Jan 2, 2017
Okay – 12 days til move in. We are actually on schedule, thanks to my wonderful contractor and his crew who worked through all the holidays for us. It won’t be 100% but it will be close enough! As we patiently await the marble and lacquered doors for the kitchen, the bathrooms are kicking ass.
The jack & jill bathroom (aka Brady’s bathroom for now) has been really fun to design. I wanted to do something bold and different and youthful. I also wanted to make sure it was kid-friendly in terms of materials and design. It was already set up as a jack & jill, which means it is accessible from 2 bedrooms, and hopefully that other bedroom will one day be for baby #2!
Here is a look at the before:
The only real issue with the existing layout was there was only a small shower (no tub) and a double vanity. In an ideal world we would have a shower/tub combo AND a double vanity, but there isn’t room for both. So, we decided to make a single vanity and change the shower stall to a tub/shower combo. We demo’d everything, but kept the plumbing in the same place which makes things much simpler.
I knew I wanted to do a black & white tile in here, and I was considering doing a encaustic cement tile on the floor because I LOVE them, but I was told by so many experts that they are very difficult to maintain and do not wear well. Considering this is a bathroom for kids, that just didn’t seem like the smart choice. Lucky me, I walked into Classic Tile in Santa Monica and found these awesome PORCELAIN (read: indestructible) tiles:
I love that they are black & white & grey and I love LOVE the star pattern. It was the perfect fit, and so I designed the rest of the room around it:
I decided to do vertical subway tile on the shower walls (durable AND affordable – they are like $1 at home depot) with dark grout to make it pop. The grey wood stain is for the custom floating vanity that is yet to come.
When they started installing the floor tile I had my usual moment of panic – was it too bold? would it make Brady’s head spin when he went to the bathroom??
But as they progressed of course I fell in love with it 🙂
Once they added the dark grout to the subway tile and installed the chrome fixtures, things really started jiving:
Here’s a shot of Brady’s first time in the space. He was more excited to get into the tub, but I think he liked it??
We added one panel of glass above the pony wall for now – it didn’t make sense to add the other pane of glass with a door because we (and by we I mean Jeremy) is down there on the floor every night giving this kid a bath and adding that glass would really be in the way. So, eventually it will be added but for now it looks like this:
And here is where we stand today. I didn’t mention but we added paneling that mimics ship lap on the wall behind the toilet/vanity to break up that space a bit. It actually turned out great and wasn’t a big cost:
This week the vanity is being built and the stone top is being fabricated. All we will need after that is a mirror (which I have a brass round mirror from Brady’s bedroom now that I will use) and a sconce above which is TBD. Couldn’t be happier with how this turned out. Stayed tuned for the finished product soon! xo, AE
Dec 23, 2016
Oh man, I am behind on my blog posts. The house is coming together at lightening speed and we are 24 days until move in!!! I am there bi-weekly making big and small decisions….not to mention my son is sick (isn’t everyone’s kid sick?!), my husband is travelling, and I am one worn out mama. Anyways, there is so much to fill you in on but the room that’s making a ton of progress lately is the master bath.
Before shot refersher:
So the plan was: demo everything, remove all windows/French doors/transom windows, as well as removing the balcony that was so unnecessary and awkward. We moved the window that was previously over the tub to where the balcony doors were so we do have one window in the space. Well all went according to plan, except for the fact that the subfloor under the existing shower was extremely rotted from water leakage and had to be replaced, which only means we had to replace the subfloor which cost money!
Once demo and repairs were done, the framing went up and I was SO pumped to see how big that shower was gonna be:
Moving on to the design of the space – I touched on this in another post but here is a more detailed description. Here is the design board I made for myself as we began selecting finishes so I could keep things straight in my head:
This gives you a good idea of the overall concept – mosaic hexagon flooring w/ carrrera hex border, natural wood vanity w/ Carrera slab top and chrome fixtures, assortment of white stone/tiles in shower with varying textures. The mirrors/lighting/hardware are TBD but I am really thinking I will add some black or dark bronze into the mix. That vanity is a just place holder because we are custom designing ours. Since I made this board we have decided to go a more modern route for the vanity because I fell in love with this image:
We are building something similar to this in design with some tweaking – I wanted to keep the cabinetry really sleek and simple in here and let the tile do its thing. We are also doing shaker cabinets in the kitchen and I wanted something different in here.
