He Found One Floral Wallpaper and Designed His Entire 1920s Bathroom Around It
A flood from an upstairs bathroom damaged the bathroom below, along with the kitchen and hallway. Reddit user u/abhitchc took on the repairs himself, including the interior design.
The bathroom sits inside a 1920s home, but not everything visible before the remodel dated back that far. Pale walls had two floral borders, pink hexagonal tile covered the floor, and the fixtures had already been removed when work began.
One decision gave the new room its direction. abhitchc had seen a dark floral wallpaper in an advertisement and wanted to use it enough that he designed the bathroom around the pattern.
The Old Bathroom Had Layers From Different Decades
White walls made up most of the old room, broken by floral borders near the ceiling and above the chair rail. Pink hex tile covered the narrow floor, while the black-framed window remained one of the darkest features in the space.
Despite the age of the house, the pink floor wasn’t original. abhitchc says the tile was installed in 1968, which gave him room to replace it without removing a surviving 1920s floor.
He Kept the Layout and Changed What Surrounded It
New drywall removed the old borders and gave the walls a blank surface, but the plumbing and window stayed where they were. Moving the toilet was considered impractical because cast-iron sewer pipe and a century of electrical, gas, and water lines sit below it; the homeowner estimated relocating it would have cost thousands.
Instead, the transformation began on the surfaces. The lower walls received a dark red-brown base color, while a horizontal wood rail established the line where the two wall treatments would meet.
Black and White Hex Tile Replaced the Pink Floor
Small white hex tiles with spaced black pieces replaced the pink floor. The black accents connect with the existing window frame and give the floor a pattern without competing with the floral print planned for the walls.
Rather than changing the size or shape of the room, the new floor starts shifting its character through materials associated with older bathrooms.
Wood Trim Added Another Layer to the Lower Walls
Vertical wood strips turned the lower half of the walls into paneled sections, wrapping the same treatment around the toilet and beneath the window. The horizontal rail separates that paneling from the upper walls, creating a defined area for the wallpaper instead of carrying the print down to the baseboards.
With the floor installed and paneling built, the room still looked restrained. The element that drove the design had yet to go up.
The Wallpaper Changed Everything Around It
Rifle Paper Co.’s Wildwood wallpaper fills the upper walls with green foliage and small flowers against a near-black background. abhitchc says he saw the wallpaper in an advertisement, fell in love with it, and then designed the bathroom around it.
Deep red paint now covers the paneling, chair rail, baseboards, and crown molding. Instead of using white trim to separate the floral pattern from the rest of the room, the red picks up the warmer colors inside the print and surrounds it from above and below.
An Open Sink Left the Brass Plumbing on Display
A marble-topped sink on slim brass legs replaced the missing vanity, with the drain and supply lines left visible underneath. Brass appears again on the faucet, towel ring, sconce, and narrow mirror, while the white marble connects with the light field of hex tile below.
The open sink also means there is no cabinet storage in the bathroom, a choice several Reddit commenters questioned. abhitchc said a closet sits directly across the hallway, so spare supplies don’t need to be stored under the sink.
The mirror sits lower than some commenters expected for another reason: he has three young daughters and wanted them to see their faces while washing their hands.
One Pattern Set the Direction for the Finished Room
The before-and-after view shows how much changed without moving the room’s boundaries. Pink floor tile became a black-and-white mosaic, flat lower walls gained deep red paneling, and the pale upper walls disappeared beneath the floral pattern that started the design.
Wallpaper could have been one of the last finishes chosen for this bathroom. Here, it came first, with the red woodwork, brass fixtures, marble sink, and black-and-white floor selected around it.
Would you choose wallpaper first and build the rest of a bathroom around it?
Image credits go to u/abhitchc.