After months of hard work, frustration, blood, sweat, and tears, we are finally ready to reveal our elegant, vintage inspired master bathroom. We used neutral tones, pretty stones, and let the finishes speak for themselves.
As you can see, we decided to paint the walls a Behr color match to Sherwin Williams Sea Salt. Chris was worried that the bathroom was too neutral/grey. I wasn't worried about it, but since he doesn't often make requests like that, I decided to go with it.
All of the little decisions that were stressing us out came together beautifully, like the simple craftsman style of the window frames, and the hanging crown moulding. We weren't sure how to finish the moulding and were throwing around a few ideas, like using end caps--but I love the simplicity of this style.
The light fixtures actually weren't the original ones we bought from Home Depot. I go to our local thrift stores about once a week just to see what's there, and on that particular visit I happened to see, not one, but two chrome vintage looking light fixtures...FOR FIFTEEN DOLLARS! I even had a moment in the store where I looked around like it was some kind of joke, or maybe I was hallucinating. I grabbed those suckers faster than you can say "light fixture". After I got home, I googled them and they are for sale at Home Depot for over $60 each. What a find! You might have also noticed that the vanity is darker than in the mood board. The company sent us the wrong color. We had ordered light chestnut and they sent us dark chestnut, but they denied that it was the wrong vanity and instead said that it was just our lighting. K. Anyway, we actually liked the dark just as much as the light, so all's well.
The cabinet was a yellow oak curio that I got on craigslist for $50. It was important to me that the cabinet we put in that spot have glass sides, since I didn't want anything to detract from our newly spacious bathroom. I added some textured wallpaper in the back to cover the mirrors, added extra beaded trim on the top and bottom, exchanged all the hardware for chrome, switched the way the door opened, and painted the whole thing white. I purchased the lasercut chrome legs from AliExpress. Shipping took a while, but it was well worth the wait! The legs picked the cabinet up off the ground, making it more substantial looking, and making it fit better in the room. The baskets add some much needed storage (since we took out a linen closet to make this bathroom).
Another little detail which was a huge headache was how high to do the subway tile chair rail. The problem was that we had outlets on the left and right that we had to be either fully above or below. We couldn't run the chair rail or pencil tile up against them since those tiles are raised. It would look sloppy to have uneven gaps around the outlet covers. I decided to go high enough to cover the outlets with regular subway tile, then do the decorative accent above that. For the mirrors, I had the tile guys miter the chair rail pieces so that the mirrors laid flat on top of regular bullnose pieces. It ended up looking like a fancy custom detail rather than a work-around.
I love the way the real marble bench, curb, and shower shelf come together with the faux marble looking tile. It looks totally purposeful, and not at all like we were just trying to save money.
This was before our glass shower door was installed. The vertical pattern that we used really makes the tile look modern and sleek. In this picture, you can also see the "shimmer" effect in the subway tile that came from mixing Daltile White and US Ceramic Bright Snow white tile. It is much more subtle in real life, but you can easily pick out the Daltile subway tiles in photos.
Here is the shower glass installed. We considered gettting a swinging door, but since the space is so small, we thought the sliding door would be more appropriate. We paid extra for a fully frameless style and I am SO glad we did. It is gorgeous and modern, and doesn't make the room feel any smaller, which is what I was worried about.
We are so happy with our new bathroom. I still just stand in there to stare at it sometimes. It's beautiful!
