I think I could live with it for a while, but I'd probably want to update at least the vanity eventually. Doesn't look like there's a lot of counter space and no under the sink storage and I'd want that.

As far as redoing the entire thing...it's hard to say. It's not my style, but if you like it and it fits your style then why not? It certainly looks like it's in good condition.

Almost. I'd have to put in a mirror somewhere that I could see myself in. I'm not 6 feet tall! But I wouldn't mess with the tile or fixtures.

I actually do have one almost original 50s bathroom. The tilework is gorgeous. And apparently durable. I never think about redoing it, but I do think about redoing the bathroom that was redone in trendy travertine right before I bought. The neighbors have pink. =(

There is not a closet in the ENTIRE house. (Except for the one giving access to the back of the tub.) The rooms retain all their original early 19th c. proportions. I am not sure how I would handle that yet, but they did for almost 50 years.

Armoires are inexpensive and, well, my favorite kind of furniture. You don't need closets.

You could put a skirt around the base of that sink to hide storage. Something kitschy, perhaps.

I would probably want to redo it because I simply love to redo things. Yes, I would try to pay homage to the style of the home but would be bothered by lack of closets (bedrooms with no closets?) and perhaps the older lighting. More importantly, is the wiring/plumbing safe by current standards? Seems kinda silly I guess to think about that since it worked for the owners for 50 years!

That bathroom is very easy to get along with. No old moldy cabinets or velvet texture wallpaper or nasty grout you find in some old homes. I'd sit there.
What's the floor like?

I could live with it after I removed the wallpaper. However, I don't think I could live without closets.

You could replace the faucet. But keep the old one in case someone wants to shoot a movie scene there.

Without closets, you just make one wall of one room into a long closet. I know people who have been doing that since the 80's anyway. In the bathroom you will find a way to get a bit of storage in the volume above the horizontal fluorescent.

Within ten years it will be worth a lot as it is. Many purists will like it.

Wardrobes and captains' beds.

As for the bathroom, I think I could live with it indefinitely. Including the wallpaper, in fact.

Hi Palimpsest,
That bathroom is in very good condition, unbelievably good really. Is the grout even worn looking? How's the floor? Is that door a little linen closet? I'd lose the door and use baskets on shelves for storage.
I would swap the wallpaper with a large format print in a modern color (one of those cool updated damasks?), change out the faucets and replace the medicine cabinet, light and replace the soap dishes with prettier ones to match the faucet finish.
I love the idea of the skirt around the vanity to hide storage.

I would remove the wallpaper and probably change out the light fixture. The rest is pretty good, although storage under the sink would be a huge bonus.

I could live with it for quite some time. I could live with the wall paper if there isn't any wall damage too. It's not bad for wallpaper. If it were easy to remove and the wall were in good shape, I might paint it a cheery fresh green or something just to happy it up. Do check on the pipes though. After all that time, galvanized is probably dissolving, and there could be pinholes in copper. It might need to be ripped out totally sooner than appearances would suggest.

Are there any dressing rooms? A lot of those old houses had dressing rooms next to the major bedrooms, instead of closets. Also, many from that era had bedrooms opening into bedrooms. If this house has those, one might be ripe for turning into a dressing room/closet.

Luckily, the kitchen and bath are in the "new" 45ish year old part of the house. There is a toilet in the basement of the 150 year old part of the house that may or may not have a galvanized pipe. There is no, and maybe never was any plumbing in the old part of the house, so luckily it skipped the galvanized pipe era for the kitchen and bath. (I passed on a house that was all galvanized, all knob and tube)

Do you want to do this house as a modern house, an eclectic house, a restoration, or a nod-to-the-past?

Am absolutely excited about any old house. Where I live, there are so very few pre-1870s houses that the prospect of having one is really exciting to me. If there were walk-in attic space and garage space and perhaps an upstairs room to simply use as storage, I'd be smitten. Now, admittedly, I'm more crazy for history than for restoration costs and setbacks and so forth, so take my comments with the grain of dust that they deserve.

Before you put in a bid, ask them to run the water in the upstairs to demonstrate how strong the water pressure is and whether the pipes are showing their age by narrowing the flow. Flush the toilet more than once, in succession, to judge its responsiveness. (We had to get a plumber to help us improve the water flow in a 1940s house that had been doctored sometime in its lifetime with replacement bimetal joints, which caused impurities to settle at the plumbling knuckles and ruin the width of the pipes. Very pricey if they have to tear into the wall to replace constricted areas.)

The bathroom will feel different with a new light fixture and a glass shower door, if you want to make it more modern. But don't get crazy--use restraint and put down a rag rug and use natural color baskets or hampers, etc. for holding towels and dirty clothes. Try a woven-in check or stripe or an authentic 1840s calico (for example, a repro from the Shelburne collection from Vermont) if you want to work up a fabric cover for a plastic shower curtain. And of course, that period was the heyday of stenciling for interiors, with so many different options that you would have to learn to be stern about restraint. But the room could be made very comfortable for an eclectic gently modern-traditional interior also. Can't tell what the wallpaper looks like from here, but that's your call. I'm sure you're up to dealing with it.

The floorplan of the front of the house is original early-mid 19th c.: Front and back room per floor, two floors of bedrooms with the pair on each floor interconnected; attic floor with two rooms. Back ell has the staircase and a couple smallish spaces, and the ell was expanded off to one side with a kitchen and bath, which are new construction c.1960ish.

