@Muriel Vasconcellos: No, there was a heater (HVAC) supply vent right above the bathtub at that location.

I think for the 2nd bath (pink) we probably would go with refinishing route (to refinish/paint the bathtub to white). It seems that a local contractor has good review and we are waiting for his quote now. Now, for the pink toilet, would you keep the current one (for the vintage style/look) and just refinish it to white as well (not sure if this is possible or even cost-effective), or would you just change it to a new "retro" (but water-saving) toilet? Thoughts?

With the wood "transitional" vanity that's already in place, would one of the Toto toilet (Promenade II), Kohler toilets such as Wellworth, Cimarron or Memoir work well with the current design? Thoughts? Thanks!

Please reconsider refinishing the tub. I bought a home in Los Angeles with refinished fixtures - they looked great for around a year of constant use, but are now starting to peel/crack. Just get a new tub that matches your toilet in color. And definitely do something about the mismatched tile.

If you think the second bathroom needs more updating, go white and leave the new vanity. Kohler Memoirs can be seen as leaning Art Deco. It’s a good style for your vintage home.

Ask your contractors if they can carefully remove the pink fixtures so you can sell them. Someone in SF is looking for those!

I’d replace tub and toilet for white in the pink bath. Refinishing doesn’t hold up well.

OK back to the master's bath. Wife and I still have very different opinion. There was another house that had an open-house this past weekend (same neighborhood) and it has an older bath as well. Here is an photo:

Wife insist that this ivory bath looks better than our own "green" master bath, and she think that we should refinish the green bathtub to ivory, replace the console sink with another ivory pedestal sink, and replace the green toilet with another ivory retro toilet. Her reasoning is green color is too strong. Also she think that no tenants are going to use the master bath's tub (most likely they are using shower) so the refinish (to ivory) would last longer. What do you think of this idea? Thanks again for your help!!

Here is a side-by-side comparison:

I applaud you efforts to retain the style and original colors of this house. It has been cared for in this form so well that it is like a vintage wine at this time. I support your efforts to retain the original green. And while this retro trend is strong, I would encourage you to find a replacement punk sink for your other bathroom that someone muddled with. Renters may like to know about the storage pieces that were used in bathrooms like these. You may need to educate them by either providing those pieces or staging a room to be used in the vintage way and providing photos. I'm assuming you already know about the storage people used back then?

You have me curious to know if the kitchen also was retained in this style. If so, I'd love to see photos.

Sorry, I read down further and saw a comment that made me think you actually may not know how to "accesorize" this type of bathroom. Well, the primary accessory for this vintage bathroom is free-standing storage pieces likevthose used in Victorian bathrooms. Your vintage is an historical step forward in time from the Victorian all-white and it's exposed show-off plumbing. One accessory is a shelf like piece that straddles the toilet, and there are still lots available for purchase. Then there is the laundry hamper. https://www.ebay.com/itm/224454115252

 Another is a small cabinet that would fit along a wall in the room. https://www.ebay.com/b/Bathroom-Vintage-Retro-Cabinets-Cupboards/20487/bn_96583533

There might be room for a small stool next to the tub. A shower curtain is obvious, and I believe you would want to stick with vinyl for authenticity. Area rugs: one at the toilet, one at the sink, one in front of the tub. Then there's the sink skirt:

https://www.houzz.com/magazine/vintage-style-when-why-and-how-to-use-a-sink-skirt-stsetivw-vs~49455340

So, when selecting these items, chose those that tie together the green, black, and yellow already in the room. Avoid white, because people of this era saw white as old-fashioned (Victorian). Avoid earthy colors because those came into fashion later. 

You may want to buy coordinating sets of shower curtain, rugs, and sink skirt, and let the new renters buy the set they like. That offer would "educate" them and could be done in a fun way. You might offer or suggest pale mint or yellow towels, because those could be bleached without too much damage.

 I would hope that anyone drawn to this house would want an emersion experience. You could even try a separate advertisement focused on that concept. But I don't rent houses, so I have no clue if that's a good idea. I was just thinking about what would appeal to me.

@W Chuang, RE:

wife thinks "...that we should refinish the greenbathtub to ivory, replace the console sink with another ivory pedestal sink, and replace the green toilet with another ivory retro toilet. Her reasoning is green color is too strong...What do you think of this idea?"

Of note, this ivory bath you pictured from the neighborhood open house, is a different era than your masterbath. My guess, it's from the 70s. Comparing apples to oranges. You use it as example because wife likes it; it's ivory, not green.

Mr. Chuang, this question you pose now, after all this time and feedback, is the same as your Original question.

I certainly understand the concept of, "Happy wife - Happy life." It seems that none of us [incl you] have budged wife from what she wants - to get rid of the green!

Am not going to repeat what I've already given as reasons to leave this bathroom as is, just respectfully add that you'd be a fool to get rid of the green fixtures.

I’m sorry to be blunt but your wife is wrong. Refinishing any bathroom piece (especially for a rental) is asking to ruin your house. It won’t take the beating of non-owners using it. SHE likes the other bathroom, but your family won’t be living here!

It’s a rare vintage room so I would clearly state that in the ad.

“Large family home for rent with X bedrooms and X bathrooms. Classic, preserved vintage master bathroom for historic home lovers. (etc.)”

The right family will come along and be thrilled. Your wife is imposing her own taste on a home someone else would love.

RedRyder is right. If you advertise Ike this, people who appreciate these features will come. Remember, there are a lot of people who prefer color. I have a friend who painted her bathroom bright orange. She chose the apartment because it already had some strong, bright paint colors. It’s very rare to find a vintage bathroom with all original pieces like this. If you can’t convince your wife, at least try to sell the items together to someone that appreciates them and replace them all. Don’t refinish. It will ruin vintage pieces, it will not last, and that yellow isn’t the right decade. But if you replace the toilet, bath, and sink, you’re going to have to re-tile because it’s not going to look good with white fixtures with those tiles. It will look worse, and dated without a purpose. If you retile, you will likely need to put up new walls. You’ll want to replace the floor to go with the new tile. So now you’re looking at a full bathroom remodel.

If I am to believe your earlier posting,  this house rents for $2,000 per day(???). If that is true,  why would you do anything other than get that house rented? Don't do an darn thing other than get the house listed for rent immediately and then offer the tenants a free week or two of rent if they don't like the bathroom.

List it now and you might find sometime who is desperately trying to find new housing before the new year. Don't disagree about whether you can get the house rented as is until you have actually tested the market. If you have it listed at a reasonable price for the neighborhood, you will get potential tenants asking about it.  If you have several potential tenants all saying they would rent the place except the bathroom is too outdated,  then worry about the condition.  I don't think that is likely to happen and don't believe it if that feedback is filtered through someone trying to convince you to remodel.

The light yellow bathroom is actually from the same era as yours, except for the vanity of a more recent period.  Note the high tank toilet and the tub with the side details and round corner as those are not from the same time period as the sink. Also, I think that 70s bathrooms would probably have had tile trim of the same size as the field tile, not the narrow and thick trim of the earlier bathrooms.

HOnestly I think your wife doesn't understand the appeal of older homes and should NOT be making decisions on how to "update" an older bathroom. What she's suggesting is remuddling the bathroom.

And you're in SF which is known and loved for their old homes, including colorful bathrooms.

Once you paint the tub, etc, it's RUINED. Those finishes DO NOT last. Even short term. And while the tub may not be used frequently, it still has to be cleaned on a regular basis and cleaning it will also ruin the painted finish.

I would listen to RedRyder

Please leave the green fixtures alone. Enough already.

Or if you are going to just defer to your spouse, go for it, but please stop asking for us to approve of it.

Just found this youtube video (Vintage Bathroom Renovation - how to mix the old with new). Any thoughts about this? Do you think she did a great job? Thanks!

OMG is that AWFUL! Took out all the charm in that bathroom and made it a generic mess. And no the floor tile did not work with the gorgeous green tile.

@cpartist I'm glad you watched the video so I don't have to. Nearly all the quality vintage houses on the planet have been vandalised with awful "updates". W Chuang is going to do the same thing. I can't help thinking this whole thread is one big exercise in trolling.

1000% do not paint the tub. If you don't want the green, just remove the entire set, sell it, and then use the profits to help gut the bathroom. (Note that you can't replace the toilet with a different-colored vintage toilet; once you take it out, you need to bring it up to code with a low-flow fixture.)

But agreed with others--you should just leave the green bathroom alone and focus on improving the pink one (and the kitchen). I am deeply skeptical of the $66K/month rent--San Francisco is certainly pricey, but that would put your home at more than double what the Chronicle thinks is currently the most expensive rental in the entire city, which seems unlikely. So I assume that is either a typo or this is currently a short-term rental and that reflects the nightly cost. If you're moving from nightly or weekly to monthly long-term renters, the rent will be less.

But regardless, I think you want to get any high-end rental on the market as quickly as you can with a yearlong lease, since the impact of the tech layoffs is going to ripple widely and is already affecting SF home sales. I would focus on improvements you can make in the next 2-3 months with a goal of having it listed for rent by March. That means definitely no gut bathroom renovation. And I would temper your rent expectations--a dearth of interested renters is likely going to be less about your green bathroom and more about the overall market downturn (especially if you really list it at $60K/month and they can rent the penthouse at the Four Seasons with six bathrooms for half that!)

@artemis78: Thanks for your ideas. Just curious, for these vintage set (e.g. the pink toilet), where can I sell it, on local craigslist?

Also, yes, sorry it was a typo. It's not 66K/month. It's $6,600 a month. Sorry. It was my bad. Thanks!

Ha, that rent makes much more sense! And also means you're probably in a neighborhood where renters are more likely to be interested in the vintage vibe and less dependent on the tech industry, so those are both good.

You could certainly try listing the plumbing fixtures on Craigslist, but I'd also reach out to Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley and Building Resources in the city. Building Resources only takes donations so that would be a tax writeoff vs. a sale, but they may also have ideas on where to sell. Ohmega will buy some items depending on what they think they can resell--probably they'd be more into the green set than the pink, but it's worth reaching out anyway if it's a three-piece set. (Not sure if you hung onto the pink pedestal sink or not when it was replaced?) And they might also have thoughts on where to try selling. I would trust either of those companies to move a bathtub out of a house before I'd risk having someone from Craigslist do it, but you never know!

Dear all, we will leave the green bath as it. Just a quick FYI. We will, however, as many suggested, to address the 2nd bath (pink toilet and bathtub).. No final decision yet about how we will handle the 2nd bath (still debating with my wife)... Thanks again for everyone's help! Save one vintage bath one at a time! :)

Told myself I wasn't going to comment here again, but...

Don't forget that we are headed straight to a major downtrend in real estate prices. CA is one of the worst, especially San Francisco. Mark my words, the value of real estate is going much lower.

Don't spend money now. Rent the place now. If you can get $6600/month, count your blessings.

I think you and your wife are making a good decision.

I am another happy Houzzer. Glad you’re keeping the vintage bathroom

Perhaps you should start a completely new post about the pink bathroom.

Just a thought: why not try renting it now without doing the pink bathroom? Maybe someone needs a large house like yours and doesn’t care that the second bathroom isn’t perfect. You are an option for a family with children. Someone moving to the area may be desperate for a place with bedrooms and bathrooms.

It seems to me that the house should be rented to people who appreciate it -- not a family with young children.

Some of us liked antiques and vintage stuff at a young age. But I doubt kids have much of a say in which house they live in if the parents like it.

YAY for saving the green bathroom!

Dear all, I'm back! :)

We got the house back few days ago. I noticed that there is a chrome towel bar on top of the bathtub, which a rental agent consultant recommended to replace it with a black one. However, I think that towel bar might be "original" and to me I think it still matches with the chrome faucet and vanity lights etc. What do you think? I think it might be very challenging to find a black towel bar with exact same size, plus if we remove the existing one, we may have to do touch-up paint, etc. Do you think it's eyesore to you? If so, should I spray-paint it to black or do something about it? Any thoughts?

Here is a close-up shot:

Also, I noticed that there are some surface rust underneath of the console sink. Also some unknown yucky stuff (old caulk?? anyone know what it is?) around the supporting hardware under the sink (you only see it if you pay close attention to it). Is there a good way to polish and clean them? Thanks!

Yucky stuff:

The chrome towel bar is unlikely to be original -- looks added, so if you chose to replace it with a black one (to match the one on the other side of tub), you could do it, but don't think it will be a deal breaker either way. Is there a shower in this bathroom too? Would love to see what it looks like. Glad you are keeping the bathroom as is!

I like Flitz polish for cleaning up antique metal. Apply sparingly, buff, repeat. But it's possible those pipes won't shine if the chrome is severely pitted, or it's not even chromed at all.

That 'stuff' on the base of the sink looks to have been maybe some kind of shim to keep it in place. If you pull it out, it's very likely to loosen. You could maybe trim it very, very carefully with a razor/xacto knife

I don't think the towel bar is original either, It looks like a very common 50s/60s installation.

Nobody cares about the chrome towel rod. Leave it be and rent the place!

i've lready told you how to deal with the surface rust: 0000 steel wool. [I sometimes additionaly use a single edge razor blade to remove rust.] Get it as clean as you can with the steel wool, then polish with wax.

It seems that with all the comments here you have learned little, so I'll repeat. Stop listening to the real estate agent, he/she is a moron. Those pipes look like they are galv, so do the 0000 steel wool or less messy is a stainless steel scourer, spray on some vinegar and it will go even faster. You'll be lucky if you get renters who will ever even look under the sink let alone clean under there.

No one is not going to rent the house because of the chrome towel bar. As for the rust, I'll leave that to those more experienced.

if you wanted, you can buy a jadeite towel bar. Here are my google results.

If you have touchup paint, you could remove the chrome towel bar and patch and paint. That towel bar is not going to be the deciding point for any renter; if they care about that, they will be too busy fussing about lots of other items.

The gunk you see is dried out plumbers putty, used to make watertight seals around faucets and drains. Leave it alone, no one cares. If you want to make the supply lines look better, they could be painted. To improve the look, get a pair of escutcheons which split in the middle and put them on over the existing ones.  I would paint the corner braces white on the lower window sash. 

