Renter-Friendly vs. Full Bathroom Renovation With a Pro Designer

Aaron hates this tile.

I hate this tile. All the tile goes down the toilet.

[paper tearing]

I'm Darren Jett. I'm an interior designer.

I'm going to be helping two people redesign their bathrooms

with two very different budgets.

And this is Re:Design.

[upbeat music]

This is Jon.

Jon wants to brighten the space, but on a budget.

And this is Aaron,

and Aaron wants to do a full renovation on his bathroom.

I would say the first thing that I noticed

about both of these bathrooms

is that their footprint is quite small.

We're going to have to definitely optimize

what we're working with.

And two, there's no window, so both of these are quite dark.

You might look at the footprint of these bathrooms

and think, There's nothing I can do,

but actually you can really do so, so, so much.

All right, let's do it.

[paper tearing]

The main issues of the space

are that we have tiles that we don't like,

we have bathrooms that need more storage,

we have bathrooms that need a bit more personality,

and we're going to have to figure out

ways to brighten them up.

The first issue we're going to tackle is this horrible tile.

[upbeat music]

This tile is not great.

I don't think we have all the time to talk through

all the reasons why it's not great.

I see this tile all the time.

You know, it's a new development tile.

It's sort of a contractor special.

The reason why you see it

is 'cause it's cheap and it's available.

I think though that for a bathroom

that is lacking natural light,

for a bathroom that's relatively small,

to me this feels a bit dark,

and it honestly just feels a bit dingy.

If you don't have a big budget

and you want something that's very quick and easy

and also can be removed later on, do a peel and stick tile.

Jon told us he loves mid-century modern.

Why don't we do something

that has a bit of a geometric pattern?

Perhaps we do a checkerboard, for instance.

How cool would that be?

I think doing a very simple textured wallpaper on here

would go miles.

If you want something that reads almost like a neutral

and reads almost as though it is one surface,

but has slight variations and slight interest,

grass cloth is a great way to go.

It's also quite mid-century modern.

[upbeat music]

For the renovation, we will replace the tile with stone.

Aaron hates this tile. I hate this tile.

All the tile goes down the toilet.

Tile in general,

especially a subway tile that's a smaller format,

it has a lot of grout lines.

Grout lines in a bathroom are always a problem area,

so think about removing all of that tile

and replacing it with something beautiful,

large format stone perhaps,

and what that might feel like and look like.

I wanna keep that slab material at wainscot height.

Wainscoting simply means that it comes up to about,

you know, waist height or a little bit higher.

Above that, I simply wanna paint everything

a beautiful color.

The second issue is that there's not enough storage.

Currently, Jon has a few things

sort of kind of all over the place.

All of this stuff right here on the toilet, let's move it.

Let's get it off the back of the toilet.

I never like that. It never looks good.

He has a lot of space up here above the toilet,

a big empty blank wall.

I think what would be so nice

is for him to actually get a shelf

that runs the full length here,

and look, he can do something very simple.

He can move the diffuser up there.

He can have some towels nicely rolled up right there.

Maybe he could even lean some art up against the wall

to give a little bit of personality.

Little things like this go a long, long way.

And for Aaron's bathroom,

I really want to give him space for all of his products.

So Aaron wants to convert his tub into a walk-in shower.

I think that's a really smart thing

from an investment point of view.

A lot of times when we do a shower for clients,

we run into the situation where we realize

that all of their products are sort of out on display.

You really want all those things

to be sort of tucked away and hidden.

[paper tearing]

What we can do in a bathroom like this is actually do that

by building out the sort of wall right here

between the shower and the vanity.

So if we're working within a small bathroom already

and someone says to me,

I don't need a bathtub. I really only take showers,

get rid of that tub,

give you more floor space within the same square footage,

and you just have a much nicer experience when you shower.

Aaron has a lot of product. Having storage is paramount.

The third main issue is a lack of lighting.

Lighting in a bathroom, you never only want light up here.

You're only gonna see

all of the stuff up here on your forehead

that you don't wanna see.

So with Jon, right now, the lighting

looks kind of like a serial killer lives here.

[sinister suspenseful music ]

They make medicine cabinets on the market right now

for very, very cheap.

They actually have integrated lighting within them,

and that light is so flattering.

A bathroom should never have cold lighting like this.

No room should have cold lighting like this.

You don't look good.

What you need to have is very, very warm lighting.

Typically in an apartment,

I would say 2,700 is a great temperature.

When you go to the hardware store

it will say what temperature the light is.

Oftentimes, if it doesn't have a temperature like 2,700,

it might say soft white, it might say daylight.

You always wanna go towards soft white.

Soft white is just a warmer light.

Some people in a bathroom want it to be a little bit bluer,

so it's a bit more true to daylight.

This bathroom looks like it's almost 4,000.

I would say definitely 3,000 max.

For Aaron's bathroom,

we will maintain the lighting that's in the ceiling.

That will be on its own dimmer.

We will also have separate dimmers on lights

that are integrated into the medicine cabinets here.

That would be behind a diffuse piece of glass

so that whenever you turn it on,

you don't really see all the bulbs.

All you see is the beautiful light coming through.

[gentle music]

[upbeat music]

We wanna make it lighter and brighter on a budget.

I think if I came in, and I said,

You know, you're gonna have to keep the tile.

You're gonna have to keep X, Y, Z.

What you can definitely do on a budget is styling.

Let's replace the things that are easily replaceable.

The shower curtain, the bath mat, towels on the rod.

Keep those nice, fluffy and white,

keep them very simple and very beautiful,

and it makes everything just feel cleaner and fresher.

For the renovation,

we would get rid of all of the plumbing fixtures.

I really, really dislike a white fixture.

To do a renovation and end up with a white toilet,

and a white sink, and a white tub is so uninspiring to me.

I think that for someone like Aaron

who constantly has people over,

not only do you want to have

your own personal, beautiful space,

but you also want to have people who come over

and remember something, right?

I think a very easy solution

is to simply have different colored fixtures.

Why have white when you can have a color?

So we're gonna give him a black toilet.

[slow ethereal music]

[upbeat music]

We walk into Jon's bathroom,

and we can't even tell that it wasn't renovated.

It actually looks really, really cool.

We have a checkerboard floor.

We have cool tile on the walls.

We have a beautiful textured wallpaper.

We have a lot more storage and styling,

and everything feels much more fresh than it did before.

Walking into Aaron's bathroom, I am entering Aaron's world.

A space that has a beautiful stone

on the floor and on the wainscoting.

We're giving him a lot of storage with a medicine cabinet.

We're also replacing his tub with a shower.

The same footprint, but it actually feels so much bigger.

It's much cleaner, it's more modern,

it's more user-friendly, and ultimately it's more Aaron.

Do you want advice on your space?

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[upbeat music]