1911 Victorian Bathroom Relocation
The Situation
The original upstairs bathroom had been removed from one bedroom, and the previous owner planned to rebuild it inside the adjacent sitting room — a 15×15 space flanked by three other rooms, more circulation than destination.
The footprint he’d roughed out was 8×8. Barely functional. Not worth the wall space it would claim.
The sitting room had two windows worth keeping and enough square footage to do something real. The plan changed.
The Build
The bathroom grew to 8×15 and kept both windows with it. Expanding the room allowed for proper circulation around the tub and enough wall space for the bathroom to function comfortably as a daily room rather than a salvaged compromise.
The tub sits directly beneath one of the windows — a restored clawfoot painted navy on the exterior, with chrome risers and a full shower surround.
The placement was deliberate. A clawfoot tub belongs near a window the same way a fireplace belongs on an exterior wall — it’s where the room wants it, where the rhythm of the house pulls it. You don’t put a tub like that against a blank wall and call it done. You find the window with the best light and the best view, and you orient the whole room around it.
Lighting was layered: a chandelier, two sconces with Edison bulbs, and heat lamps over the tub.
The house runs on an eight-zone mini split system, allowing every room to be controlled independently. In a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and no forced air, that matters.
The original floors were too far gone to save. Bamboo went in. It wasn’t historically correct, but at the time, it felt like the right compromise between durability, cost, and starting over.
The walls were colour-drenched alabaster white: not a neutral, a decision.
The Result
The room doesn’t announce itself. It settles in — the way rooms in old houses do when you follow their rhythm instead of overriding it.
The tub faces the window. The light is right at every hour. The temperature is exactly what you set it to.
A 6×6 afterthought became the best room in the house.
Details
Scope: Full Home Remodel, Bathroom design, space reconfiguration, clawfoot tub restoration, custom lighting, mini split installation, flooring
Location: Richmond, VA
Coming Soon!! – See the full build sequence — before, during, and after —