The changes you are considering are minor. Every day you delay getting it on the market costs you $200 in foregone rent in addition to the dollars you spend. You have already let several thousand dollars slip through your fingers and you don't seem to be much closer to looking for tenants. Quit listening to your agent trying to get you top dollar in some future date and start getting ready to collect slightly less money now.

Leave the chrome towel bar alone. You’ll mess up the wall if you remove it and try to match the paint.

Why isn’t your not-very helpful realtor not getting you a damn tenant? No one cares about this towel bar. I really think you need a different realtor who will rent the place ASAP and get both of you some money.

Clean the house and put it on the market already!

I am thinking that your rental price is too high. That is why the real estate agent keeps advising you to update certain things. Perhaps lower the fee and rent it as is . See what happens.

Towel bar is fine--no one is likely to notice one way or the other (and certainly won't care if it's chrome or black). I mean, we just put a chrome bar like that in our brand-new bathroom! And I wouldn't personally worry about the plumbing attachments either but if you have a handyman you like, they could spiff that up a bit in a few hours. I'd just deep clean it--including windows inside and out--paint any rooms that need to be freshened up and refinish floors if necessary based on wear and tear, and list it.

if you're still considering changes, wallpaper with green and yellow? Lumnous -Eucalyptus green and yellow, and Art Deco Enamal fans would look great in that bathroom. https://www.spoonflower.com/en/shop?availability=ForSale&on=wallpaper&q=green%20and%20yellow%20wallpaper&sort=bestSelling&style=Vintage&page_offset=2

OK a quick related question.

Downstairs there is two ceiling lighting fixtures that looks like pineapples:

However, they look a bit old (yellowish on the glass) and dirty, and I'm not sure if I can clean them or not.

Would it add value if I replace them with vintage hanging light such as this? Thanks!

There is nothing vintage about the fixture you want to replace it with The original is vintage As mentioned take it down and clean it

We have almost the same fixture in our hallway--I don't think it's original, just dated. We have not bothered to replace ours since it's in a hallway, but it would be easy to clean. You could also get an inexpensive new glass shade for it if you want something more modern (or more vintage)--just measure the neck. These are pretty ubiquitous glass shades. And while I wouldn't bother in a rental (heck, I didn't bother in my own hallway!), I have taken several of our shiny brass circa-1970s/80s fixtures down and spray-painted the bases with metal paint to more period-appropriate colors for our 1915 home. That's easy and cheap (but even that I only did because we were rewiring so the fixtures had to come down and then be put back up again anyway).

If you like, you can easily buy a vintage glass globe for the existing fixture, just measure the neck as suggested. It is not expensive. Try Etsy, eBay, and Ohmega Lighting in Berkeley. I did this with every light fixture in my 1914 home, over time- it’s a bargain. The “vintage hanging light” fixture you pictured above does not look at all vintage, except for the filament bulb.

My guess on your current fixture is probably from late 60s through mid 70s. My previous house of your era had a couple white with green porcelain fixtures with an exposed bulb and a couple of brass fixtures with exposed bulbs. Those were an upgraded version of the classic keyed lamp holders often found in basements. 

This is a rental so wash the light shade until it sparkles and turn the light on. No one will notice the bright brass base or care about it. If I was flipping the house, I would drop the fixture when I painted the ceiling and spray it in place with a dark color, perhaps bronze metallic. 

If the fixture had to be replaced, I would choose either a flat LED disc or a small round fixture with white or frosted glass shade and chrome or brushed nickel trim. A single bulb schoolhouse fixture with white glass shade would also work.

BTW, I tried to use Eagle One NEVR-DULL from Home Depot to polish those chrome light fixtures and it works really well.. Now the chrome are all shiny! Yay!

OK. Wallplates. We had replaced all the wallplates in the entire house to generic toggle switches with white wallplates. However, there are still three vintage wallplates downstairs outside of the family room. Should I also replace them for consistency? Thoughts? Thanks!

You can replace them if they bother you. Some people, who will already love your vintage bathrooms, will think they’re fun. This is not a deal breaker. Why not list the house and see what people object to?

I would probably ditch the plates with the eagles and replace them with clean, new ones. But would place the black one, which is kind of neat, in a more conspicuous place, cleaning it up and re-painting it black, if needed. Someplace where it can be seen.

RE: "Wallplates...should I replace them for consistency?"

Here again, this is example of you [owner Chuang] going out of your way to try and find MORE to change. Many of us have already answered: Leave well enuf alone.

All of us here, and all prospective tenants, will have differing opinions. So, if they bug you, change them.

Many of us have asked, why not go ahead and rent it now, or If it is currently advertised for rent? Don't believe you've answered.

If not, why not?

@lazidazi W Chuang has been trolling us for weeks now. Best to stop responding.

Thanks, @Blue Wren, good advice.