The Decorated Bathroom

Although the room’s layout is typical, deft choices in flooring, lighting, and decorating made it a period piece.

- Patricia Poore

Three white fixtures in a small room—what could be more common? The subway tile and a medicine cabinet over the sink are not unusual. This undistinguished room in a 1909 house became an attractive period style bath through small but adroit decisions. Fine details and decoration with a late-Victorian sensibility blend with the hygienic white “sanitary” concerns that followed in the early 20th century.

Bathrooms ca. 1900–1929 are a good model; earlier homes (once served by an outhouse) often got indoor plumbing during that era. The look is, of course, period appropriate for bungalows, Craftsman, and Prairie houses, and for Tudor, Colonial, and Romantic Revival homes.