One Room Challenge: Master Bath Details

This Robern Medicine Cabinet with pencil edge and white interior

will be recessed in the wall above our Duravit Darling Vanity

When planning a new bath, there are a LOT of details that have to be taken into consideration before the walls go up. After the rough-ins for all of the plumbing have been determined with a licensed plumber based on the specifications of the selected fixtures, the electrical is probably the most critical step in designing an efficient bathroom. Creating a lighting plan that includes switch and outlet placement is essential.

Think about how you plan to use the space. How many lights will each area require? Do you want the lights to go on automatically when you enter, then turn off after exiting? What are your electrical requirements? Will there be multiple users who will each need an outlet at the same time? How about a USB charger? Does your medicine cabinet require wiring for lights or electrical? Where do you want the fan switch to go? Is there a towel warmer that will need wiring? How about inside the shower? Will there be steam functions, media options, or special lighting to plan for? Gathering all of this information before your electrician begins the install will make for a much smoother construction phase and your end result will look intentionally designed.

Currently we are in the electrical phase of our master bath build out. I was really hoping to have plastered walls to present by this date – which is halfway through the 6 week challenge – but living with a busy contractor often means that my projects at home get delayed while my husband takes care of his paying customers. Sigh. I am still optimistic, however, that progress will be made soon, so for now I will just share some of the accessory choices that are on our install list. 

Pop-Out Outlet by LeGrand

Outlets and switches will be from the Adorne Collection by LeGrand. We used these in our first floor powder room (picture below) and we really love their clean design and functionality.

The shower will have a hand-held shower sprayer from Grohe. Hand-held showers are a must in my opinion. Along with being able to direct the spray of water at various heights and pressures, they are also especially useful when it comes to rinsing the shower walls down when cleaning. And while the shower bar technically is not a grab bar, it can provide an extra bit of stability if needed. As you can see from this picture, there are many bits and pieces needed when it comes to ordering plumbing fixtures. Working with an experienced bath designer or through a showroom is the best way to make sure you have all the moving parts needed for your project. 

Two towel bars will be installed. An 18 inch polished chrome bar from the Ginger Kubic collection will be to the the left of the vanity and the 24 inch version will be on the wall outside of the shower. A matching toilet tissue holder from the collection will also be installed.

And since this bath will not have a linen closet, we will instead utilize a wall mounted hotel-style towel shelf above the toilet area. I chose to go with just a single shelf in order to keep this area looking neat and tidy. 

I can’t promise where we will be next week with our One Room Challenge progress, but I can promise to share more of what I have learned about bath design over the years. My husband and I have a new bath remodel project for a client that we hopefully will be starting soon. But I really, really hope that my bath gets done first!!! 

See how everyone else is doing with their ORC spaces by checking out these posts:

Featured Designers Week 3

Guest Participants Week 3

House Beautiful Week 2 Recap

Are you participating in this challenge or following along?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

One Room Challenge: Colors + Fabrics

Choosing fabrics and colors for my #OneRoomChallenge office makeover has been pretty simple (although clearing the clutter to empty the space has proved to be far more difficult – I am so very behind in this part of the process!)

Once the space has been cleaned out and freshly painted (see the Sherwin Williams paint swatches that I am considering below) I will be incorporating a set of drapery panels made out of the vintage fabric pictured above into my room, most likely to frame an open closet from which I had previously removed the sliding doors. I am still using the closet to hang my dress clothes, but I would love to make this area work as a place to organize all the bits and pieces of my creative life. The panels are from a design show space that I put together back in 2010. I have been saving them ever since, and they truly bring me joy when I see them (but I am not feeling so happy seeing them folded up and not in use!) I will have to add some fabric to the overall length, however, since they are a little short for where I want to hang them. I am thinking a band of solid color on the bottom will do the trick. 

One of the first steps in “tidying-up” according to the KonMari method, is to pick up each item in your home and either keep it because it brings joy or thank it for its service and then get rid of it. I have managed to remove a bunch of stuff from my office (thank you very much), but I am not doing so well at getting it out of the house. I seriously have issues with letting go. But what can you do if many of your personal belongings are of sentimental value? Just take a look at the design show space that I called a Designers Before + After – where the vintage fabric drapes originated – and you will see actual memorabilia from my childhood used to style the room. I still have ALL of it. Some of it may resurface in my new office.

Colors I am considering ...

Inspiration photo from Nancy Meyers Instagram feed

showing the set design for The Intern

Pinboard from my space designed for the

North Shore Design Show 2010

End note: In case you were wondering if I won the trip to Paris via the Legrand Best Before + After Contest, I sadly did not. But I am still loving my new bathroom and oh so fabulous switches!

My apologies for such a short update, but I obviously still have a lot of work to do over here! Follow the other One Room Challenge participants by visiting the Calling it Home blog. Some of them have been getting it done!!

Guest Participants Week 3

Sponsored Participants Week 3

Bath “Before + After” and a Trip to Paris!

