Master Bath– the Pony Wall

I have fun pics to share of our master bath remodel.  I want to be careful to say the “before” space was not bad in the least.  We started with the traditional stand up shower lined with builder grade plastic and an adjoining sunken tub made of the same plastic that when you stepped into it, you were certain you would fall through.   It all functioned fine, but there was nothing special about it.  Since we don’t plan to move, we knew the investment in time and money would be well worth it.

I created a board on Pinterest and made a notebook with color swatches, photos from magazines and a “wish list”.  We decided that for our personal tastes we would gut everything and instead of putting in another tub, we would increase the size of the closet and have a larger walk-in shower.  Yes, you heard it right, we have no tub.  Neither Mr. Bee nor I are tubbers, and since we will be approaching the age where we can no longer get in and out of the tub, and that we plan to live in this same house until we move to the funeral home, we felt very comfortable living without a downstairs tub.  If we need a soak, we can go to the upstairs bathroom or to a hotel.

I will share the updates in a series so you can see each thing we did to keep the segments shorter.  This story is all about the pony!

I have always disliked a water closet that is closed off.  It makes me feel claustrophobic to be inside a dark room taking care of my “business.”  So I got this inspiration from Pinterest.

We removed the wall and the contractor used the photo as a guide to create the frame and glass shelves.  It meant that Mr. Bee would be losing his medicine cabinet, but we remedied that with adding drawers to the cabinets you can see below.  The little commode room also had a door, which we removed (all the doors went to our neighbor for her son’s theatre department for set design — yay for up cycling!).  In fact the bathroom had five doors to contend with.  We removed them all and now only have two sliding, pocket doors — one to enter the bathroom and one to enter the closet.  That’s it.  Very streamlined.

This pic shows how small and dark the water closet was.

Then during the demo of the wall.

Here’s the after of the pony wall…

We didn’t do the sconce like the inspiration photo, because we already had a light source inside the commode area.  And since the sink was right next to the wall we didn’t make shelving below the pony wall. 

I think it turned out amazing. I wanted the cabinets to feel like furniture, not bathroom cabinets which is why I went with a darker color scheme than the inspiration photo.  The wall color is Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter.  The cabinets are Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze.  I will do another post on the accessories so stay tuned.  Remember, this is all about the pony.

The bottom shelf is part of the framing.  The three shelves above it are tempered, thick glass.  We added rubber feet to the hardware so the glass shelves don’t slip off when cleaning them or reaching for a cotton ball.

The mercury glass accessories give just enough bling and sparkle to contrast against the darker wood. 

Next stop…the shower!