Retro Renovation

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A tiny, beautiful pink bathroom — saved — for me!

pam kueber - March 20, 2017, Updated: May 13, 2021

I’ve been in Kentucky all weekend — my Dad’s 80th birthday is today — and while here, I’ve been staying with my brother and his family. About two years ago, they bought a 1962 midcentury modern house that needed a ton of work. They have now lovingly restored it — and it’s an absolute treasure. One of the things they left virtually untouched — for me — was the pink bathroom in their guest room. This pint-sized pink potty space is so darn cute I could bust! And the sink and toilet, in particular: These are spectacular designs!

Above: The sink, toilet and tub are all American Standard. It’s difficult getting the color right with my iphone camera. The fixtures are decisively pink!

The sink is quite tiny — a petite lavatory on beautiful, hefty chrome-plated steel legs with an integral towel bar. All the fixtures are in near-perfect shape. I don’t think the bathroom was used much over the years.

Above: I edited this photo to be black and white to spotlight the lines of the toilet. Gracious, I think I will declare this the most beautiful toilet design in American history. I am too lazy right now to go looking for historical info, but I am pretty sure this design was available for decades. 

The wall tiles are salt-and-pepper. They are mud-set, I think. I tend to believe that salt ‘n pepper tiles came more into fashion around this time, the early 1960s. They are a nice way to do “white” but knocked down a bit so’s you don’t get a big slab ‘o white. Over the years, I’ve seen salt ‘n pepper tiles with a variety of ‘dots’ combinations: Golden combos, black combos, blue combos.

Note, when I retiled the bathrooms in my house, circa 2002, I had not started the blog yet… I did not know where to get Mamie pink bathroom tiles. If I had, for sure I’d have a B&W Tile pink powder room paradise in my own little palace!

I did go retro, though. One of my bathrooms has heron blue field tile, trimmed in white; another, rose beige trimmed in white; and the third, peach trimmed in black. And they all have wallpaper!

Above: There’s a recessed medicine cabinet, sliding doors.

Above: The floor is a random mosaic. I think you could replicate this one, more or less, using Dal-Tile’s Mosaic Design Tool. World of Tile used to have lots of 12″ x 12″ sheets like this, in colors like this, and older. Alas, the company is gone now.

dog-shower
Natalie and Graham’s doggie shower with Daltile Mosaic floor they designed.

More stories about designs using Daltile’s Mosaic Designer:

And: 

It’s the honorary Aunt Pam’s Vintage Pink Bathroom! #sohappy

Ack! I need to make some art for the bathroom to thank my brother and his family! xoxo family!

 

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92 comments

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  1. Madeline Ferraro says

    Pam,
    Maybe you can contact HGTV and the production companies that make the reno shows and sell them to hgtv and inform them about recycling the classics that they are trashing — they could even make a segment where you go and meet the demo guys and save and re home whatever classics they would have destroyed

      • Rick G says

        I’m sure that all who are involved in these over done shows; are well aware of the brain washing campaign they continue to dish out – It’s never been about actual good style , or taste in design ; it’s about $$$$$$$ . Anyways that washroom rocks !!! – I think I would have had to sleep in the tub – thanks for sharing that Pam !

      • Mary Elizabeth says

        Too bad they aren’t listening! However, I have seen several episodes of “Property Brothers” and “Fixer Upper” in which they unscrewed the cabinets from the wall instead of smashing them and commented that the cabinets, while not stylish or conforming to the new owners taste, were in excellent condition and could be donated. Also, Joanna Gaines on “Fixer Upper” likes to find underlying structural elements (like shiplap that had been covered with something else) and old French doors stored in the basement, which she incorporates back into the new design. I’ve seen them carry out toilets and sinks, although I don’t know what happens to those afterward. But when they take out an enameled pink tub that was part of the original construction, they usually saw it in half to take it out, which DH tells me is because they are so heavy and too large to fit through a doorway whole.

        Maybe if several readers of this site wrote in to HGTV and complained we could get something going.

  2. Elizabeth says

    I would bet money that the “pink” bathroom is Suez Tan just like my 1958 bathroom! I have American Standard and color matched my toilet lid because the previous owner had used a mismatched pink lid. Love my Suez Tan bathroom!

    • pam kueber says

      It was very difficult for me to try and get the pink of the fixtures captured in a photograph, and, red is notoriously difficult to capture on computer screens. They are not tan — they are decisively pink. Your story does remind me of our original The Hard Way story, though!

  3. Janet Ross says

    Love the bathroom.
    But highlight for me was the corgi.. Also do you have a better photograph of the doggie shower?
    Thank you Jan

  5. Mary Elizabeth says

    Also, happy 80th birthday to your dad! And as a housewarming gift next time you visit, you can look in dollar stores for a bunch of thin-handled toothbrushes that will fit in their toothbrush holder. (I find modern tootbrushes with the “ergonomic” handles are too big. What people are brushing their teeth for enough hours to make that necessary?)

    And how about some old-fashioned Camay soap?
    http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/camay-soap-pkg-of-3-bars/product/41671

    And a pink swan planter with some air plants?
    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ceramic-Pottery-Coral-Pink-Swan-Planter-Bud-Vase-Figurine-3-1-2-High-/322438534063?hash=item4b12d593af:g:0fsAAOSw-0xYjyGm

  6. Mary Elizabeth says

    Pam,

    Rather than try to reproduce the floor themselves, readers can still find Merola University Pink tiles for about $10 per square foot. It is the kind Kate used in her “from scratch” pink bathroom. It is still on line at the Big Orange Home Store (you know the one).

    And here’s another source of a similar one:
    houzz.com/photos/46759484/Academy-Porcelain-Mosaic-Floor-Wall-Tiles-Set-of-10-Pink-midcentury-mosaic-tile

  7. Alison Boteler says

    Hi Pam– don’t know where to post this but as I write I’m watching a new show on HGTV called “Home Town”. I’m feeling sick because they have a perfectly matched vintage olive green stove, dishwasher even refrigerator they are just gutting out of the kitchen. Its so rare that a refrigerator from that era survived as long as the oven. Feel very sad and frustrated.

      • CarolK says

        The only renovation show I can happily watch is Nicole Curtis’s show which occasionally airs on HGTV in the morning, but it is more often found on DIY. It’s about restoring old homes, as Nicole puts it, to their former glory. Nicole salvages and restores everything she can in these homes that she’s often bought at rock bottom prices (like $1) to rescue them from the wrecking ball.

    • Amber Dancy says

      I can’t watch the renovation shows, either.

      Our oven and range are that rarely-seen light brown color made by GE. I’m not sure what the refrigerator looked like, but every day for 4 years I’ve wished we still had it.

      I love my kitchen sooooo much, but I hate, hate, hate my new white fridge. I’d even accept harvest gold over white!!

  9. Diane in CO says

    C’mon now — the best part of that nice little bathroom on your family visit was that the only “dentils” in there was your toothbrush — right? 🙂

    • pam kueber says

      Yes, I was on a dentil break! I just got back home Tuesday. Back at it Wednesday!