When we took on this project, this Master Bath was by far the biggest issue. It was only a 5’x4′ room and the shower was too small to turn around in. We ended up taking over the adjoining bedroom’s closet to enlarge this tiny bathroom. See the before picture below:

The greatest challenge of designing this bathroom was creating the illusion that this bathroom was larger than it actually is. Everyone dreams of a dreamy, open master bath that feels like a spa the moment you walk in. The challenge was keeping this bathroom grounded in traditional style so that it would still feel fresh for years to come while adhering to a tight budget. When I say tight I mean realll tight…. Our original budget was $3,000. This is our first flip so there was a steep learning curve and this bathroom taught us many lessons.

Lessons from this Project:

The first lesson: budget conservatively and account for unknown issues. We learned this the hard way by nearly doubling our budget for this bathroom because walls are not perfect squares, especially in old houses like this one. Our walls weren’t straight so we ended up having to buy a custom glass shower door that was very $$$.

The second lesson: Do not tile the floor before you tile the walls. If you do tile the floor first invest time & materials in ensuring you don’t mess it up. We chose a black on black penny tile floor with a white elongated subway tile with white grout on the walls, but we only covered the floor with light plastic. It caused the white wall grout to cloud & stain the black floor grout which will be very time consuming to fix. Before we list the house I’ll take a small paint brush and literally paint the grout stain between every nook & cranny in the floor.

My favorite element of this bathroom are the Studio Betsy liquid lady prints. Betsy is an incredible talented artist from my home state, North Carolina and now works & lives in Charleston, South Carolina. She is a must follow on instagram and her liquid ladies collection was inspired by powerful women.

I’m not the greatest risk taker because of how much I like to succeed. With this bathroom, I took design risks that I wasn’t sure would turn out like the black on black floor, curb-less shower drain, and gray doors. The finished product turned out better than I could have imagined and the third and most important lesson I learned was to take calculated & intentional design risks.