Bathroom Ideas for Old Houses

Bathroom Breakthrough

• A tiny bathroom in an older house becomes a vintage spa when the walls come down. A small bedroom can be sacrificed to enlarge a cramped old bath. In the process, you may find a few unexpected benefits in an old house. Your new bathroom will certainly have better light with the addition of at least one extra window, if not several. You could gain a fireplace -- just think of toasty soaks before the fire in a deep clawfoot tub. Keep it feeling spacious with lots of white paint, white octagonal floor tile and white porcelain fixtures. Try to use good reproduction fixtures for modern reliability and an old-fashioned look.

Garret Bath

• Spruce up an old bathroom under the eaves with paint. An attic bathroom in a summer house can be a place of retreat, put together for pennies with items from around the house. Shine the old tub and give it a fresh coat of enamel if it is chipped. Stretch clothesline from roof beams for hanging wet towels and loop another piece of line across each window for hanging clip-on curtains. Make the curtains from vintage linens, embroidered pillow shams, old-fashioned kitchen towels or lace tablecloths. Use high-gloss paint on the floors, walls and ceiling and don't be afraid of color. A wide stripe in a contrasting color replaces a rug for the floor and shows up again in a frame around the window. Keep it bright and simple and supply lots of fluffy towels for weekend guests.

Chicken Wire Cabinet

• An old house may have a large bathroom with no storage. You could commission built-in cabinets but a simpler and more interesting solution is to adapt a cabinet. Old farm cabinets or armoires make great bathroom storage with lots of room for towels, soaps, extra rolls of bathroom tissue, bath salts and hidden-away cleaning supplies.

  To prevent dampness and mold in a steamy bath, let the contents of the cabinet breathe. Remove the center panels of both top doors, leaving the hinged frames. Cover the space with galvanized chicken wire. Everything stays in the cabinet, well-aerated. The old furniture suits the character of the house and maybe the vintage plumbing. And you get to paint the cabinet whatever color your decor demands, with a few faux aging touches to let its age show.

Funky Tile

• When the budget won't wrap around redoing the bathroom, you're stuck with old tile. Seldom will this tile be your first choice for bathroom decor. But there it is, larger than life in seafoam green or melony peach. So tackle the tile head-on. Don't try to minimize it with safe, white upper walls, curtains and carpets. Use color to tame the space. Try a complementary color on the upper walls -- robin's egg blue against peach tile is lively and unapologetic and makes the old tile look like a design choice. Paint trim glossy, snowy white, find a shower curtain in a pattern that picks up the tile and paint colors and keep the bathroom uncluttered so it doesn't look fussy and out-of-date.