Window progress!

Shower faucets

It would have been nice to know that we needed to pick out a shower faucet, like, yesterday. Tile and cabinet orders are supposed to be happening right about now, but, unless I'm missing something, faucets were not listed on our schedule. But they are due now!

Apparently the plumber needs to put the housing inside the wall before it's built. And the shower pan goes in before drywall. We are behind the eight-ball on some things, but with this, I didn't even know we were playing pool yet!

As such, we are scrambling to figure out what kind of fixtures to get for our two bathrooms. I think we have a bit longer on the kitchen sink, but I'd better check on that, too!

Here is the current thinking for our floor tile (Daltile White Linen), shower tile and backsplash tile (Sonoma Vihara Jade iridescent) and possible countertop (Eco by Constantino's White Diamond).



We were considering a natural maple vanity as mentioned in my recent post on the upstairs bath, but white is looking like it might make more sense. We'd like a clean contemporary slab, but it might end up that we consider a shaker here, too, depending on cost an availability, whether we go with very eco-friendly cabinets or CARB-certified ready-to-assemble cabinets. Paint colors for the room under consideration are some pale grey-greens-almost-blues like Benjamin Moore Winter Orchard, Iceberg, and Cascade Mountain.

The questions we need to decide asap are:
Should our shower faucet be shiny chrome, or brushed nickel/silver, or something else?
What style?

In this upstairs bath, you'll see the shower faucet because the door is glass, so the showerhead and the faucets on the sink should match or at least be compatible.

Downstairs, where we'll have a shower curtain, I'm less concerned about matching, though we will have to decide those soon, too.

Upper bath colors and finishes

We've worked some more on cabinet ideas and come up with two these ideas with more symmetry, and which should let us get Ready-To-Assemble (RTA) cabinets that are CARB Certified, meaning they meet California Air Regulation Board standards for air quality (that is, low formaldehyde emissions) if we don't go with something more expensive or custom.

With this one we might put a glass shelf underneath the cabinets:

In the image below, I do like the practicality of shelves here but not so much the look of them. However, I think the bottom cabinet-heavy configuration is what we will probably choose since we don't really use the few drawers we currently have and probably won't not until the kids get a lot older. I want things out of reach of little hands!

Here is what we have on colors and finishes:

-vanity is (probably) natural maple or possibly bamboo

-counter is white quartz or maybe recycled IceStone (also white but with some small flecks)

-two sides of shower are white acrylic and door is glass

-back wall of shower (opposite the mirror) is green iridescent Sonoma jade glass tile 1x4"

-backsplash under mirror is same green iridescent tile

-floors are white linen Daltile Fabrique (w/grey streaks)

Here is the Fabrique with the Sonoma on top (we're choosing the one in the lower right corner).

So what do we do on paint color for the bathroom? Super pale grey or grey-green? Or just white? Or something else?

And how do we trim that funny L-shaped wall next to the shower? (No, it's not really going to be a gate; either the software program is too dumb to let us put in a half wall in front of the toilet, or we are!)

And how do we trim the window wall? Both that wall and especially the half wall will be seen from the front door!

This bathroom will feel more contemporary and light than other parts of the earthier more craftsman-inspired (but-still-a-Cape!) home, but I don't want it to seem like it's from another universe.

We thought the half-wall might be topped with a piece of the counter material, or maybe of matching maple. But do we do a wainscoting of some sort halfway up that wall? In what material? Or maybe not up that L wall next to the shower but yes on the back window wall? We could continue the Fabrique from the floor halfway up the wall and top with some of the jade, continuing the line at the level of the backsplash.

A designer friend said she didn't think so much Fabrique would look good continuing from floor to wall. I wonder if a wall will look naked just painted, assuming we're not using any kind of statement color.

The Sonoma jade doesn't come in any trim pieces -- just different sizes and and also in Silk finish, their matte finish). Not sure about the availability of Fabrique in trim pieces or anything other than 12x12"

Baby is up from nap so here goes the post!

I dream of two bathrooms

For the upstairs bathroom, we're going for a more contemporary look. As mentioned in this earlier post, we like the idea of green glass tile for the back wall of the shower, two acrylic white walls, and a clear glass door. We hope to pick up the green glass as a backsplash and maybe some trim on the walls but probably not spring for the cost of tiling the bathroom wall.

We looked at some plain glass tiles at the first tile center today, and they would be fine, but they didn't wow us.
Oh, and the saleswoman we spoke to forgot to give us pricing on these or on the Fabrique Blanc Linen porcelain tile, though I see I can find it online for $3.90/sq ft.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about the main level bathroom, I then went back to another tile store to check out some Stone & Pewter and other potential glass tiles.

Near the front of the store were beautiful panels by Sonoma Tilemakers.
I snapped these photos even though I assumed the Sonoma tiles would be on the pricey side, but the saleswoman said they weren't too bad for as gorgeous as they are.

We eagerly await her email with pricing, because we both really love Sonoma's Vihara line in Jade, both the iridescent and the more matte "silk." Here the both are on the right of the big Fabrique proposed floor tile, while on the left we have the other top contender, the Wisp line of Stone & Pewter glass tiles in Allspice.


Both of those brands claim these two lines of glass tiles contain 70% recycled material, and Sonoma has "Greener Every Day" page that talks about their use of solar power and carbon offsets.

