Today I’m excited to continue the tour of my new studio space, Common Room Studio! I shared the living room and main photo shoot area a while back, and today’s installment is all about the transformation of our bright and airy modern half bathroom! I never thought I would be this excited to share a bathroom reveal with you guys, ha! But despite being the tiniest room in the studio, it was probably the most dramatic transformation in the entire space. What is now a light and airy (but still teeny tiny) bathroom originally started out as a super dirty mess.

Now let’s take a quick look at the before photos:

Oh man, that dirty old sink still gives me the heebie jeebies! The mint green vintage tiles were super cute, but the previous tenant had already ripped out an entire wall of tile to put in a shelving unit (whyyyyyy?????), and a bunch of the other tiles were cracked and damaged. We tried to salvage as much as we could and replace the broken tiles, but tiles just kept breaking – especially once we switched out the sink and had to move plumbing around. So we decided to start fresh and take down the remaining tiles and paint everything white!

Okay, so first off – I have to give a giant shoutout to my amazing handyman, Jorgé, who basically took the bathroom down to the studs, hid most of the previously exposed plumbing in the wall, put a fresh coat of plaster on the walls, painted everything, and installed the new sink, faucet, and toilet for me. He’s my hero. If you live in the DC area and need an awesome handyman, I’m happy to pass along his contact info!

I have so many favorite details, but the Alape bucket sink is definitely at the top of the list. It’s made in Germany and I love the vintage-industrial look! This bathroom is super small, so I love having a wall mounted sink that doesn’t take up a lot of space. I ordered this wall mounted faucet to go with the sink and it’s absolutely perfect.

When it came time to do the floors, I wanted to do something with a pattern to add a bit of graphic interest in the small space. I love the playful patterns of cement tiles, but I needed something budget friendly. So we laid these peel and stick vinyl tiles from Quadrostyle right over the existing laminate (after giving it a good scrubbing, of course). It’s been almost a year since we first installed the vinyl tiles, and they’ve held up really well!

Lips art print by Thimblepress

I knew I wanted to bring plants into the bathroom, but I didn’t think the acoustic tile ceiling could handle the weight of a ceiling hook and hanging plant. So we put up a pressure mounted shower rod by the window, and voila! We also painted the ceiling tiles black to help mask the texture, which turned out to be another favorite feature in the room!

The only other thing I might do is add a small shelf above the toilet for the paper towels and soap. What do you guys think?

Kind of a crazy transformation, right? If you’re in the DC area, I hope you’ll stop by for one of our upcoming workshops – and we also now offer weekday co-working if you’re looking for a fun spot to hang out at during the day!

Alape bucket sink available via Rejuvenation / Mirror (similar) / Wall mount cross handle faucet

Quadrostyle floor tiles / Thimblepress Lips art print

Photo Credits: Meghan Marie Photography and Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper