When I was pregnant with our third child, Dave and I were trying to explain to our son that he would soon have a baby sister. We were driving in the car and discussing what made a family. Kel, trying to sort out our conversation in his three-year-old brain, finally had it figured out. He stated in his matter-of-fact way, “A family means you all have the same germs.”
“Yes,” we laughed. A family is a group of people who all share the same germs.
I mean, can you come up with a better definition of family than that?
We couldn’t.
Today I’m taking you on a tour of the germiest room in the house: the owner’s (or as some have previously called it…the master) bathroom. I wish that I had our bedroom to share as well, but it is still just a mattress, some too-small night stands, and boxes of random items that perpetually get stored for client projects. One day friends….one day… I’ll give my bedroom the makeover it deserves.
Until then, enjoy a few shots of our bathrooms. Bathrooms inherently have to be functional before you use them, so I have something to show!
And of course, designing for yourself is always a unique problem when you do this for a living. I’m bombarded every day by the most talented people in the universe, and it gets harder to commit because “I might like something better” down the road.
“The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live. It is about the realities of what makes for an attractive, civilized, meaningful environment, not about fashion or what’s in or what’s out. This is not an easy job.”
Albert Hadley
The Vanity
I usually start designing a bathroom with the vanity. If you’ve followed along on my interior design journey, you know how much I love cabinetry! I like to push them until they are almost sculptural. Once they get too fussy I simplify, and somewhere in that push-and-pull, I get what I want.
I did know that I wanted those long, brass finger pulls for the drawers from the beginning. (Sorry…I don’t remember where I purchased them).
Our vanity is made out of white oak and stained ebony.
I love the way the stain lets the wood grain come through.
I chose to keep the top wood. It feels serene to me. We did it in our last house and I loved it so much I did it again.
The top drawer is faux, of course, to make room for the drain. The second is fully functional.
{Sink: Rejuvenation}
{Faucet: Kohler}
I pushed the sink to the left so that I had room for working on the right.
In our last home remodel, I designed a vanity with two sinks, but I basically filled one with objects while I cleaned up and Dave and I used the other.
I like the large sink on one side with more counter top space much better. I found a cheap tray that looked like marble and some organizers and set it to the right.
The Mirrors and Closet
Our closet is inside of the bathroom. This is the first time I’ve had that arrangement, and it is fabulous! Simply dry off after your shower and get dressed. We opted for no door, which I also like.
The mirrors are from Mirror Image.
The wall sconces are from Hudson Valley Lighting.
If I am being honest, my lights are a little bit too fancy for my taste. However, I always put scale and function above taste. Why did I end up purchasing them? They were big enough to hold their own against my large mirrors, they have a white shade that filters light evenly (always use filtering shade light in bathrooms!), and they matched my door knobs perfectly. So I committed.
The Shower
We chose not to have a tub in our bathroom. We don’t use them enough. I’m very happy with that decision!
Originally I wanted book-matched natural stone in our bathroom, but it ended up being too far out of our budget. Dave wanted to do the work himself as well, so he asked that I pick a large tile.
Have you ever noticed that faux marble tiles usually have a very prominent purple undertone in the grays the manufacturers use? If you haven’t, now you will….haha. I fought this over and over again. I finally found this tile with a subtle stripe that wasn’t purple, and so it beat out everything else I could find. I picked a medium gray grout because white grout is the stuff from nightmares…even if you seal it well. I didn’t have a cleaning death wish. Function wins over beauty again.
My big splurge in this bathroom was my Waterworks thermostatic shower. The brass is unlacquered so it keeps spotting and aging beautifully. I don’t know why I love these quirky, dimensional things so much, but I do.
The Floor
All right…you may have picked up the vibe that tile is just not my favorite thing in any situation. Why? It’s hard, it’s trendy, and I hate grout. But bathrooms have to have it, right? My goal, if tile was my only choice, was to keep the tile options down to two. Please, please, keep your varieties of tile to a minimum! It makes your bathroom so much better. Accent tile?
Nope.
Since the pan requires a small tile, I went with this white hex, and it covers our entire floor…from the shower to the main bathroom, and into our closet.
The Linen Closet
When you are facing the mirrors, this linen closet is directly behind you. Again, I made it mimic a beautiful antique I hunted online.
Lolli just so happened to pop in while I was trying to take pictures, so she became the unfortunate pup prop.
Would there be anything I’d change for next time?
One of the unfortunate germs we share in this family is always scheming up the next home, so don’t freak out too much. Yes, I would change a few things.
Next owner’s bath is definitely getting two shower heads and a bidet. I think I’ll stick to one sink and no tub. And we will build small again…even smaller than this time….and then I might finally get my book-matched natural stone.
I hope you enjoyed friends! Thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope it gave you some inspiration for your next project.
Until next time……
Carmella says
So so pretty!