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Home / Bathroom / Readers and their Bathrooms / Popular - Readers and their Bathrooms

Nanette & Jim’s Mamie pink bathroom — built from scratch — to look like it’s always been there

Kate - December 8, 2014, Updated: July 24, 2021

pink tile bathroom newnanette-and-jim-250Nanette and Jim won our 2013 The Hard Way Award for their blue bathroom remodel. Now, this dynamic duo is at it again — this time, with a gut-remodel that transformed their upstairs bathroom from 1980s builder-grade bleck into 1950s Mamie Pink Magnificent. Every bathroom remodel is gonna be epic — at least 84 decisions/details to consider. But aim to do it retro, and you dial up the degree of difficulty exponentially. Buckle up, in our story today, Nanette shows us how It Is Done, in blow-by-blow, do you have what it takes detail.

Vintage pink bathroomNanette writes:

This bathroom was a total mess, we’ve wanted to remodel it since we first moved in many years ago. The entire bathroom was remodeled DIY style right before we bought the house and done so poorly.

Vintage pink bathroom

The shower started leaking down to the basement almost immediately due to poor construction. Everything that was put into the remodel was the cheapest Home Depot option possible, it just didn’t hold up. The tub would creak when you showered, we honestly feared it was just going to fall through the floor one day. As paint started to peel we could see pink showing through all over, and it just killed us.

Vintage pink bathroom

We are fairly certain that this was a pink bathroom the seller decided to update / modernize when they put the house on the market. The previous owner was a 92-year-old man, had lived here since 1950 (house was built in 1945), his daughter was selling the home for him. We cringe that they gutted many elements of our time capsule home and “updated” them poorly, but at least they left many others we adore.

Vintage pink bathroom Vintage pink bathroom

We put in the basement bathroom with the intention of gutting the upstairs bath as soon as we could afford to do so. We jumped in feeling like, we had this one after doing the last — it would be easy, right? Well, as these projects go, it was a whole new set of hurdles, and I can truly say it wasn’t easy by any means and uncovered many new issues to deal with along the way.

Tile:

Pink is B&W (70W pink, same as Kate’s retro pink master bathroom).

Vintage pink bathroom

We used the large hex (4.25 x 5 9/32) on the counter top and 4×4 everywhere else. We really liked working with B&W. Their prices are very reasonable, and their customer service was exceptional. Since we live on the West Coast, the shipping was also reasonable, not to mention they fired our entire batch to ensure the color would all match.

bathroom sink set into tile

White Tile is Daltile from Home Depot. We actually preferred the B&W white, it was a slightly softer white, but for the price we couldn’t say no to going with Daltile at Home Depot. We were able to pick it up as we needed it and return what we didn’t use. That said, we had to order some specialty pieces like the cove base direct through Daltile (through our contractor). The black shower hex is also from Daltile.

Vintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroom

Our gorgeous tile work was installed by the same tile guy that did the blue bathroom in our basement. He really blew us away with this job, just look at that arch, it took some time to figure out how to create an even arch with materials that do not curve and cannot be cut to curve. He even tiled the inside of the arch.

Vintage pink bathroom
Vintage pink bathroom

The detailing of the tile work is so old world, he’s truly an artist that cares for his craft.*

shower with tile arch way

*Side note, after we started this project, well down the road and had installed the curb for the shower, a contractor pointed out that we needed 30″ clearance to meet code wall to wall inside the shower; we were several inches away. Evidently this is code for showers but does not apply to tubs. There was a tub in that space before, and it was less than 30″ and evidently that meets code so… The suggestions were to knock down the wall and move the shower back into the bedroom a few inches so we had clearance. The second was to create a curb-less shower so the entire bathroom drains into the shower (no need for a door). We didn’t like either of these options. After much deliberation with our tile guy, we managed to pop out the curb a touch (which is why our bathroom door doesn’t open as far as it used to), and move the shower door installation over off center of the curb to give us just enough clearance.

