The Bungalow Project: Our Basement Bathroom Renovation and Some Clever Vanity Ideas

With our one tiny bathroom upstairs, we decided to add a bathroom in the basement a few years ago. We worked on it so slooooooowly. I'm talking, we are just finishing it! But, as my husband says, "I'm only one man", and even better, he's free! But, besides adding some minor detail trim work...oh yes!...and a door, which is very important (I'll explain that in another post)...we are done. I'm kind of glad it's taken so long, because I have trouble picking things out on the fly. I think sometimes good design kind of happens organically over time spent searching for just the right thing. I wonder what this bathroom would have been if we could have completed it all in one shot? Or, if we hadn't done a "budget" version since, after all, I had to keep reminding myself that this is just a basement that will only be "semi-finished". Because I didn't have the $900 it would have taken to do a wall to wall vanity area with the countertop (that's not even including sinks and faucets), we stalled the project.
Finally, in a local antique store I spotted a rustic old plank table that had a greeny, glazey, cool crackley finish on it. It caught my eye right away and was around $200 or $250, I can't remember which, but the set-up of it was perfect!! It even had a flat back to go against the wall and an apron on the front to hide the sink bowls below. Noah cut the sink holes and dropped two basic white sinks in the top ($136.00 total for those and the faucets too) and I think it came out great!

I love the table's coloring with the black slate floors. Please ignore that we have no baseboards!

By the way, I settled on this floor. I knew it would be slate, but I wanted the same Rustic/California Gold (I think that's what it was called:/) slate that is in the entrance of Coldwater Creek clothing stores. I had to jump through hoops of fire with Coldwater Creek to get the color name, but when it priced out at $6.00/sf, I chose this box store black slate that was on sale for about $2.00/sf. That's cheap for slate and I liked the blue-green colors in it for the "boys bath".
Even though I originally wanted something different, I know I can get other things to work just as well and accomplish a similar look, and oddly, I kind of find some excitement in the challenge of doing that!

I just need to add, I thought I might be 102 before Noah finished tiling that shower with EVERY piece of 3x6 white subway tile, but he did it and it looks great:) He's my hero! This was his first tile project. He has done a few "assistant" gigs with my brother-in-law and decided to take a crack at it alone here. Sink or swim! Subway tile is cost effective, classic, Very Bungalow! and never goes out of style. By the way, we had the floor pan for the shower prefessionally poured. When you don't feel confident on something as important as that, I think it's best to splurge for quality and re-assurance. It was either $150 or $200....I knew a guy;)

Looking at bathroom pictures over the years, and loving our own little make-shift vanity has made me take notice to the really clever vanity ideas out there that could be super cost effective. This old sewing base I thought was sooooooo clever!! I probably would have wanted to do something like this (using two of them) if I hadn't already found the table.

Source: designsponge.com via jane on Pinterest

With storage too!

This bicycle is an A-MAZ-ING idea too! What a cool way to use something that might be sentimental, or if you were a biker or something.

Source: curbly.com via Kayci on Pinterest

Again with the white subway tile...you just can't go wrong!

Even an old dresser would have been cool if I could have found one large enough to visually fill up the 8' wall. The farm table we ended up with is 6', so we centered it with 12" on each side. I think this dresser/sink vanity is really beautiful and slightly modified for an opening at the bottom which looks good. I need a way to thoughtfully accessorize like this... ugh!...me and my dumb empty baskets! I WILL put something in them. As usual...waiting, waiting.