatever was a safety issue was addressed. And yet, the thing that gave me nightmares was this:
The green bathroom of doom. I don’t know why I obsessed so much about this room, given everything else that needed (and still needs) fixing in our house. I hate this room to the core of my being. It occupies the side of the parlor floor, a room that one day will be our kitchen. To make that happen, the bathroom will move back to its original location, the glorious 27 square feet of space wedged between the staircase and the green bathroom.
Our first thought was to make it a powder room, since for a toilet and sink, 27 square feet is quite spacious. But then we got to thinking… if we are going to redo a bathroom, why not put a tub in there, too? We both feel strongly it should be a period appropriate bathroom, which means a claw foot tub. We played around with potential layouts:
With tub is a tight squeeze – similar to what we have upstairs in the shower of sadness.
Removing the tub would make the room feel luxuriously large, by comparison.
We could add two additional feet to the room if we closed the hallway which leads to the rear parlor (current site of the green bathroom, future location of our kitchen), but removing the hallway access will make our parlor floor very railroad-y. We’re not huge fans of the no walls/open concept HGTV nonsense, and we want to respect the history of the house – thus the hallway stays.
We found the original medicine cabinet in the basement, which will be re-finished and re-installed. We have some salvage wall sconces, which need to be re-wired. In addition, I’m thinking a small wall of Brooklyn Toile from Flavorpaper:
Hex tile with a simple border on the floor, a subway tile wainscoting (if we go with the tub). We need to source a super tiny sink, a pocket door, and maybe a super cool toilet (not only is it Victorian, but it will save crucial wall space)
Right now everything is up in the air. It’s about collecting the right pieces so that the plumbing can be done accordingly. I’m going to guess that progress is going to be slow…
The previous owners had turned the parlor floor bathroom into a closet. For some reason, they never removed the tiles or the porcelain soap dish.
Our plan is to turn it back into a bathroom: a pretty bathroom that respects the period of the house. Step 1 into turning a bathroom-turned-closed back into a bathroom? Rip out the 1980s tile! With the help of a friend and some punk rock we were taupe tile free in an hour or so.
As an added bonus of grossness, when we lifted the rug you see above we discovered that the plumbing for the toilet was still intact – capped only with a bunch of balled up newspapers. I will spare you the visual reference because it’s super disgusting. Instead, here is a more pleasant photo of the painted over air-shaft window (check out the cool tin ceiling).
As the space is very small (less than 5 feet deep), we’re making it into a powder room which will serve the parlor floor (our main living area). Once the work in the garden level apartment is complete, this will be Big Project #2
A Pink Brownstone in Brooklyn 