Plumbing:

vintage sink

When it came to the plumbing for the pink bathroom, we had several strokes of luck! Managed to score the vintage Crane sink from Rejuvenation as they were closing out their salvage yard.

Vintage pink bathroom

It was missing the down pipe connection, which as it turns out is hard to find and may have cost us more than the sink to replace, but we found a local plumber that had some Crane parts!

Vintage pink bathroom

We also found a circa 1938 American Standard pink toilet in good condition, but missing its matching seat/lid and needing new seals. I discovered it’s a tad hard to find a matching toilet seat/lid combo so I decided to visit a local plumbing shop that we had gone to before — George Morlan Plumbing Supply.

I walked in and asked if they had any pink toilet seats, they laughed… then one guy said wait a minute and ran upstairs. He was gone for quite some time but returned with 2 boxes with NOS pink toilet seats in them. One of the pinks didn’t match well, but the other was a near perfect match. It had been sitting in storage for so long it was not priced and not in their computer system. They cut me a good deal and jokingly told me I couldn’t return it. It just goes to show it never hurts to ask! [Editor’s note: This is Pam’s favorite part of the story, she says. Classique!]

The plumber who installed the toilet informed us that our toilet has a special feature of the day (circa 1938). It has a cleaning feature, when you flush it, it swirls and fills all the way up to the top of the rim before flushing down. The first time you flush it, it’s pretty frightening, it appears to be backed up and about ready to overflow but nope, it’s supposed to do that. It’s such a champ though, works like a dream! [Editor’s note: No, maybe this is Pam’s favorite part of the story! She wanna.]

Vintage pink bathroom

The faucets/handles for the shower are also NOS, I found them on some random search online. I purchased them (Sayco 2080D-2 tub and shower set) through Locke Plumbing. [Editors’s note: WOWZA, why have we not spotted this before!]

Flooring:

Vintage pink bathroom

We have a friend who installs flooring and specializes in Marmoleum who got us excited about using Marmo. We really wanted to install Marmoleum downstairs, but we just couldn’t find a color combo that would work down there. It was also challenging to find a color combo that we thought would work upstairs, but after much deliberation I found a good combo only to find the black (Litho) had been discontinued. We managed to score some for our small space on closeout.

Vintage pink bathroom

The installation process was super interesting, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to watch. They have to start with a very smooth flat surface, and from there it’s basically like making a pattern for a dress and gluing it together piece by piece. We even used a piece of the leftover flooring to do a counter top on our basement bar.

 

Marmoleum colors:

5303 Litho — limited to what’s on hand, discontinued, may be gone in a week or two,

5305 Scrabble – pinstripe

Lighting:

beautiful pink bathroom remodel

The vintage wall mounted light over the sink and the fixture on the ceiling came from Hippo Hardware, a local salvage shop. They rewired both, they even repainted the white parts of the one over the sink so it looked all shiny and new when I picked it up.

Vintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroom

They have a large stock of lights to choose from along with other salvage items. Don’t be scared by the old wiring, it is their policy to rewire light fixtures before you to take them home, they figure why rewire them until they are sold, makes sense to me!

Vintage pink bathroom

The Fresnel shower light came from Amazon.

Cabinets, wallpaper, mirror and decor:

Vintage pink bathroom

  • Wallpaper is from Hannah’s Treasures! It’s the same print that we used in the blue bathroom but in pink. We fell in love with the idea of using the same paper in both bathrooms to pull the projects together, but along the way we almost went with something else. Many months of indecision and samples later, we finally decided to go with our original idea, and it looks great! *

*Side note: If installing wallpaper into a small space like this, I’d recommend doing so before installing a toilet or other things that will not allow you to have floor space below the paper installation. OMG it was so challenging to install this little bit of wallpaper while straddling the toilet and counter tops. It took us several days, could have been a 1/2 day project tops.

