Happy nearly new year, bloggy friends! 2017 was the year we finally, finally got to move into our mountain dream home, 6 years after purchasing a 13-acre lot in foreclosure. Parts of the house are really coming together, like our hallway bathroom, kitchen, and guest bedroom. Other rooms may take another 6 years to complete.
Theater? No, I'm pretty sure that giant space with the fancy ceiling and $1,000 of glass doors was always intended to be a storage space for boxes and miscellaneous junk. The plans must have been mislabeled.
One of my favorite rooms in our new house so far is the small bathroom off our hallway. With a curved floor, it's a bit unusual. SN created the countertop himself out of a single piece of alligator juniper. The oversized mirror I ordered from Wayfair, called a Honey Mushroom mirror, really pulled everything together. The blue vessel sink was a $25 clearance find and the Emtek lead crystal doorknobs were marked down to even less. Plus, it happens to have the most beautiful shower in the history of showers. (What a shame it's the least used shower in the house! I suppose that will help keep it beautiful.)
Funny side note: Our builder mentioned several times that we should consider ways to cover up the exposed plumbing beneath the sink, such as by building a box around it in matching alligator juniper. I'd planned to simply (it's always simply for me - SN the handyman might disagree) swap out the plastic pipe with a gold one. Looking online, there were many inexpensive options that closely matched the champagne bronze finish on our Delta faucet. A few weeks before moving in, I decided on a $35 kit with everything we needed. "Just wait," SN insisted. "Don't order it yet!" This is his default response to any online shopping. For some reason, I listened to him. In exchange, a few weeks later, he got to listen to me despair over my $35 option no longer being available and the next most affordable choice being more than $200. The solution? We (he) spray painted the exposed plumbing Rust-Oleum Pure Gold. Problem solved, except he also spray painted the floor. (OMG.) It won't come off.
Oh! One more quick thing. That fabulous mirror that absolutely makes the space? I ordered it as an open-box clearance item and waited and waited and waited some more. While in transit, the shipping label was damaged, so Fed-Ex returned it to Wayfair. No big deal, right? It was the only Honey Mushroom mirror they had, so figuring out which customer it was supposed to go to should be easy, right? According to Wayfair, they considered this to be the second time the mirror had been returned, so they "had it destroyed" (?!?!?!) and canceled my order with no option to repurchase the mirror at the discounted price I'd paid. Personally, I've always suspected a Wayfair employee took it home. Many calls and emails and months later, a replacement arrived and it was everything I'd dreamed it would be.
Theater? No, I'm pretty sure that giant space with the fancy ceiling and $1,000 of glass doors was always intended to be a storage space for boxes and miscellaneous junk. The plans must have been mislabeled.
One of my favorite rooms in our new house so far is the small bathroom off our hallway. With a curved floor, it's a bit unusual. SN created the countertop himself out of a single piece of alligator juniper. The oversized mirror I ordered from Wayfair, called a Honey Mushroom mirror, really pulled everything together. The blue vessel sink was a $25 clearance find and the Emtek lead crystal doorknobs were marked down to even less. Plus, it happens to have the most beautiful shower in the history of showers. (What a shame it's the least used shower in the house! I suppose that will help keep it beautiful.)
Funny side note: Our builder mentioned several times that we should consider ways to cover up the exposed plumbing beneath the sink, such as by building a box around it in matching alligator juniper. I'd planned to simply (it's always simply for me - SN the handyman might disagree) swap out the plastic pipe with a gold one. Looking online, there were many inexpensive options that closely matched the champagne bronze finish on our Delta faucet. A few weeks before moving in, I decided on a $35 kit with everything we needed. "Just wait," SN insisted. "Don't order it yet!" This is his default response to any online shopping. For some reason, I listened to him. In exchange, a few weeks later, he got to listen to me despair over my $35 option no longer being available and the next most affordable choice being more than $200. The solution? We (he) spray painted the exposed plumbing Rust-Oleum Pure Gold. Problem solved, except he also spray painted the floor. (OMG.) It won't come off.
Oh! One more quick thing. That fabulous mirror that absolutely makes the space? I ordered it as an open-box clearance item and waited and waited and waited some more. While in transit, the shipping label was damaged, so Fed-Ex returned it to Wayfair. No big deal, right? It was the only Honey Mushroom mirror they had, so figuring out which customer it was supposed to go to should be easy, right? According to Wayfair, they considered this to be the second time the mirror had been returned, so they "had it destroyed" (?!?!?!) and canceled my order with no option to repurchase the mirror at the discounted price I'd paid. Personally, I've always suspected a Wayfair employee took it home. Many calls and emails and months later, a replacement arrived and it was everything I'd dreamed it would be.
Update: This bathroom is even better now that it features Pamir Garden wallpaper from Wallpaper Direct.
Okay, on to the photos. Enjoy!
The bathroom is almost finished. I have a Delta champagne bronze toilet lever to install (details, right?) and SN is going to build a few alligator juniper shelves for storing towels and miscellaneous bathroom items. Oh, and we need to hang our brass lion door knocker! It sounds weird, but it's an antique and it's going to look amazing, just as soon as I convince you-know-who that it isn't going to fall off the wall and take a chunk out of his precious vanity.
The last step in my decorating plan, which is really going to make the space, is wallpaper. I'm thinking something bold and sophisticated. My top choice is to cover all of the walls in dark grey pinstripe fabric, as if dressing the bathroom in a fine suit. In addition to figuring out how to upholster walls, this will require SN to disassemble the sink and pull the countertop off the wall. He is sooo looking forward to it!
Okay, on to the photos. Enjoy!
The bathroom is almost finished. I have a Delta champagne bronze toilet lever to install (details, right?) and SN is going to build a few alligator juniper shelves for storing towels and miscellaneous bathroom items. Oh, and we need to hang our brass lion door knocker! It sounds weird, but it's an antique and it's going to look amazing, just as soon as I convince you-know-who that it isn't going to fall off the wall and take a chunk out of his precious vanity.
The last step in my decorating plan, which is really going to make the space, is wallpaper. I'm thinking something bold and sophisticated. My top choice is to cover all of the walls in dark grey pinstripe fabric, as if dressing the bathroom in a fine suit. In addition to figuring out how to upholster walls, this will require SN to disassemble the sink and pull the countertop off the wall. He is sooo looking forward to it!
This photo has nothing whatsoever to do with our hallway bathroom. It's December 31st though! If I don't share my little piggy now, all decked out in his finest holiday gear, I'll have to wait another year. Don't tell our builder, but the entire reason we had him create this weird windowsill bump-out thingy in the dining nook was as a place for this pig. I literally stared at the pig, stared at our house plans, and thought Where is he going to live? resulting in yet another change to our design. Ah, the joys of planning your own house from scratch.