One of my favorite projects in the remodel of our 1965 split-level was the makeover of the tiny full bath in our basement. This bathroom went from a gross brown outdated 70’s tile, to a fresh and clean/super bright white full bath. Take a look at the before and after photos below!

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This bathroom was one of the last areas in our house that was severely outdated and in need of a major makeover. I completely gutted this bathroom. I mean I demo’d the tiled walls, floor, shower pan and had this room all the way down to the studs. Check out this short before video, so you can really appreciate the after.

Now that we got that 70’s grossness out of the way, let’s talk about what you’ll see in this post. I’ll walk you through all of the awesome materials we spent hours carefully curating. You’ll see tons of awesome Italian Carrara marble, subway tile, vintage looking chrome faucets as well as a few mirrored showpieces perfect for a small bathroom remodel!

Selecting Flooring for our Small Bathroom Remodel

One of the first things we knew we wanted to do in our new bathroom remodel was feature lots of Italian Carrera marble. We live 2-3 minutes away from The Tile Shop, so that was our first stop. There we found both a 2″ and 3″ hexagon shaped Italian Carrera which was exactly what we were looking for. The only downside was the cost, which was $21.99 and $22.99 per square foot.

After doing quite a bit of research I found pretty much the identical tile on Amazon for a fraction of the price and decided to take a chance and buy on-line, which paid off huge.

I ended up buying 2″ Italian Carrara hexagon tiles for the shower floor and niche. The cost per square foot was only $9.25! I then got 3″ Italian Carrara hexagon tiles for the rest of the bathroom floor, which was $11.95 per square foot.

This is a face melting deal! I ended up buying 14 square feet worth of the 2″ tiles and 33 square feet of the 3″ tiles for $523.85 with Free Shipping. These same tiles from the Tile Shop and similar stores I visited would have cost me $1065.21 before tax. That’s twice as much!

How Much Tile to Buy

This shower measured 3′ x 3′ which equals 9 square feet for the floor and the nook I was planning to build was only about 2 square feet. Although I only needed 11 square feet it’s best practice to order an additional 20-25% in materials. Having extra tile is huge because you may need a little extra to fill in gaps around the edge of the room and also as you’ll want a few extra pieces in case you find any cracks or imperfections before installation. Also, if you go back and try to buy more of the same marble tile down the road, there’s a chance that it may be cut from a different stone/quarry and may not match well.

White Subway Tile Shower

For the shower walls, we put up your standard 3 inch x 6 inch white subway tiles which only costs $1.20 per square foot at Home Depot. We tiled three walls which were each about 3 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Now again, for any tile project I always order an additional 20% in materials. Even including that additional 20% in material this shower came to 86 square feet and only costed us around $100 in tile, which is pretty amazing.

Again, that’s an awesome price compared to most other shower tiling options. Another great thing about subway tiles is, Home Depot sells single subway tiles, so you can buy a case of a hundred and return any tiles you don’t use and get credit.

For our shower niche we used a sheet of the 2″ Italian Carrara marble that we also used for the shower floor. Around the edges of the niche we used a white bullnose subway tile for a smooth transition. For the niche shelf we used a piece of 5″ Italian Carrara marble threshold that I cut to size.

Shower Head & Knobs

We really wanted our shower head and handles to have that old school or vintage look to match up with the subway tile. My wife Annette picked this Pfister shower head and handles. These handles have some awesome weight to them which makes them feel high quality. Also, I love the “H” and “C” markings designating “Hot” and “Cold” which really give them that classic and timeless look.

Italian Carrara Shower Curb

For my shower curb I used a second piece of the 36″ x 6″ Italian Carrara that matches the piece I used for my shower niche shelf. As you can see in the picture below, I have four different pieces of Italian Carrara in the bathroom remodel. The shower floor, bathroom floor, shower curb and marble baseboards. While they don’t match each other perfectly they are pretty dang close and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out.

Marble Instead of Wood Baseboards

Now instead of doing a boring old wood baseboard I wanted to do something different. So instead I purchased several pieces of 4” x 16” Italian Carrara which we used as a baseboard. These were pretty easy to cut to size with my wet saw and act as great accent with the white walls.

Mirrored Vanity

My wife Annette knew exactly what she wanted and months before we even began demolition she bought this awesome Italian Carrara topped mirrored vanity. You can see in the photo below that the marble top is a whiter marble and it actually has some very light brown veining. This current model has more grays in it and would have matched way better with the rest of the Italian Carrara tile throughout the bathroom.

Finding the Perfect Faucet for our Mirrored Vanity

Again, in this bathroom we wanted an old school, classic or maybe even vintage look that would match the rest of the house as well as the faucet in the shower. After some research we found this awesome Kingston Brass Heritage Widespread Faucet in polished chrome. This thing looks awesome and also is cool as it swivels both left and right.

Mini Subway Tile Backsplash

After installing the mirror vanity we decided to add a very small subway tile backsplash which would match the subway tile in the shower. For the backsplash we considered terminating the edges with a bullnose tile, but I found a cool pencil quarter round tile and thought it would be a cool and different way to accent the edges. Take a look at the photo below to see both the bullnose termination in the shower and then the quarter round termination around the sink’s backsplash.

Finding the Right Mirrored Mirror

After picking out the mirrored vanity and mirrored light switch plates, I wanted to carry the mirrored look/theme on to the actual mirror above the sink. I did quite a bit of searching in stores and online. The 20″ x 30″ mirror with 2″ beveled mirror frame that you see in the photo above I found on Amazon! I searched in stores and online and this mirror had 5 stars and was also quite a bit cheaper than any others I could find.

While they sell this mirror in a variety of sizes, I went with the 20″ x 30″ mirror as my vanity and sink sit back in a 24″ nook. This leaves 2″ of space on both sides of the mirror in the nook.

Choosing a Chrome & Crystal Light Fixture

We love incorporating crystals in all of our lighting and with chrome faucets throughout the room we decided to stick with a chrome fixture. Annette picked out this super glam Jayden 2 Light Bath Bar light fixture from Wayfair.

Overall, this full bathroom remodel was messy, at times frustrating, but in the end totally worth it and one of my favorite projects that I’ve taken on in the house.

In the future, I plan to detail this bathroom remodel from nose to tail. I’ll get into the demolition that went down to the studs and then some of the roadblocks and technical aspects of this remodel. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think of this transformation. Please comment below!