bathroom # 1 mood board

it is time to get serious about finishing our house.  björn and i are running into the problem of too many choices and too many decisions to make and as a result we have yet to make very many interior finish selections at all.  we both have spent hours (maybe days) scouring the internet and houzz.com for everything from lighting ideas, to wall finish options.  i have about 2 thousand "inspiration boards" on pinterest, houzz, and my desktop and things are getting a little out of hand.  luckily this little blog is actually helping to pin me down to make a few decisions...i think.

the bathroom layout

below are a few photos that inspired the design of the first floor bathroom.  this bathroom is going to have an enclosed shower / steam shower, a custom designed vanity (design is in the process), and tons of natural light from three windows so i wanted it to feel light and airy and to reflect the contemporary farmhouse feel that we are going for with this house.

aqua glass tile and a herringbone marble mosaic floor
(mueller nicholls cabinets and construction via houzz)

love the large format glass tiles in a grey-green color
(studio m design via houzz)

white horizontal wood panelling for the walls

i put together this mood board which summarizes my wishlist for this bathroom.  björn and i had already decided to run the hardwood cherry floors into this lower bath.  we love the look of the rich cherry with beautiful painted cabinetry and with the radiant underfloor heating it will be toasty warm underfoot even on the coldest days!  

1. herringbone carrera marble from AKDO

2. glass tile in "whisper" from Dal Tile

3. sherwin williams 6218 tradewinds- ceiling

4. sherwin williams 6168 modern white- trim and walls

5. vanity lighting - from durango light art (manu. unknown)

6. infinity mirror- room & board

7. archer self-rimming sink & archer lavatory- kohler

8. shaker style custom cabinetry

9. cherry hardwood floor

10. persuade two-piece elongated toilet- kohler

11. artwork

i really would love to put horizontal wood panelling painted white on all of the walls, i think it looks clean and contemporary but definitely give some farmhouse charm to a space.  it will also make the walls have a ton of character so that i can hang minimal artwork.  speaking of artwork i would love to incorporate profile silhouettes of björn and i as children somewhere in the house and i think the bathroom would be a great place!  

my dreams for the steam shower include soft grey-green glass subway tile walls and ceiling, and a beautiful herringbone marble mosaic floor.  i love the luxury of the marble paired with the simplicity of the glass tiles.  because we have to tile the entire height of the walls and the ceiling due to the steam shower aspect i may need to add an accent stripe of white to break up the grey-green tiles.  all of our fixtures for the shower are from kohler in a chrome finish.

the vanity is being designed by moi and will be built by björn and matt.  i am leaning toward a simple shaker style painted the wall color, with a grey concrete or engineered stone top.  i will share the design with you as soon as it is more complete. we are using kohler's archer series sink and faucet which i love because it has a very clean look with some traditional styling.  and the toilet has actually been decided upon for months.  björn fell in love when he saw this toilet and its sleek "spaceship" like design. (his words)  i love it because it will be so easy to clean and has a fun dual flush button on the top.

i would love to paint the ceiling of this space a grey-green color like sherwin williams tradewinds, to compliment the glass subway tile.  i hope that this first floor bath will 

products galore: epic faucet

björn and i scored big time a couple of weekends ago.  we discovered this great warehouse here in durango that a local contractor has started to sell salvaged building materials.  he not only has some very interesting things he has amazing prices as well.  well we were poking around looking at a lot of stuff speculating out loud at how useful and cool many of his items are.  he has a super cool vintage ice box that was salvaged from an old durango liquor store, lots of old timbers and several interesting sinks and fixtures.

suddenly both of us zeroed in on a lone faucet sitting on a shelf.  immediately i thought to myself, this is way cool.  i could just tell from the construction and the material that it was high quality and as soon as i touched it björn said "yes, how much?!"  the guy must have also recognized that this was something worth a little bit of money so while most of the other fixtures and items he was selling for $10 or $15 he said that he would take $75.00 for this faucet.  a huge price jump from his other merchandise but björn and i knew that it would be worth it so we said we would take it!

so here it is:

the porcelain handles work perfectly

björn and i both recognized this was a high design faucet

me being very curious went immediately on the internet when we got home and did a quick little search for this french faucet.  and to my surprise i found it, the company Herbeau, is still producing this product and had we wanted to buy it for our house we would have to pay : $1,113.00 plus taxes and shipping I would imagine!  and we got it for $75.00!  i would say thats a pretty good deal, we would NEVER spend that much money on a faucet, we may dream, but that is outrageous.  lucky for us someone in Telluride, where this faucet was salvaged from, thought nothing of ripping it out during their renovations.  just to prove it to you here is a screen shot from the Herbeau website:

we plan on using this fixture for the island prep sink, i think it will look amazing as you walk into the kitchen and i think it ties into that clean lines farmhouse look we are going for.  now we just have to find the rest of the faucets for the house which may be hard now that we have to live up to beauty!