Craftsman Junky’s collection of pinboards — this is only a partial section of the list. Click through to see the full page.

The blog is great itself, but the collection of images and links that Sharon has compiled on Pinterest is really stunning. Check out this list of boards:

• House Interiors (early 1900s)
• House Exteriors (early 1900s)
• Craftsman Dining Rooms
• Craftsman Living Rooms
• Craftsman Bedrooms
• Craftsman Remodel
• Early 1900s Bathrooms
• Remodeled Bathrooms
• Early 1900s Kitchens
• Remodeled Kitchens
• Shopping Resources
• Craftsman Furniture
• Craftsman Stencils, Wallpaper and Paint Colors
• Early 1900s Tile

There are more, including collections of early 20th Century clothing. If you have an old house, or any interest in Arts and Crafts style of the early 1900s, these are great boards to follow.

I loved it immediately and decided that would be on my wall. (I ordered it from this eBay seller.) But, note the caption:

“Five Foot ‘Standard’ Bathroom
Pembroke Bath with Shower, Marcosa Lavatory
and Expulso Closet in a room five feet square.”

Five feet square?! 25 square feet? That’s a pretty small room, but it is possible if the sink is small. I grew up in a house that had a very small bathroom, but it was closer to 5′x7′ — the sink and toilet could both fit on the same wall, which at least left room for a laundry hamper.

Looking at other Standard ads from the 1920s, I saw this theme repeated over and over, usually with gorgeous painted artwork to illustrate (click each image to see a full version):

The advertising emphasized the flexibility and freedom of having these small bathrooms as convenient extra bathrooms in one’s home to “assure ideally ample bathroom facilities” and allow “leisurely washing, and splashing, and fixing, and primping before the lavatory glass.”

This ad attempted to appeal to both women and the men in their homes who might be irritated at the time spent in the bath:

“Oh how she had longed for a bathroom all her own” — the freedom of not sharing a bathroom, by installing one in a five foot square space.
“Ample bathroom facilities are not a luxury.” Though the room is small, it has rose tiles and a checked linoleum floor, with elaborate light fixtures.

Oh how she had longed for a bathroom all her own — where she could take her own sweet time, knowing it would not be remarked upon — confident that others were not being inconvenienced.

How hard it is to use a bathroom on schedule!

The bathroom in this ad, though tiny, had a sense of feminine luxury, with rose-colored tilework, golden sconces with aqua shades, and a butterfly area rug.

Unspoken in the Five Foot Square ad campaign was something else — if you can install a full bathroom in such a small space, you can easily add bathrooms to homes that previously didn’t have indoor plumbing.

Standard ads, both in the 1920s and otherwise, tended to promote elaborate and expensive luxury bathroom designs, ones which were out of reach for many. Earlier ads often showed fairly large bathrooms with features such as bidets and sitz baths, and it was common for the ads to show household maids at work in the bathroom. Here are a couple of the earlier Standard ads:

The Five Feet Square ads combined an appeal to luxury (extra baths for the lady who has everything) with an appeal to those homeowners still in smaller, older houses: you too, they said, can have glamorous indoor plumbing. All you need is a spare closet or the end of a hallway!

Whether the campaign was successful or not, I don’t know. By the 1930s, Standard seems to have moved on to ads emphasizing color, Art Deco modernity, and the replacement of old, “unsightly” fixtures such as clawfoot tubs. If you want a bathroom in a room five feet square, though, American Standard (formerly Standard) still sells a tiny sink or two.

Popular Mechanics, November 1911 issue.

Part of Pamela Saunders’ Black Death pinboard on Pinterest.

At least among my contacts, Pinterest seems to feature a lot of DIY projects, clothes, and recipes. But it’s used to collect other things as well. The other day I stumbled on an interesting pinboard curated by Pamela Saunders on the topic of the Black Death, the medieval pandemic that may have killed one-third of the population of Europe in the late 1340s, and then returned at regular intervals for the next several hundred years.

A mass grave containing probable Black Death victims’ skeletons was found earlier this month in London during excavations for the Crossrail project, which brought this medieval pandemic into the daily news. Pamela’s pinboard links to that story, as well as to artwork inspired by the plague, mourning jewelry, fourteenth-century plague graffiti, and more. It’s an interesting assortment of links if you have any interest in this aspect of medieval history.

Finished!

I went for a bit of a modern look this time, using bright colors and IKEA fixtures that I would not necessarily use in the rest of the house. But I think it works well in this room. The other current project, the main floor bathroom, will be much more traditional in style, without an IKEA product in sight.

The office is meant to be multipurpose, used for computer work, costuming and knitting projects, music, paper crafts, and sometimes just general hanging out. The built-in closet has been turned into a crafts storage center, with shelving and baskets to store yarn and fabric. I painted cork board with quatrefoils using leftover wall paint to make a bulletin board for inside the closet door. The other door has hooks to hang tools including a yardstick and a T-square. When I want to stop working, or I just want to keep the cats out of my yarn, I close the doors and it’s all nicely hidden away.

Three tall bookshelves (IKEA Billy shelves with extensions) have a ladder so short me can get to things on the top shelves. The shelves contain books, games, decorations, and more craft supplies. There is a clip-on LED light on the bookshelf to serve as a reading light when I’m sitting in the armchair.

The desk is antique (and was in the house when we moved in). It contains a cabinet with a shelf that lifts up on a spring when a typewriter on it is to be used; now, that shelf holds my sewing machine. Also an antique is the white icebox in one corner, which serves as storage and also a place to put the turntable and stereo receiver, along with a small lamp.

I’m very happy with the room and enjoy working in it! Now, onto the next room…

More photos here.