Andy McCullough
Columbus Dispatch

THE GOAL
At 60-plus, Paulayne Epstein says she doesn’t look her age, even if her knees act it.

“I’m not going to call myself elderly,” she said. “Because I’m not. How about arthritically challenged?”

Epstein decided to remodel the master bathroom of the more than 50-year-old home she shares in Bexley with her husband, Arthur, a professor at Ohio State University. She loved her old bathroom with its black and gray tiling, but she needed a change.

Epstein had to stoop to use the cabinets. The rise of the tub made getting into the shower difficult. So she wanted to reduce the bending and twisting.

“I really got tired of crawling over the tub to get a shower,” she said.

THE PLAN
Jack Trabue, a bathroom and kitchen designer from Cardinal Builders, worked with Epstein to plan the new bathroom. Both wanted to keep the original layout. There was no need to make radical changes.

“There’s other companies and other schools of thought that move things around,” Trabue said. “We just don’t do that for the most part.”

But to ensure comfort, certain features had to be adjusted. The toilet and cabinetry needed to be replaced with taller units. The tub was removed, and a shower with a lower rise was installed.

THE STRATEGY
To start, Trabue eliminated the high rim of the tub by installing a shower.

The shower head was positioned so Epstein could use it while sitting in a chair. A pebblelike substance was laid as the shower’s floor to prevent slipping.

“I’m not going to slide across it like you would with tile or a bathtub,” she said.

The new toilet, a Toto model, is a couple of inches higher than the older one.

A new marble vanity top was put in as well, at the same comfortable height as her kitchen counters.

The drawers are self-closing, Epstein said, just like the lid of the toilet.

CHALLENGES
The construction didn’t provide anything out of the ordinary for the Cardinal crew.

With an older home such as this, there’s sure to be a bit of decay: Trabue’s crew had to replace some parts of the subfloor around the toilet and shower.

But the hardest part of the process was sacrificing the vintage black Carrera glass tile from the original bathroom walls. The new shower is earth tone.

“That was the unfortunate loser in the project,” Trabue said.

“We tried all sorts of hybrid solutions whereby we would keep some of it and work with some of it.

“But ultimately it couldn’t survive, being black glass in an earth-tone room.”

TIME REQUIRED
The bathroom was out of commission for about three weeks, Trabue said.

COST
A typical bathroom remodeling, such as this one, runs about $15,000, Trabue said.

CONTRACTOR’S OBSERVATION
The job wasn’t too unusual for Trabue, typical work done to increase function.

“It’s just prettier,” Trabue said. “It’s just better stuff. Natural travertine here, polished marble there and materials like that.”

The Epsteins are happy with the work, he said, which was necessary to make the bathroom more usable and comfortable.

“If you want to make a lot of changes, the best thing to do is move,” he said. “A lot of bathrooms are have-tos, not want-tos.”

CUSTOMER’S COMMENT
“It’s just beautiful,” Epstein said. “It’s a no-care bathroom.”

And it’s much easier to use — with less chances to aggravate her arthritis. She doesn’t need to bend to use the vanity and can just walk into her shower now.

“There’s no tripping,” she said.