Vintage pink bathroom

  • Very large mirror:  We ordered the beveled glass mirror from a local glass shop and picked it up ourselves, it was super affordable. Figuring out how to hang it was a little challenging since we didn’t have enough lip on our tile to allow it to rest on the tile as planned. Other traditional ways of hanging these mirrors tend to create moisture problems from the mirror resting in a metal tray on the bottom that fills up with water. We also discovered that our wall had a large hump so we couldn’t mount/glue it on the wall. We found some brackets that did the trick at an amazing local hardware store — W.C. Winks Hardware — that specializes in odd fasteners and the like.

Vintage pink bathroom Vintage pink bathroom

  • Custom built cabinetry with pulls from Rejuvenation, (we do plan to swap those out with some that match our kitchen, I just located them at Winks).

HMI Cardinal glass shower doors

  • The shower door, well that was very expensive, and it’s where we really splurged. We wanted to keep the space open yet didn’t want to go with a curtain. We were pretty excited to discover the Skyline Series shower door system from Cardinal Shower Enclosures.

Vintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroomVintage pink bathroom

The little things here and there, it’s the joy of the hunt for the bargain for me, I have yet to find all the perfect little pieces to go into the space but that’s the fun of it, when I see something I’ll know and it will be glorious!

Vintage pink bathroom

While this was technically a remodel, it was a lot of work. While the bathroom plumbing locations remained where they were before the remodel for the most part, the p-trap, drains and heat ducts were all hanging down in the head space exposed in our basement bar below. When we remodeled the bathroom, we also opted to finish the original knotty pine basement / bar which had sat half finished since the 1940s. I won’t say anything more about this other than it’s another exciting story of wonderful salvage! More to come!!

nanette-and-jim-500

~Nanette & Jim

Bathroom design/photos by me, Nanette Wallace, all rights reserved.

Woah. We told you. Epic. Nanette and Jim, you are rockin’ it, big time. Thanks you so much for sharing your story, your resource list, wonderful photos and of course, the love of pink bathrooms.

  • If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out Nanette and Jim’s vintage blue bathroom remodel, too!

CATEGORIES:
Bathroom Favorite stories from Retro Renovation Pink Bathrooms Popular - Readers and their Bathrooms Readers and their Bathrooms Readers and their Bathrooms - Featured

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84 comments

Comments

  1. Beth says

    March 15, 2017 at 4:45 pm

    Nanette & Jim, I am so in love with your style and persistence in making a wonderfully restored mid-century house! Your pink bath is so perfect from the floor to the ceiling. I also love all the useful period accessories you found to decorate with. I have a 1954 custom mid-century ranch in NE Ohio. We have most of the original green bath but only the pink tub remains or the original fixtures. There has been years of water collecting behind the beautiful large tile walls in the tub/show and I am afraid I will lose the tiles in a refurbish. I am hoping to find extra tile that matches the original large dark green tile or the original smaller light green subway style tile it is edged with. Do you have any suggestions for finding the pink toilet or sink online? p
    p.s. the glass block wall between the shower and toilet was ingenious!

    • pam kueber says

      March 15, 2017 at 5:12 pm

      Hi Beth, we have resources for pink toilets and sink made new today — go to those subcategories.

      For example: Bathroom Help / Toilets — the story has both toilets and sinks in it, the story is right at the top because we get so many questions for this info

  2. Cara says

    March 11, 2017 at 5:03 pm

    Hi there!
    I’m so impressed with the tile work! Could you tell me whether the tiles on the arch itself are 4×4? The tiles going up the sides don’t look square. Is that an optical illusion?

    My tiler is going to have to put a black border around a curved tub and I wanted to show him your arch to see if he gets any tips.
    Thanks!

    • nanette says

      March 13, 2017 at 4:52 pm

      Thanks Cara!
      They were 4×4″ tiles that were meticulously cut to create the illusion of a rounded arch. Both sides were cut at an angle and pieced together precisely. The bottoms were then cut as well since I only wanted a 3″ border. Our tiler created a map or rather a pattern for himself before he started with the measurements required to create the arch for each tile. Then, as he cut them he placed them on his pattern to make sure they would fit precisely as planned. I wish I had taken a photo of this process. He was/is quite the artist! He did this all by hand and figured out the calculations unassisted by a computer or other technology. I’m sure this could have been accomplished on a computer with some sort of cad program as well.

