1960s Bathroom Remodel with IKEA Vanity and Bruce Hydropel Flooring
Some people relax by watching TV.
I relax by ripping apart a bathroom and immediately wondering if I have made a terrible mistake.
In this episode of Maxwell’s Kitchen, I walk through the first major bathroom remodel in my 1960s house. The bathroom still had a lot of original pieces from 1968, including the sink, vanity, floor, lighting situation, and a general feeling of “someone should probably deal with this.”
That someone became me.
This was a DIY bathroom renovation with an IKEA GODMORGON vanity, Bruce Hydropel flooring, recessed LED lights, smart switches, a GFCI outlet, a bathroom fan, a new toilet, fresh paint, trim, and plenty of moments where I was not completely sure what I was doing.
Which is usually how learning works.
In This Episode
1960s bathroom remodel
DIY bathroom renovation
IKEA GODMORGON vanity install
Bruce Hydropel bathroom flooring
Recessed LED lights
Smart dimmer switches
GFCI bathroom outlet
Bathroom exhaust fan install
Removing old bathroom flooring
Replacing an old vanity
Installing a new toilet
Bathroom trim and caulk
Sherwin-Williams yellow bathroom paint
Learning home renovation by doing it
About This Bathroom Remodel
I bought this house in September 2021.
It was built in 1968 or 1969, had one owner for decades, and a lot of the house had not been touched since then. That can sound charming until you are standing in a bathroom with no normal wall outlet, no exhaust fan, a window directly in the shower, old flooring peeling apart, and a sink that looks like it has personally witnessed the moon landing.
The bathroom needed help.
The goal was not to turn it into a luxury spa. I was not trying to make it look like a hotel where every towel is rolled up and nobody has ever used a toothbrush.
I just wanted it to work better, look better, and feel like a room someone had cared about sometime after 1968.
The Old Bathroom Problems
The original bathroom had a few issues.
There was no wall outlet by the vanity. The only place to plug anything in was inside the old light fixture above the mirror, which is the kind of thing that makes you wonder how many decisions in older houses were made by somebody saying, “Eh, close enough.”
There was also no bathroom fan.
That meant every shower turned the room into a condensation cave. The walls would get damp, the sheetrock would suffer, and the bathroom basically had the emotional humidity of a locker room.
Then there was the floor.
The old flooring looked like layers of bad decisions. It had old linoleum, one-by-one tile-looking pieces over the top, and whatever mystery paper layer was underneath. When I started peeling it back, I immediately had that homeowner feeling where your brain says, “This could be fine,” while your eyes say, “You are in danger.”
Installing the Bathroom Fan and Lights
The bathroom fan was one of the first projects that intimidated me.
I had someone come out to look at it, and the labor quote made me think maybe I could learn something new today. My brother does HVAC and helped convince me it was possible, so I cut into the ceiling, installed the fan, and got help from my friend Steven with the electrical.
That changed the room immediately.
Then I replaced the old light fixture with recessed LED lights. I had already installed a bunch of these around the house, so by this point I was getting faster at it. Turn off the breaker, remove the old fixture, connect the hot, neutral, and ground, and install the new light.
Simple in theory.
Still scary when you are the one doing it.
Smart Switches and a Real Outlet
One of the nerdier parts of this bathroom remodel was adding smart switches.
I put in an on/off switch for the ceiling fan, a dimmer for the lights, and a GFCI outlet so the bathroom finally had a normal, usable plug.
The switches connect to Wi-Fi, which means I can control them from my phone or with Siri. I have presets around the house like morning time, night time, dinner time, movie time, and bedtime.
Is that necessary?
No.
Do I enjoy saying one phrase and having the house behave like a low-budget spaceship?
Yes.
The IKEA GODMORGON Vanity
The new vanity came from IKEA.
It was a GODMORGON vanity with soft-close drawers, which is one of those small things that makes you feel like you live in a much more organized life than you actually do.
The sink and vanity mount to the wall, and because it had some weight to it, I got nervous about the standard mounting setup. I made sure it was fastened into studs and added extra metal bracing with lag bolts because I did not want the vanity ripping out of the wall someday while someone was brushing their teeth.