The floorplan of the bathroom is this:

The pretty green tiled wall is the one on the back of the shower that will be reflected in the mirror above the vanity.

The wall in front of the toilet is a half-wall (knee wall) so that the toilet won't be visible from the front door. Don't believe our home-grown rendering here where the best we could do was to put up a gate. It really will be a regular half wall!


But we'll have to figure out how to trim this little wall: if we should leave the white Lustrolite panel inside the shower as planned and then just have a painted wall for that vertical part you see above and continuing to the half wall in the backwards L. Not sure what paint color that would be. Another option is to tile that whole shower wall and continue the tiling to the part outside the shower and to the half wall.

Here is the room as it stands now, visible from the stairs. The half wall isn't there yet.


Maybe the half wall will be capped with a ledge of whatever type of countertop we go with, possibly a white quartz. Now that we're in the market for a white, I'll have to check my notes from out trip to Amicus Green Building Center on the price of Ice Stone, which is made in Brooklyn using 100% recycled glass and cement from Pennsylvania.

We have been looking at some pre-fab vanities that come with white marble, but I don't really love that Carerra look, and I suspect the vanities probably all contain medium density fiberboard (MDF). Restoration Hardware confirmed to me in an email that theirs contains MDF. This post makes me want to steer away from big stuff from them, even if I do have their hardware in my kitchen right now. The author advised me to consult Green Depot to ask about safe furniture. I'm sure we're going to make some mistakes and have to cut some corners, but I am not about to knowingly bring added formaldehyde into my home!

We're thinking instead of a pre-fab painted wood vanity that we might ask our kitchen cabinet maker to price out a bamboo vanity in a light/natural stain (not too yellow). We also haven't figured out exactly the pantry-like linen "closet"/storage to the left. We don't want it to feel imposing as you walk in, but we do think that is the right spot for more storage. Over to the right, it would cut off reflected light from the window, and we don't really want to put it in between the sinks because of the toilet. We may just set the cabinet back to a lesser depth or have open shelving on the top.

Ideas?

I dream of ... bathrooms

These days, while I'm lying still waiting for the baby to fall asleep, all I can think about is colors and textures: walls and tile.

The most important decisions to make -- as in, they were on our contractor's schedule to be decided last Friday -- are the bathroom tile choices so that they can be ordered and ready when the crew is.

Let me introduce you to our current main level bathroom. A humble little thing, it has white tile around with black trim and black squares in the basketweave floor tile.



The original idea for the new identically sized bathroom in the new place was to keep the traditional black and white tile but do purple walls on the upper half and white wainscoting on the lower. The painted wood is a lot cheaper than more tile, and we loved the look when we saw it at a friend's house.

The color combo and look I was going for was something like this:
Or, in my crude late-night drawing, this:
.
But the more I thought about it, the black and white just wasn't going to fit with the rest of the earth-toned house. And honestly, I wanted some green in there, and not just in the towels. The jackpot plan would be to use Motawi field tile on the floor, but that is out of the budget at over $40/sq ft. Still, I thought maybe we could do some other kind of green tile and shower surround trim.

So here is my second late-night drawing:

At the tile place today, we realized the line down between the vanity and the shower would probably have to have tile all the way if we go with the wainscoting plan, hence the hasty coloring in with black pen.

Oh, and the window up above the shower? We lost the existing window by building the addition on the other side of it. Our architect suggested keeping a high-up transom type window to let natural light into the bathroom. It could be glass blocks or more likely something that would be decorative over the piano in the addition. Here is a photo of that piano-wall-to-be looking through into the gutted bathroom.



The window would be wider than the original and not very deep. That's a work in progress and not a for-sure yet.

We went to a tile place today and could really only come up with this Garden Spot color that could, unglazed, work for the floor...

...and glazed work for the tub surround trim. It was the only green that wasn't too blue or too taupe and that also had the small trim available.

But as I looked around, I just felt like I'd be disappointed at this tile's lack of depth and interest. Every time I passed slate, I just sighed in admiration, almost as much as I drool over super-expensive Motawi tiles and other fancy brands.

Doesn't this stone look so much more interesting than the plain tile below?


I was so motivated that when I got home, after the babysitter had miraculously left me with a sleeping girl and a happy boy, I hopped online to check out the Stone & Pewter tile we'd seen just moments before we had to leave our short visit to a different tile store a few weeks back, rushing to get back to the babysitter.

Since the pollen is still watering a kindergartener's eyes around here and we are bound for an indoor spring break, I decided we'd brave an afternoon field trip back to the fancier tile shop to see the Stone & Pewter again get some samples.

The lighting wasn't great for this shot, but here are China Sea Green, Oasis (my favorite, but no longer made!) and Moss Green.


I'm awaiting an email with prices, but this field tile slate is supposed to be $6-8/sq ft. for this field tile compared to $5.90 for the Garden Spot tile that just didn't sing to me. The saleswoman did warn that the installers would need to take care to even out the field tile, which comes in variable thicknesses, unlike the more expensive honed tile.

We still have to think some more about this, not to mention hash out just how dark I'm allowed to make the purple walls (I like the C2 color Scooter, but we'll have to see how that looks tomorrow on the paper I just painted to test it out).

Opinions and advice?