      Good luck to you!! My experience has been that pretty much anything can be accomplished but you just have to find the person willing to go down this exciting path with you!
      ~Nanette

  3. SoCalLu says

    February 3, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    Thank you for sharing the vision, details and decisions for your lovely bathroom. I live in Gardena and know of B&W tile. My 1939 home has a pink bathroom with arched top small shower stall and rounded walls to ceiling (so the surface of the walls and ceiling are the same w/ no corners). I need to make some changes (we cannot age here w/ the current set up) and have been thinking about how to keep the colours and character of the bathroom. The arched shower (when made bigger), keeping the rounded walls, and keep the pink tile are what I want. You’ve renewed my enthusiasm for the possibilities!

    • Nanette says

      February 4, 2016 at 1:59 pm

      Thank you so much, I’m so happy to hear that our bathroom has inspired you to hang onto yours! I love the craftsmanship in the old original tile work, it is so hard to achieve anything like that these days. Our tile guy really got into the arch as far as making square tiles look like they are bending. He created a map to work from with the angles that each tile needed to be cut in order to make them match up top and bottom as they arched over and around. Turned out so nice, we were blown away!

      We also have coved ceilings in our house but only in the living room/dining room, they are so lovely, I do hope you hang onto those as well!

      Good luck to you!! I really believe that if you have a vision and some drive to achieve it you most certainly can hang onto the vintage and make it function for your modern needs.

  4. sunny says

    July 15, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    Oh my – this bathroom is OFF THE CHAIN! Thank you so much for sharing it with the world!

  5. Michelle says

    June 14, 2015 at 10:09 pm

    That is the most functional and beautiful bathroom I have ever seen. Fantastic job. Thanks for sharing.

  6. Lynda Peregrine says

    February 17, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    We have the same existing Marvin-the Martianesque lav faucets in our recently acquired mid-60’s ranch— one of the reasons we bought the place! It also has an existent pink bath and original Formica throughout. So glad it wasn’t ‘updated’!
    We used Marmo, too— your selections and border detail are fab. This is so stunning and the arched shower reminds me of Chateau Marmont/ East Coast coolness— infinite kudos!

  7. Lauryn says

    January 21, 2015 at 1:06 am

    This is just gorgeous. I always drool over the arched showers in so many earlier-in-the-mid-century homes (they seem to be especially prevalent on the West Coast) so that shower is easily my favorite part of this remodel. And that floor! We really wanted to put a little pinstripe on our Marmoleum kitchen floor but couldn’t find anyone willing to do it, and there is no way we have the DIY skills to do that ourselves. Kudos to you. What an amazing job!

  8. Molly Evans says

    December 14, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    Love it all! So pretty and such (rare) quality. You must do a happy dance every time you walk past it. 🙂

  9. Douglas Bergeson says

    December 13, 2014 at 10:17 am

    Love the floor!!

  10. Mary Elizabeth says

    December 12, 2014 at 4:03 pm

    Forgot to ask about a couple of your accessories. Is that a swan light? One of my relatives had one over the TV in the 1950s, and one of our neighbors had flying ducks in a similar fixture. And is the handled pink tidbit plate Portuguese? It looks like one I’ve seen.

    • Nanette says

      December 15, 2014 at 12:21 pm

      Hey Mary, that is a swan light /TV lamp. I have a pretty fair collection of TV lamps and this one works so well in the pink bathroom. It’s really fantastic with it’s nice soft glow at night with all the other lights off in there. The pink leaf plate/bowl thingee with the handle says Made in USA and something else I can’t make out.

      • Mary Elizabeth says

        December 18, 2014 at 7:14 am

        Wow, made in USA! It must be a real vintage item. 🙂

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