Our First House: Bathroom Inspiration

With only a week to go until we have to start moving our stuff into our new house, we are still in full-swing renovation mode! Last week we finished ripping out everything we needed to in the bathroom and now it's time to piece it all back together. Here's what it looks like now. WARNING: it's scary haha!

The original vanity was sitting on the floor (no toe-kick) so it was really low to the ground and that just wasn't going to be ideal for my 6'3" husband ;) I found a very affordable vanity at a local discount store and picked out a quartz countertop that's white with some gray veining to replace it. It's going to be great (we are on a budget, so it's going to epically better than before, but not overdone.)

I have been dreaming of using brass hardware SOMEWHERE in our future home for some time, but it's not my husband's favorite look, so I figured I'd do it in our bathroom, rather than our kitchen which will have many more pieces of hardware. I'm not sure about you, but I'm all about mixing metals. I get this question a lot-- how do you mix metals correctly?! And I'm going to give you some tips today!

TIPS ON MIXING METALS:

First, you want to make sure that you choose a dominate metal and a supporting metal. The dominant one would appear slightly more than the supporting metal. My dominant finish will be the aged brass because it's seen in the light fixtures (which I'm DYING over), hardware, and then I'll pull it in other places like a picture frame, tray for the counter, etc. Our supporting finish will be satin nickel seen in the faucets and towel bar. I'm going with these gorgeous faucets that have a bit of a vintage feel to them because the house is a little older and I love the character that these add! 

The other tip I have is to make sure every metal has a buddy. So if you have a brass light fixture, make sure that finish shows up at least one other place to create unity.

We just took out a huge bulkhead that was above the bathroom vanity, making the space feel so small and crowded. We have no idea why it was there, as it wasn't covering anything important, so I'm thrilled it's gone!! This means we can raise the electrical to make for more space for our light fixtures and mirrors. The mirrors I'm hoping we'll go with are a champagne finish, so they go with both gold and silver, which I think will be great to marry the two! But I'll need to see the space once the vanity it is before ordering a mirror to see if I still like the idea of two mirrors, or if I should do one mirror since it's such a small space. One mirror might make the room flow a bit better, we'll see!

THE DESIGN PLAN:

vanity / shower curtain / sink faucets / mirrors / light fixtures hand towel /  round brass knob / brass pull / tile 
We'll be painting the bathroom a lighter color than it is now and I'd love to bring in this dusty blue / sea glass hue. We ripped out the current vanity and the current tile floors that aren't my style and aren't in great shape stayed in tact (darn ;) One of the reasons I'm not loving the current floor is because of the huge white grout lines. Funny enough, a reader suggested what I was thinking-- we might be able to stain / dye the grout to make it less obvious. Then I got to thinking about a couple DIY projects I've seen over the years involving painting tile. I would never suggest this for a main living space, but since it's a bathroom, I think it just might work! 
The plan is to paint the tile and grout white, then use this stencil in a light gray to make a pretty design. Since the grout lines are so large, the standard stencil sizes offered won't work, but thankfully they're going to make me a custom size. Since our tiles are 6" squares, I am going to measure the width of 4 tiles together plus the grout in between to get my stencil size. I think the 6" stencil would be way too busy, so doing about a 12" size will be much easier on the eye! That's our game plan for now. The tub /shower is a one piece fiberglass situation and even though we'd love a tiled shower, we're not going to do that. It's too much money to put in at this point. What's there now is in really good shape!
Can't wait to show you as it comes along in the coming weeks. xoxo
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