Ben Sander transforms a blah 1980s kitchen and bathroom

Yesterday we took a look at two rockin’ 1970s-style bedrooms that Ben Sander designed for a client. Today: The apartment kitchen and bathroom, equally amazingly transformed — and glory be: using World of Tile tile scooped up before WOT closed. I repeat (and forewarn): “Statement interiors” are not for the faint of design heart, so prepare your eyeballs for some eye-popping style.

From 1980s blah to 1970s fabulous — the kitchen before and after

Photos courtesy of Ben Sander (before) and Everett Short Photography (after). — Photos courtesy of Ben Sander (before) and **Everett Short Photography** (after).

Ben Sander describes the project:

My client didn’t want to spend as much on the kitchen. To keep costs down, we reused the melamine cabinets, which were in perfectly good shape. We removed them, pulled up the old tile floor and put down sale tile from World of Tile. I found an amazing deal on enough vintage wallpaper to do over the entire room on Craigslist, then got the idea to paper the ceiling as well in a gingham pattern vinyl found on eBay. We put it up on the diagonal. The stove and dishwasher are the GE Artistry line that I discovered right here on RR. When we reinstalled the cabinets, we painted the honey colored oak edge pulls in a green enamel to match the laminate counters, which are Decotone Surfaces Verde Acido.

A granitized 80s bathroom — gone disco

retro bathroom — Photos courtesy of Ben Sander.

Ben tells all:

The master bath was the single most expensive room in the remodel. It’s totally tricked out in World of Tile, top to toe. Chippy helped us collect the wall tiles and all the associated trim pieces for windows, bull nose, soap dishes and toothbrush holders, as well as the beautiful floor tiles that look like the inside of a blast furnace. I had the vanity custom made and clad in glossy laminate, with a top in the suede texture. We kept the existing bath tub to save money, but put in all new fixtures from Vola. The original bath faucet was designed in 1968 by Arne Jacobsen, and the line has subsequently been expanded to include both bath and kitchen fixtures in a variety of colors. That original faucet has been copied endlessly and is now somewhat ubiquitous in chrome. What makes the fixtures we used special is the color. You’ll notice we also used the black and white Chevron wallpaper in here.