| Bathroom Design

Thinking of remodeling your bathroom? Make sure your design doesn’t include any of these common bathroom design mistakes. Over the years we worked on many bathroom designs for all types of baths – master, guest and powder rooms. Although it might seem simple, there’s a lot to think about when creating a well-functioning bath. You have to consider the placement of all the necessary plumbing and fixtures, the lighting, storage, flooring, and window and door configuration. And then of course there are details like tile layouts for backsplashes and showers.

We enjoyed remodeling this condo bath in Grand Rapids for our clients who were looking to create a space in warm earthy tones with a mission style aesthetic. Let's take a look at what we did, starting with the before photo and floor plan.

Most homes have at least one bathroom without windows. And if you live in a condo, you may not have any bathrooms with windows. Powder rooms or guest baths positioned within interior walls have a tendency to feel dark and small and they can present a design challenge. How do you maximize light flow without any source of natural light? What can you do to make a small space feel larger? Over the years, we’ve designed and remodeled a lot of bathrooms and have some design tips we can share with you that will enhance the look and feel of those without windows.

The pandemic has us critiquing our spaces at home and looking for ways to make them more comfortable and functional for working, schooling, and entertaining. The flip side of all that activity is the real need for a place to relax and recharge. One room in the house that can be used very effectively as a private oasis is your master bathroom. With a thoughtful design, you create a place where you can recharge in the morning and decompress in the evening.

A thoughtful bathroom remodel design can solve a variety of problems. Lack of storage, outdated finishes, and a dysfunctional layout are typically at the top of the list of complaints from homeowners who are ready to remodel their bathrooms. A great way to get ideas and find inspiration is to look at photos of bathroom remodels. Our Project Spotlight blogs include after photos of projects, but go one step further by providing before photos and the story behind the remodel's design.

Our project gallery is full of bathroom transformations, but the five we are about to show you are our website visitor’s favorites. The remodels you are about to see represent a variety of sizes and budgets, each with its own set of design challenges. We hope you enjoy taking this virtual tour and invite you to view more photos of the projects by clicking the links provided below.

Designing a shower might seem like a pretty simple task, but there are several important elements you must consider to ensure that it will be comfortable and fit your needs. Some homeowners are looking for something basic while others want all the bells and whistles of a luxury spa shower. No matter which you prefer, you should review each of the elements listed below when developing your shower design.

We covered a lot of bathroom remodeling topics in our blog this year, including design guides and before & after project spotlights. And since it’s the last day of the year, we decided to take a peek at which posts were the most popular with our readers and share them with you. If a bathroom remodel is on your wish list for 2019, you’ll find these blogs helpful and they might even give you some great ideas to implement into your own design.

When you are remodeling your bathroom there are several options when it comes to providing closure for your shower. There’s the tried and true shower curtain, the economical sliding doors, and then you have the framed glass door, or a frameless glass shower door. Budget can play a big factor in which option makes the most sense for your particular project and any of will work to keep water inside the shower, where it belongs. But in recent years, most of our clients have been opting to invest in a frameless glass shower door for their bathroom remodel and there are definite benefits to doing so.

When you spend years in your home you start to accept some of its quirks, like poorly arranged rooms or cramped bathrooms. Such was the case with these clients who longed for a nice master bathroom but figured it wasn’t in the cards for them. We are so glad that they reached out to the Thompson Remodeling team to help! We specialize in transforming spaces from weird to wow and have seen our share of strange configurations.

Have you seen a no-threshold shower? It's a shower that has no curb or surrounding edge to it, making it flush with the bathroom floor. You may have also heard the terms barrier-free, curbless walk-in-shower or zero threshold, but they are all the same thing. I know what you may be thinking. Where is all the water going to go? Won't I have a flood on my hands after every shower? No! The secret to containing the water is in the drainage system. This type of shower will have either a trench drain, which is a long and narrow drain placed where the shower door would be placed, or a center drain with the floor just slightly pitched towards it.

Project Story: This master bathroom was out-of-date and the homeowners couldn't wait to see their retro vanity and flooring disappear. The existing white tiled countertop made you feel like you had time traveled back to the 70’s. The homeowner told us the bathroom felt “gross” and the counters was really hard to clean. They wanted to update the space to be more cohesive with the rest of their home. She had a very specific design aesthetic: light, clean, and airy. Updating all the finishes and improving the shower footprint were critical to a successful design.