The most fun that I've had while remodeling our bathroom was designing it and choosing finishes. Chris pretty much let me have free reign with just two conditions. It had to be cheap, but not "cheap". I created a moodboard that captured the overall tone I was looking for in the room. I wanted spa-like elegance.
The paint is Behr Wheat Bread. We made the mistake of getting a five gallon bucket to paint our bedroom, so we have also painted the den with it, and plan on using it in the kitchen, as well. I thought that the paint would work well with the light, neutral tones that I wanted to use rest of the finishes. The vanity is Hatton by Wyndham in light chestnut.
The tub is a Randolph Morris 62 inch slipper claw foot tub from Vintage Tubs. The mirrors are these beaded antique looking mirrors from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
The cabinet was just for looks as I hadn't decided which one I wanted yet. There would be about an 18" space between the vanity and wall that I wanted to use for a cabinet. I love the look of marble. Real marble is quite expensive, however, so I had to find a faux marble that looked nice enough and wouldn't break the bank. I decided on this tile from Home Depot, Marazzi Vitaelegante Bianco. It is available in 6x24 and 12x24, which was perfect for us since we could use the 6x24 in the shower and the 12x24 on the floor.
I wanted white subway tile 3/4 up the wall around the entire room. Chris was resistant to it, saying that he didn't think it was necessary, but I explained that if we are going with more affordable tiles, we need to finish them in the most elegant way possible...And a 3/4 chair rail with a decorative top was the only solution. We found a box of Daltile White subway tile at the Restore one day and decided to go ahead and get it--we didn't know at the time how difficult it would be to get more of the same tile from Home Depot. They are only available in stores, and only some stores. I ended up having to drive 20 miles to get more. We ended up getting mostly US Ceramic Bright Snow White subway tiles and mixing in the Daltile White randomly which almost gave the walls a shimmery effect since the color is the same, but the finish is slightly different. For the shower floor, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use this Daltile Gray Dot mosaic. It is classic, and beautiful.
For the sink faucets, I knew that I wanted something "vintage" looking, and Chris wanted them to be taller than standard height and have two handles. They had to be single-hole due to the vanity that we ordered. After nearly exhausting my search trying to find something that fit our requirements in bathroom faucets, it occurred to me to look at kitchen faucets. I found the perfect faucet that was $65 (the price has gone up to $69 now) on Amazon and over $100 on other sites. We took a chance and ordered them directly from China, but everything has been perfect so far!
As far as grout goes, I originally planned to use white grout on the subway tile and Polyblends Platinum gray for the rest of the tile. Once we got the subway tile up without grout, we loved being able to see the lines, and I decided to to grey on all the tile.
That is it for all the design decisions...next time, see how it all came together after months of hard work and about 200 visits to Home Depot.
