Bathroom Idea Board

As usual, I'm obsessing about the bathroom.  Big surprise there.  To organize my thoughts, I put together a little idea board of the products and materials I plan on using. 

Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise...

1. Subway tile.  I love the classic look and easily-maintained surface.  Unfortunately, we can't afford to tile a wainscot around the entire room, so we're planning on using it for a tub/shower surround.  American Olean seems to have discontinued their "Greenwich Village" line, so we'll be looking for a suitable substitute.
2. Pedestal sink.  This one is American Standard's Retrospect.  I like how this sink combines both rounded and squared elements.  It's not too mission-y, but not too colonial revival-y.  It also complements quite a few styles of faucets.
3. Built-in medicine cabinet.   I haven't seen this particular style for sale anywhere, but I'm keeping my eye on salvage stores.  The open shelf underneath would be great for often-used items (q-tips, jewelry tray).  I definitely want the cabinet to be inset into the wall.  
4. Some kind of square, mission-style sconce.  These are for either side of the medicine cabinet.  These are from Restoration Hardware, but I found some at VanDykes that are a little less expensive but still have the same feel.
5. Kohler Bancroft faucet.  Not too rounded and swoopy, just clean and classic looking.
6. Hex tile.  I'm definitely using this for the floor.  Not sure if we'll include some kind of pattern or accent in black tiles.  Probably.  What;'s the fun of mosaic tiles if you don't get to play with designs?
7. Kohler Bancroft tub.  Big compromise, for both of us.  Shayne wants a longer, deeper tub; I want cast iron.  Budget and space dictate otherwise.  To keep costs down we're going to move the plumbing as little as possible.  The sink will scoot over 2-3 feet, but that's it.  So there's no room for a wider tub in the current floorplan, and the cast iron one I want (Kohler Kathryn) costs over 3 times as much. The Bancroft is a good compromise with a little vintage character, relatively deep bathing area, standard dimensions, and thick acrylic walls.  Anything's better than the 8" deep, cheap, POS tub we have now, though.
8. Color.  Some sort of soothing, gray-green.  
9. Beadboard (not shown).  Poor-man's substitute for a subway tile wainscot.  :)  Plus, since our house is something of a farm house, and is very simple with its detailing, I think beadboard is more true to its style. 
   

Since we're not changing the floor plan, I was concerned that the room would look closed-in.  It does now, but there are big, oak cabinets and a huge vanity hogging up physical and visual space.  I'm hoping with a smaller sink and no gigantic cabinet it will open things up.  I found a few pics online that show a bathroom almost identical to the look we're going for.  Currently, these are my inspiration pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfwithee/2799120167/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfwithee/2799120167/

Thanks Greg!

Thanks to Greg over at the Petch House, I might just have a solution to our bathroom dilemma. My main reason for wanting to have a bigger bathroom is to have a clawfoot tub. Shayne refuses to shower in one, since he says the curtain sucks in at you from all sides and makes it a very confining experience. Enter Greg's clawfoot shower. I read about this when he posted about laying his bathroom tile, then promptly forgot about it, since it didn't really apply to me at the time. Then I found a post on OldHouseWeb's bulletin boards about showering in a clawfoot tub. And bells started going off in my head.

Greg's shower curtain doesn't go around his tub, it just blocks the rest of the bathroom from the spray. There's a small drain under the tub to collect water that goes overboard, so there are no worries about flooding. This might be good for us since we plan on having kidlets, and kidlets tend to splash water around. This would also be good for us, since it would keep the curtain from sucking in at you.
This idea could be implemented by leaving the tub where it is, and adding the alcove for the sink. It would save us a TON of money. Hmmm...

Closet vs bathroom

Planning for the bathroom remodel is giving me fits. I'm almost seriously considering taking over the hall closet just to be able to make the bathroom bigger. And then I think about the lost storage, and resale value of a home with only small-ish closets in the bedrooms, and how much I hate the PPOs for screwing up the house to begin with. And then there's the fact that someday (soon, hopefully!), we're going to have a baby. I know that closet space will come in handy So I go back to my home design software and try yet again to find a way to make the bathroom work.

The least expensive way would be to leave the fixtures pretty much where they are. Since the bathroom is so awkward as-is, I could borrow a little space from the closet to make an alcove for the sink. It would open up the floor plan quite a bit, but then the closet would be slightly awkward instead of the bathroom. Would it really matter if we had a weird closet? Would future owners hate me?

We could always make a deep toilet alcove, instead. That saves the closet from awkwardness, but involves moving more plumbing...

The original plan called for moving all the fixtures, which our plumber said he could do for less than $800. But then there's the issue of waterproofing the window. And finding a 5.5' tub that doesn't cost $1500.
Or, I could just leave well-enough alone. We're pretty used to the layout now, and it's probably how it was originally. It's only awkward when one of us wants to get past the other person in front of the sink, and that doen't happen too often. It would leave the hall closet intact, plus we'd still have room in the bathroom for storage.

Another option is to lay it out like SactoDiane over at the OldHouseWeb forums: we could just cram it all in there. Somehow it looks nice in her bathroom, but I worry that mine would be cramped.

And then I think again about taking over the closet. It would add 24 square feet to the 60 square foot bathroom. Since the PPO's messed up the closets, we're getting by without the extracloset space now. We could have a separate shower and bath. And, I could have a clawfoot tub, as long as it's a 6' model (did I mention there's one on craigslist for sale nearby??). Hubby refuses to take a shower in one, since he says the curtain gets sucked in and sticks to you, but he doesn't mind them for soaking. Homes with larger bathrooms (74 square feet is hardly large by modern standards, but still!) have higher resale values, too. We'll have more storage anyways when we expand the back "porch" across the entire length of the house. And there's always the basement. And what really needs to be stored up here besides the linens and our clothes? Maybe most importantly, to us, the bathroom would be our little oasis from the chaos of remodeling; the one luxurious space in our utilitarian, efficient little house.

Or perhaps like this one...

Am I nuts for considering this? Help!

Bathroom inspiration: J's 3/4 bath

A few months ago I was at my cousin J's house and took a few quick shots of her bathroom. Aside from the wood floor (we're planning on tile), this is almost exactly what we want to do with our bathroom. Her husband R and his dad did all the work. I'm thinking we should invite them over... :)



The pictures aren't great quality, but you get the idea. They used the Kohler Memoirs toilet and sink, which are absoloutely goregous. I'll have to ask about the mirror, since I love that too. And the subway tile...! *sigh*

Congrats to J and R on a job well done!