There is no such thing as an early 19th c. bathroom, and I *think* this may be the first bathroom this house ever had. There is one toilet in a closet-like space in the stairwell and one in the basement, either of which could have been an original toilet location. There is No evidence that there was ever one in the front of the house. So, the "original" bathroom is this one, and that is the one that is most historically accurate. How unbelievable is it that there was no bathroom until the 1960s? Its not farfetched if you look at census data from 1960. The core of the city had many nineteenth century houses without bathrooms according to the data.

I could live without closets (I'm in a victorian...just dedicate a room "closet room") but that bathroom? No total gut remodel, unless it was in a 1950's home...then I'd reconsider, but not in an 1840's home.

Not only is it not functional, but it's not umm well pretty at all. I hate 4x4 tiles though, so this could be coloring my answer...but gut it would be my approach.

Wallpaper and new faucet and you are good to go.
If the floor needs doing, I would go retro and keep it with the feel of the room.
If a space is functional, well kept and cute, why mess with it? I have seen some awful mid-century decorating and this is not that. I think you have a lot to work with. You should see the awful mustard yellow faux onyx laminate in our current master bath. Not cute one bit and there is a lot of it!

Tally:

Two guts

A couple selective replacements focusing mostly on the medicine cabinet.

The rest, live with it except for the wallpaper.

To answer the condition issues. It is in absolutely pristine, almost new condition in every detail. As for function, it is weak in the storage area but for the neighborhood definitely this is a Large bathroom. Perhaps not by national standards but by local urban standards...almost gigantic, except for new construction that seems to be 1/4 bathroom 1/4 bedroom 1/4 kitchen and 1/4 living room.

I say new faucet and medicine cabinet/mirrors/storage. Otherwise is very nice and roomy for an urban bath. Great find!

Another vote for just changing medicine cabinet/lighting, faucet and shower plumbing, and wallpaper, in that order. Maybe sink when I had nothing better to do. It's plain enough that it could be dressed up for many different styles, though I'm picturing something along Art Deco lines. Looks like the bathroom has a nice large window-a nice plus.

For a small search area, you keep coming up with reasonable houses. Besides the fireplace, are there a lot of nice of period details? How's the kitchen in this one?

Can someone tell me where the wallpaper is? I can't find it. That tile is beyond belief! I should be so lucky to have mine look like that a year from now. She must have been a compulsive cleaner.

To answer some questions: "For a small search area..."

Two parameters had to become more flexible. I actually reduced my search Radius after figuring out that certain areas would add and extra step to commute. So:

Initially I was only looking at "first period" houses: Early nineteenth century. To stay in certain areas I had to consider "second period" houses, 1960-1980. (Not much was built in between)

The second parameter that had to change was Price. I was looking at cheaper houses that needed 2/3 or more of the purchase price in addition in renovations. I am looking at *some* houses almost twice as expensive as where I started, but if you remember some of the others they were little more than habitable shells.

"Lots of nice period details?" Yes, completely intact mid-19th century floor plan, completely intact staircases. Not a lot of detail upstairs, it wasn't a fancy house. But "untouched" architecture really.

"Where is the wallpaper" --it is a vaguely marbled blush and beige vinyl textured paper that doesnt look much more like mottled walls in the picture.

I have to laugh. My 100 year old house has THREE of these bathrooms. One blue, one yellow and one fawn. Like this one, the tile looks like it was put in yesterday.

We have decided to keep our bathrooms. What would we put in to replace it? A sad attempt at an "original" one? A sadder attempt at a contemporary bath?

This mid century remodel seems to be a significant part of the history of the house you are looking at. Why remuddle it with part updates in faucets and medicine cabinets? I would keep it and celebrate it. I'm toying with replacing the floors in mine with the Text tile pattern to complete the look!

The floor is pink, beige and white speckled or marbled text pattern :)

My all time favorite midcentury faucet is Kohler Triton so I may change the faucet and shower mixer to those, simply because they make it now with ceramic disc and pressure balance. ( I say I may...I only looked at the house once, I need to look at least once more and make an offer, sell mine and have it accepted....maybe I am TBO and jumping the gun a bit, no?)

I have been in real period bathrooms where whatever doesn't work just gets left alone and supplemented elsewhere--the 19th-20th century tiled in toothbrush holder that won't hold a new brush, the wooden framed, small mirrored medicine cabinet that is too small to look in and hold anything stays in place, but there is a bigger mirror elsewhere and supplemental storage--its adaptive reuse of a sort.

Love it! Would switch out the med cab and lighting but wow that is pristine! Our 1962 bathrooms are not as perfect (some cracked tiles, ugly grout) but we are planning on updating slowly.

We lived in a huge farmhouse without closets. You can always buy some units from IkEA.

Looks great. Interested to see if you go for it...

I have an early 1950s pink bathroom in my house, which is older than yours.

I wasn't in love with it at first, but it has grown on me.

If you buy the house, I'd keep it. Certainly until you'd lived with it awhile.

I think some new wallpaper or paint would help make it more your taste.

For what it's worth, I have had no problems with mine. The plumber looked everything over, and a couple of 1980's repairs/code things were updated.

(I have never had problems with the old parts of my house. It's honestly the "modern updates" that cost me the most money and the most headaches!)

I also don't have many closets. Wardrobes work, or you could have closet boxes built into the room.