Would the original install method probably have worked?
Maybe.
Did I overbuild it because I enjoy sleeping at night?
Yes.
Bruce Hydropel Bathroom Flooring
The floor was the part I was most excited about.
The rest of my house has traditional hardwood, but bathrooms and kitchens are not where regular hardwood wants to live. Water falls down. Toilets do toilet things. Kids exist. Life is wet.
So I used Bruce Hydropel flooring, which is made for moisture-prone areas and has the look of wood without me having to pretend a bathroom is a dry place.
The planks interlock, and they come in different lengths, so you have to plan the layout a bit as you go. I used an underlayment underneath, worked around the toilet area, and had to finish the flooring after the toilet situation finally resolved itself.
By “toilet situation,” I mean Home Depot lost my custom-order toilet.
Twice? Not exactly.
But emotionally, yes.
The Toilet Saga
I wanted a toilet with clean sides.
That sounds like the dumbest design preference until you have cleaned around the little bolt caps at the bottom of a standard toilet. Those things collect dust, hair, and tiny bathroom sadness.
So I ordered a sleeker toilet from Home Depot. It was about $350 and had to be custom ordered.
It arrived.
They lost it.
Then they ordered another one.
So the bathroom sat half-finished for weeks while I waited for this fancy toilet to appear like it was being handcrafted by monks in the mountains.
When it finally showed up, I installed it with help because the thing weighed around 120 pounds and had hidden bolts that required some uncomfortable reaching and a special tool. It was not impossible, but it was not exactly a peaceful afternoon either.
Still, once it was in, it looked great.
And the soft-close lid means kids cannot slam it shut.
A small victory for civilization.
The Yellow Paint
The paint was controversial.
I originally painted the bathroom a lighter gray, but the way the light came in made it look kind of pinkish-purple. I did not love it.
So I decided to do something different and went with a bright yellow from Sherwin-Williams.
I thought it looked awesome.
My family did not agree.
My brother, sister, parents, kids, and basically anyone who walked into the bathroom had some version of, “Why did you do this?”
And honestly, fair question.
But I still like it.
The rest of the house is more neutral, so walking into this bright yellow bathroom feels like the room has a pulse. It wakes the whole thing up. Maybe it is too much. Maybe I am wrong.
Still keeping it.
Trim, Caulk, and Finishing Details
Toward the end, my dad came over and helped with trim.
And by helped, I mean he mostly just did it and taught me things while I watched and tried to absorb useful homeowner knowledge.
We installed the base trim, used a Ryobi nail gun, and added a bead of sealant along the top so it looked cleaner. I also had to install a transition piece between the existing hardwood and the new Hydropel floor because the bathroom floor sat a little higher.
That transition piece was annoying to find, showed up in the wrong color, and had to be sanded.
Because of course it did.
The finishing details were mostly IKEA items: towel racks, toothbrush holder, soap container, small stuff that makes the bathroom feel done instead of like a construction zone with a toilet.
What I Learned
The big point of this episode is not that I am an expert bathroom remodeler.
I am not.
The point is that you get better by doing things.
The first door I installed was the worst one. The seventh was better. The first time I cut into the ceiling was scary. The next electrical project made more sense. The first flooring project took longer because I was figuring it out as I went.
That is the whole deal.
You try something. You mess part of it up. You fix it. You learn a shortcut. You get better. Then the next project is slightly less terrifying.
That feeling is the reward.
Not just saving money, although saving money is great.
The real reward is walking into a room and thinking, “I did that.”
Quick Takeaways
This was a DIY remodel of a 1960s bathroom.
The bathroom had original fixtures, old flooring, no fan, and no normal wall outlet.
I installed recessed LED lights, a bathroom fan, smart switches, and a GFCI outlet.
The vanity was an IKEA GODMORGON with soft-close drawers.
The floor was Bruce Hydropel, used because bathrooms need moisture-resistant flooring.
The toilet was a sleek Home Depot custom order and took way too long to arrive.
The yellow Sherwin-Williams paint was not popular with my family.
The trim and finishing details made the bathroom feel complete.
The project saved money, but the bigger payoff was learning how to do the work.
The more you do it, the better you get.
