Reinvent It: A Texas Bathroom Says 'Bonjour' to Salvage

“Renovation is perpetual in our house," says furniture dealer and stylist Brad Ross. He and his wife, Tiffany, are inspired by trips abroad and love to bring international styles home. They are also pros at scouting vintage pieces and architectural salvage. During this bathroom's renovation, the high cost of glass enclosures, a serendipitous encounter with a reclaimed French pocket door and the couple's love of Paris inspired the bathroom's vintage Parisian style. The bathroom is shared by their three kiddos, Adan, Eli and Lily.

Project: A bathroom renovation in Texas
Cost: About $1,500
Time: About a week, including a few evenings

The bathroom had a standard bathtub-shower combination. At first Ross simply wanted to rip that out and replace it with a shower with a glass enclosure.


DURING: However, once he got started with the demolition, he couldn't stop himself. "While I was in doing this I decided to take everything out, including the cheesy MDF cabinet and the linoleum floor," Ross says. He had some supplies like tile left over from his master bath renovation, which cut down on costs.


"When I got the estimate for the glass enclosure, it was more than the whole renovation had cost me up to that point," Ross says. He came across the French pocket door at architectural salvage dealer Orr Reed in Dallas and knew it would be a great fit.

To protect the door from the water, Ross sealed the wood with many coats of an oil-based primer and paint, and added a shower curtain inside. "We also liked the romantic Parisian look of the French door with the curtain on the back," he says.


Replacing the linoleum floor with black and white tile made a big design impact, as did using subway tile in the shower stall. Both are classics that will match many styles and never go out of fashion.

Floor tile: 2-inch octagonal white matte with black dot, Daltile, Home Depot; wall tile: 3- by 6-inch white subway tile, Daltile, Home Depot


The Rosses had already experimented with using a dresser in their master bath as a vanity. An old sewing machine cabinet found on Craigslist was just the right fit here. Ross added a custom 1-inch marble slab with a bullnose edge to the top to create an elegant counter and backsplash.

A mirror found at a resale shop matches the marble's elegant look, as do the vanity's glass knobs.

Tip: If you've picked a piece of furniture that doesn't appear to have room for the faucet on the back, try turning the faucet on an angle, as Ross did here.

Marble: D and H Marble + Granite; faucet: Lowe's


The cabinet swings open for easy access to the plumbing. Ross cut a hole in the back to fit the pipes through. He used a basic gray Krylon spray paint and finished the piece with Minwax's Polycrylic clear coat.


The final result is a bathroom that's elegant, bright and open and suits the family's swanky vintage tastes.

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