When Old Meets New: Vintage Bathroom Design
Do you feel like your bathroom doesn’t match the style of your home? When a homeowner lives in an older or historic home, one with character and specific architectural details, they occasionally want to remodel their bathroom in a style and period appropriate to the age of their home.
This type of vintage bathroom remodeling project requires selecting materials and products that are sympathetic to the age of the home but also offer modern conveniences and durability that fit with most homeowners’ modern lifestyle. Wentworth can create a design that does both!
Vintage Bathroom Ideas
There are quite a lot of older homes in the Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia area, and Wentworth has experience remodeling bathrooms of all sizes and shapes.
The number of options available for a period-style bath can be overwhelming. The Wentworth team has worked on a wide range of vintage bathroom projects and understands the importance of considering finishes and fixture options before beginning the project.
Flooring – wood floors can be warm and inviting, and with enough polyurethane coating for protection, they also make a good retro bathroom floor – especially in farm houses where the bathroom was added after it was built. Do you have a Victorian home? Small hexagonal floor tile and subway tile will nicely complement the style. Bead board wainscoting is always popular in vintage bathrooms, and occasionally we have created a wainscot with lattice applied over drywall, accented with contrasting paint color – which works well for Bungalows and Arts and Craft period homes. Additionally, antiqued or acid-etched stone flooring can be specified to achieve an aged look at installation.
Details – vintage fixtures and fittings are readily available, and many finishes allow you to select the metal finish that works best for your specific period and aesthetic. Depending on the time period of the home, vintage bathroom fixtures could include claw foot tubs, toilets with tanks, pedestal sinks with a variety of faucets, showerheads and bath accessories. Medicine cabinets with hinged wood framed doors and beveled mirrors can also help create the desired retro look.
Vintage Bathroom Design & Remodeling Tips
In certain situations, personal preference may dictate a client’s preference for the period style of their bathroom, and that preference will guide every design choice. A Wentworth client often traveled to Manhattan for business and loved the Art Deco hotels he stayed in. Although the Art Deco style didn’t necessarily suit his Italianate Victorian home on Capitol Hill, we designed for him a vintage bathroom that reflected the Art Deco style he loved. Every detail was Art Deco, from the ziggurat-like crown molding to the inset chevron tile patterns to a custom vanity with angle corners.
Homeowners are often fond of the Arts and Crafts style, either because they live in a period 1920s bungalow with Arts and Crafts details or simply because they want to introduce Arts and Crafts design features to their home. Both design tactics have merit – adhering to the style of an older house promotes a consistency of design throughout the home, while selecting a favorite contrasting style embellishes one’s home with a unique style. We sometimes hear a client who owns a bland production-development house in a subdivision say, “My house has no architectural detail.” In this case, a custom bathroom, especially in the Arts and Crafts style, can help give their home a unique character.
Bathrooms are an area of the home that easily wear out and become outdated, and it’s not uncommon to take a “plug-and-play” remodeling approach. Modern fixtures, coupled with retro touches, can add distinctive character to your home. Innovative combinations of the old with new – tin tubs and modern shower tubs in Victorian-style bathrooms, for example – are the perfect way to combine your modern lifestyle with your historic design preferences.
Call Wentworth if you’re interested in a retro bathroom renovation for your Maryland, Washington, DC, or Northern Virginia home!
