{"id":616961,"date":"2026-09-07T06:16:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616961\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T06:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:16:48","slug":"before-and-after-two-bathroom-renos-for-under-91k-one-landed-on-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616961\/","title":{"rendered":"Before and after: Two bathroom renos for under $91k \u2014 one landed on AD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI was ashamed of how affirming it was that the people at the tile warehouse knew our bathroom, but it absolutely was,\u201d said Andersen .<\/p>\n

The main bathroom also landed in a January Architectural Digest roundup<\/a>, along with a few other Massachusetts bathrooms.<\/p>\n

After meeting in 2015 at a local potluck dinner, Andersen , an audio producer\/cheesemonger, and Massa, a software engineer at Tripadvisor, moved into a spot right on the Cambridge\/Somerville line. Literally. The town line runs through their home. \u201cIt\u2019s a nightmare,\u201d Andersen quipped.<\/p>\n

They bought the condo in 2019, and by 2024, they wanted to renovate their main bathroom and turn part of the pantry into a powder room. Through an ex-boyfriend of Andersen\u2019s, they connected with Doug Jack of Boston-based Nidify Studio<\/a> to create two dream bathrooms and a pantry for under $91,000.<\/p>\n

\"After:After: The full bathroom at Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s Cambridge home.Kate McElwee\"Before:Before: The full bathroom at Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s Cambridge home.Nidify Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cNick sent the most beautiful program email I\u2019ve ever received. It had such clear vision and purpose. I gravitated towards it because they wanted to do something visionary,\u201d said Jack. \u201cFor most people, the program email is a quantitative list: \u2018I need a bedroom, a big kitchen, etc.\u2019 Nick\u2019s was qualitative with design detail. He said he\u2019d loved a particular lobby at his [Michigan] high school, with green Pewabic tile<\/a>. I had to look it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLuke makes fun of me because he\u2019s like, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I remember the lobby of my high school \u2014 and I certainly wouldn\u2019t want our bathroom to look like that,\u2019\u201d Andersen added. <\/p>\n

They ended up not using Pewabic tile \u2014 a 123-year-old Detroit-based pottery maker \u2014 but the inspiration remained. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the start, I said if we\u2019re building a bathroom around special tile, we can\u2019t just find some random cheap tile from a big factory. The tile itself is part of the narrative,\u201d said Jack. \u201cI thought of [California-based] Heath Ceramics. Everything is handmade, one batch at the time. Each tile is unique<\/a>. From a distance, it looks united. But close up, each tile feels different. You can tell it\u2019s not from a big factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"After:After: The powder room at Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s Cambridge home.Kate McElwee\"After:After: The pantry at Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s Cambridge home.Kate McElwee\"Before:Before: The pantry at Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s Cambridge home.Nidify Studio<\/p>\n

The powder room took space from the existing pantry, which is underneath the home\u2019s staircase. Gravitating toward primary colors, they chose a bright cerulean blue. The remaining smaller pantry space was outfitted with closed cabinetry to keep everything tidy.<\/p>\n

Speaking of looking tidy, Jack said they made conscious design choices to \u201ccurate the view\u201d of the spaces. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll notice in the photographs the toilet doesn\u2019t appear \u2014 that\u2019s by design. Basically, it\u2019s rotated 90 degrees, and tucked around the corner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In terms of staying on budget, Jack\u2019s advice is to choose just a few focal design elements that will have a high impact and not cheap out on them. Andersen and Massa splurged on some luxuries: the tile, radiant heat in the full bathroom, a shower that allows users to choose their exact temperature, and a yellow concrete sink from Kast for the half-bath.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cambridge’sCambridge\u2019s Nick Andersen and Luke Massa new powder room features a concrete sink from Kask.Kate McElwee<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we saved: we scrapped the idea for a second window in the main bathroom. It\u2019s a little darker in that area \u2014 it would\u2019ve been nice to have light \u2014 but [we saved there],\u201d said Andersen . \u201cWe also saved on the structure. Some of Doug\u2019s original ideas would\u2019ve changed the physical structure, like moving a wall. In the end, we saved and stayed with the same footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, the bathroom door was getting really tight on the jam trim with new finishes. Instead of replacing the door, we slimmed down the plaster,\u201d added Jack. \u201cA renovation in an old home like this, those forks in the road happen frequently, and Nick and Luke were good at sticking to the more frugal options.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the yellow sink sits on stone. We saved money by going to a local stone yard, Dover Stone,<\/a> and looking through the remnant pile,\u201d said Jack. \u201cYou can find smaller pieces at a really great rate.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cDoug gave us an array of options, which made us feel good about the choices that we went with\u2014 it didn\u2019t feel like we were being stingy or extravagant,\u201d said Massa<\/p>\n

\"Cambridge’sCambridge\u2019s Nick Andersen and Luke Massa’s remodeled bathroom features tile from Heath Ceramics in California.Kate McElwee<\/p>\n

Final advice to aspiring remodelers: <\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back, we probably shouldn\u2019t have done both bathrooms at once because we had no bathroom for a very long time. We\u2019re very grateful that a friend of ours in this building let us shower for seven months,\u201d said Andersen . \u201cWe had a Bath Ball to celebrate when renovations were finished \u2026 We crowned our upstairs neighbor the Queen of the Bath Ball with a tiara because she let us use her bathroom for so long.\u201d <\/p>\n

Designer: Doug Jack, Nidify Studio<\/a> \u2014 Boston<\/p>\n

Tile: Heath Ceramics <\/a>\u2014 California<\/p>\n

Sink: Kask<\/a> \u2014 United Kingdom<\/p>\n

Sink base: Dover Stone<\/a> \u2014 Danvers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI was ashamed of how affirming it was that the people at the tile warehouse knew our bathroom,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-616961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}