We had a lot of fun sourcing tile for this room. I had already decided on the Artistic Tile mosaic for the floor and we built the rest of the scheme around that. I wanted to do whites in the shower but it is SUCH a big shower that it needed some variation and changes in texture to break it up. I came across this dual-finish thassos 2×6 and it was obviously such a winner. It alternates between rough and polished thassos and it is seriously stunning in person:
I knew I wanted to do penny tiles for the shower floor because they give a good grip and I get nervous about people slipping and falling (mostly me). We decided to do a platinum grout to pull in from the grays in the Carrera floors:
We also decided to add a border to the mosaic floor tile because I thought it would soften the boldness of the pattern – in my mind it was a way to phase it out towards the edges. We chose a large Carrera hexagon as the border and a porcelain marble to use as the shower curb:
Last but not least, we found a pre-fab Carrera slab for the vanity top – YAYYYY I was so happy we were able to snag that:
I felt like once I made the choices and bought all the tile that I had done the right thing but I was SUPER. NERVOUS. This is not your typical bathroom and I don’t want it to be, but taking risks can be scary. They started laying the tile in the shower last week and I was still feeling kind of wary:
Tile is really hard to fully grasp until it is ALL installed, grouted, & finished. I liked the thassos but without the white grout I couldn’t really see it…until TODAY! My jaw dropped when I saw the final product (minus the fixtures):
Its almost too pretty to touch. And how cute is my shampoo niche? We had some leftover white quartz from our kitchen slabs so we used it for the bench top and shampoo niche. The shower floor was also just as I’d hoped (tile in drain still needs grouting):
The platinum grout was definitely the way to go. Now the last piece (besides vanity which isn’t ready yet) is the BIGGEST piece – the mosaic floors. We started laying it out today because with the border it is a tad complicated. Seriously though, it looks AMAZING. I cannot wait to sit there and watch them install it like a total psycho:
That last show really shows how the room is going to come together. And I can’t wait to see how the wood on the vanity and the linen closet add some warmth to the space. I will give you guys an update on the jack & jill bath next week – stay tuned! xo, AE
Dec 3, 2016
Things are trucking along nicely over here at project #aedesignsherown and I cant believe the progress we have made. The subfloors have been leveled and new wood floors are being installed Monday (!), the ceilings have been taken down, new can lights put in, and new ceilings have been put back up, a lot of the walls are being put back up and finished as well. Soon tiles will start going up and cabinets are being built. We are moving in 44 days so I don’t have any time to procrastinate on decisions. Its really, really hard to work in design all day and not second guess my choices, but I am doing my best!
I started getting bids from painters to start on the outside of the house. Here is a current snapshot of the exterior of our house:
Not a pretty picture. The original color paint is a mucky avocado green that essentially camouflages the house into the landscaping (do you see the GIANT tree in front of the house??). The part that is white is the new exterior we had to replace because of water damage and because we removed a balcony and some windows (it is white because it is primed).
The house is really unique – it is made of stucco, brick and wood siding. It is hard to classify what kind of house it is – it was built in the 60s and it is a ranch house with a minimally sloped roof that you can barely see. Originally I was thinking of doing a blue-gray, like Benjamin Moore Hale Navy, because I thought it would give the house more of a cape cod feel, which is my favorite kind of house:
The thing I love about these blue houses is that they pop against the white trim and gray roof. Our house has very little trim in the front of the house and you can barely see the roof so I am concerned painting it this color will keep giving it that camouflaged look and I really want it to POP once you get up the driveway so you can really see the house.
I hadn’t really considered white until the primer went up and I was like oh wow, its white! I am of course nervous it will get dirty from all the trees but I have been reassured our gutter system is working well and would prevent leaves etc from falling on house.
Now for some beautiful white houses:
At least my kids/husband cant get spaghetti sauce on the outside of the house right? Well maybe they can, but its not as likely as a living room sofa.
Along with a white house must come BLACK trim.
I don’t have a lot of trim on the outside of the house, but I think I could fudge it by getting creative (can I paint my gutters black??).
I would also like to paint the garage black. So rad.
Once we are able to replace our front door (will be part of phase 2 – not a priority), I would love to paint it a cool color, maybe turquoise…
….or red…..
….or yellow?!
Expect many, MANY paint swatches to come. Can’t wait to post more exciting updates next week! Happy weekend! xo, AE
The only real issue with the existing layout was there was only a small shower (no tub) and a double vanity. In an ideal world we would have a shower/tub combo AND a double vanity, but there isn’t room for both. So, we decided to make a single vanity and change the shower stall to a tub/shower combo. We demo’d everything, but kept the plumbing in the same place which makes things much simpler.
I decided to do vertical subway tile on the shower walls (durable AND affordable – they are like $1 at home depot) with dark grout to make it pop. The grey wood stain is for the custom floating vanity that is yet to come.
We added one panel of glass above the pony wall for now – it didn’t make sense to add the other pane of glass with a door because we (and by we I mean Jeremy) is down there on the floor every night giving this kid a bath and adding that glass would really be in the way. So, eventually it will be added but for now it looks like this:
