Primary Bathroom and Powder Room at 301 East 22nd Street

The starting point

Two bathrooms, both dark, both fighting their own fittings. The primary was the more complicated of the pair. It held a steam shower with its own generator, a dropped ceiling with recessed lights sunk into it, a towel warmer on a controller, a recessed medicine cabinet and a pedestal sink, and the whole room was tiled in a dark green that ate the light. The one thing worth keeping was the wall-mount toilet, which sits on a carrier inside the wall and is expensive to move.

The second room was not a powder room at all. It was a full bathroom with a tub, a pedestal sink, two surface-mount medicine cabinets and a mosaic floor, and it was the room the household passed through on the way to the kitchen. A tub in that position earns its space only if somebody uses it.

What the crew did, in order

1. Strip both rooms at once

   The proposal assumed the two bathrooms would be renovated concurrently, and they were. The primary lost its dropped ceiling and recessed lights, floor and wall tile, saddle, shower stall, lead pan, shower glass door, the steam shower system, the pedestal sink and faucet, the towel warmer and its controller, the recessed medicine cabinet, the sconces, switches, GFCI outlet and plates, the shut-off valves and every hot, cold, waste and vent branch line. The powder room came out the same way, plus the tub and its drain and the storage cabinetry.

2. Protect what stays

   In the primary that meant the door, jamb and lockset, the vent cover and, above all, the wall-mount toilet and its flush valve. A wall-hung pan sits on a carrier frame buried in the wall. Taking one out and putting it back is a wall rebuild, so protecting it in place is the cheaper decision by a wide margin. In the powder room the door, jamb and lockset were protected.

3. Cap the tub, move the sink

   The powder room’s tub plumbing was capped at the risers rather than reused, which is the honest way to retire a fixture: nothing is left live behind a finished wall. The basin was then relocated to the adjacent wall on new lines, and new shut-off valves, check valves and water hammer arrestors went in on both rooms’ hot, cold, waste and vent branches back to the risers.

4. Rewire both rooms

   The primary took new sconces, a separate sconce for the shower area, a GFCI duplex and switches and dimmers, all on their existing points. The powder room took new sconces and a GFCI duplex in the new sink area with the switch updated on its existing point. Lutron Claro went in white in the primary and black at the powder room vanity, to disappear against two different walls.

5. Waterproof, soundproof, and build the niche

   Waterproof membrane went down on both floors and six inches up the walls, with membrane on the shower enclosure walls and cement board inside the enclosure. Acoustical underlayment was glued down under both floors. A single recessed shampoo niche was constructed in the primary shower.

6. Set the lead pan and the tile

   A new lead pan and cement curb went into the primary shower in the same location as the old one, with no bench. Wall tile went up as drawn: Santa Monica Ivory in a 4 by 12 ceramic, with a Kenridge Ribbon Maple Brown 24 by 48 wood-look porcelain as the accent that runs into the shower. The floor is a 16 inch polished terrazzo; the shower floor is a three-quarter inch Alaska White penny round, and the same penny round lines the niche.

7. Hang the cabinetry and the stone

   The primary took a Kohler Malin vanity in white oak, 36 inches wide with its own sink and quartz top, a recessed Zeus medicine cabinet above it and a 71 inch Colossus cabinet behind. Caesarstone Blizzard went in as the shower and room saddles. The powder room took a 48 inch Signature Hardware Ayanna vanity in natural mindi with a feathered white quartz top, and an Executive storage cabinet painted midnight gray to the left of the toilet.

8. Wainscot, paper and paint

   Paint-ready wainscoting went up on the powder room’s two long walls with a chair rail and base moulding, and the entire wall behind the sink was hung with a black grasscloth. Both rooms were then painted, walls in Benjamin Moore Aura Bath and Spa and ceilings in Regal Select.

The primary bathroom

The room reads pale now, which is the point. Santa Monica Ivory covers the walls in a polished 4 by 12, and a single accent runs the length of the room and into the shower: Kenridge Ribbon Maple Brown, a 24 by 48 wood-look porcelain with a fluted face. It is tile, not timber, which is what lets it carry on through the wet wall. The fittings are Kohler Castia by Studio McGee in Vibrant Brushed Moderne brass, a warm finish rather than a yellow one, and the shower runs a fixed head and a handshower off a diverter.

The powder room

Losing the tub is what made this room work. The basin moved to the adjacent wall, which opened the long run for a 48 inch vanity, and the walls picked up paint-ready wainscoting with a chair rail on both long sides. The wall behind the sink is hung floor to ceiling in a black grasscloth, so the room goes dark exactly where you look at yourself and stays light everywhere else. The floor is an Alaska White marble herringbone in a 1 by 3, and a tall midnight gray cabinet stands to the left of the toilet doing the storage job the old medicine cabinets did badly.

What the two rooms looked like before

These are MyHome’s own survey frames. They are worth publishing because the finished photographs cannot show you a dropped ceiling, a steam generator or a tub that is no longer there.

Materials and finishes

Primary bathroom

Powder room

The stock shower glass enclosure came out of MyHome’s scope by a change order after demolition, a $400 credit, so its model is not recorded in the binder. The wall-mount toilet in the primary bathroom was protected and reinstalled on its carrier, as the labor agreement specified. The powder room air grill was left to be selected against the midnight gray cabinet and is also not recorded.

The result

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Questions people ask about renovating two bathrooms together