AFTER: a new modern bath with clean lines

BEFORE: original fixtures and a vintage feel

Awhile back I promised to share one of my recent home renovation projects. Finally the time has come! As most of us know or have experienced first-hand, bathrooms are often the last room of a house to be renovated. They are expensive, even the small ones, and usually a new homeowner can deal with what is there while investing in updating the more public living spaces. That is how our story goes anyway.

I actually chose the subtle damask-style wallpaper above to replace a bright orange floral print that was on the walls when we first moved in to our 1904 farmhouse. We were okay with the overall look for awhile, but the fixtures really did not serve us well. The dated corner toilet used far too much water and the wall mount sink was pretty nondescript with an exposed trap and no storage underneath. At least the fixtures were white and we could live comfortably with them for as long as we did (about 10 years).

This first floor bathroom actually started out pretty large, with a washer and dryer at one end opposite a stall shower which unfortunately my young-at-the-time kids would often get stuck in (the folding door was hard to operate). The worst part about the bath by far was that the door opened directly into our tiny kitchen, two feet away from the island. And to add to the inconvenience, we had to walk through the kitchen multiple times a day to transport clothes to do the many loads of laundry a family of six has to manage. It was just not working.

The first change we made was to relocate the laundry to one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. Best decision ever! Next, we reoriented the door of the reconfigured bath so that it would open up into a new mudroom we created by stealing square footage from our exterior farmers porch. So much better! Below is the new and improved layout.

custom vanity: Benjamin Moore Galveston Gray

matte black faucet, knobs and towel bar from

the Jason Wu Collection for Brizo

Afina Illume LED back lit mirror

Most of our projects take quite awhile to complete since we are doing the majority of the work ourselves on our off hours. My husband is a licensed contractor, so he was able to build out the room and handle all of the plumbing (so nice when we can work together on our projects!) Then we brought in some experts to lay tile and build a custom cabinet, which we had professionally sprayed with a Sherwin Williams version of a Benjamin Moore paint color (note: Sherwin Williams formulas seem to work better for spray applications). One of my favorite colors that I had in the master bedroom of our last house, Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, was used on the walls. Classic ivory subway tiles suit the no-fuss style of our American Foursquare home, while the backlit mirror with LED lights adds a modern touch. Dated fixtures were replaced with water sense models and smart-touch technology.

Jason Wu for Brizo Hydrati

2-in-1 Showerhead with

handheld shower and

H2O Kinetic Technology 

Toto Connelly 2-piece WaterSense Toilet
{best part: no exposed trap on sides!!!} 

subway and floor tile: Galleria Stone + Tile

wall color: Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue

artwork I am considering:

Weathered by Melanie Severin via Minted

(I love that there is just a touch of pink in this for me!)

simple shower curtain from Target

hammered nickel sink from Native Trails

honed black granite counter on custom cabinet

towels from the Turkish Towel Company

where it all began: Old York 24th Annual

Decorator Show House 2013 (read about it here)

Did I mention that almost all of our fixtures were from one of my design show house projects? When you invest in participating in a show house, the key is to choose pieces that you would like to live with yourself, since often times those pieces end up in your design inventory afterwards. In the Petite Powder Room above, I was able to keep the counter top, sink, faucet and matching accessories. And now I get to enjoy them in my own home! #worththewait

sensor switch and outlet from

the Legrand Adorne Collection

Our whole family loves this new home improvement. We really needed it! And just as we were finishing up, I was offered free switch upgrades from the Adorne Collection from Legrand. The timing was perfect!

Legrand Before + After

Facebook contest

We had originally put in some basic switches that were not the right color (they should have been light almond, but no worries now!) I visited the Legrand website and was able to choose energy efficient sensor light/fan switches and sleek looking outlets that all fit seamlessly in a gloss white plate design. These details make a designer difference! Along with receiving the switches, my before and after photos were entered into a contest they were running. I actually qualified as one of the top ten projects they selected to be voted on to possibly win a grand prize trip for two to visit their Paris headquarters! Crazy, right? Of course, now all my boys wish they had taken French like I asked them to – only one of them listened to me : ) To be honest, I am just happy that our project got noticed! We worked hard on this little bath, and had to endure one bathroom to accommodate six people for years before finishing this up. So believe me I feel blessed already. Even so, a trip to Paris would be amazing (have never been and I did study French for years!) Although I would be equally happy with a family trip for six to Canada at this point, I would still appreciate it if you could take the time to vote on the Legrand facebook page before the contest ends on October 16th (vote under the Best Before & After tab). They are even giving out Adorne Connectivity Prize Packs to 5 lucky voters who choose their favorite transformation. While I wait for the results, this is my second option for wall art ...

The Iron Lady by Ava Thomson

via Minted

In the meantime, be sure to come back soon (or follow my Instagram feed) for updates on my entry in the bloggers One Room Challenge link up event. All this week I will be busy clearing the clutter in my office and hopefully finding a home for more design show inventory. The prize for this new challenge? A sense of accomplishment (tackling my junk room space is seriously daunting!) with the end result being a comfortable, visually stress-free room in which to be creative and more productive. Wish me luck!