Earlier this week I shared with you all the state of Hoarder House bathrooms. Right now we are focusing our efforts on getting the main floor bath finished, so we can have one clean, fully functioning commode. As a recap, here are the floor plan changes we’re making:
Besides the wood flooring throughout the rest of the house, these are the first real design decisions I had to make. It’s a little nerve-wrecking to commit to a look and know that that it has to somehow be cohesive with what we pick throughout the rest of the house. But, I was armed with a pinterest board of inspiration and starry-eyed dreams of mid-century bathroom opulence.
As seen in this beautiful bathroom by Amber Interior Design, and am really digging black hexagon floor tile. I love the black tile with black grout look too. And, I am feeling a wood vanity to add a natural and organic warmth. For the shower tile I thinking about a white look for a clean neutral backdrop. Those were my main jumping off points for this bathroom.
The first thing I looked for was the my tile combo. I made this mockup with my top three options for each:
white tile 1 2 3 | black tile 1 2 3
I really liked all of them. Most of them were for sale at our local Floor and Decor so I headed over to check them out. Once I saw them in person, the fan-shaped tile and the elongated hexagon were nice, but just not exactly what I was picturing. I do love that fan though… maybe it can make an appearance elsewhere in the house 😉
I think my heart was just always set on the black hexagon tile. And with the embossing on it, that just put the third option right on top for me. It was selling at several places, I saw it online at Home Depot, but the cheapest I found it was on Wayfair, so that’s where we bought ours.
Meanwhile I had been searching Facebook Marketplace for vanity options. For some reason, I just cannot bring myself to buy a normal bathroom vanity. They are just so much money for a builder grade same-as-everyone-else’s kind of look. If I was going to get a unique, custom-looking vanity new it would be WAAYYY out of our price range, so that is why I resort to Craigslist and FB Marketplace for some good ole’ fashioned repurposing.
I had my eye on this buffet that someone had listed as part of a dining set. I convinced them to separate the set and they let me buy the buffet for $300. I really wanted it because it was the perfect size for our vanity. Plus, it was a gorgeous light wood tone, had a solid built look, and it already had a granite top which would be another money saver.
Obviously those handles need replaced. Since we had the granite top now, I started brainstorming the best way to handle the sinks. Our options were, pay to have someone professionally cut the granite for undermount sinks (which could be a little pricey), or have Jake cut rough holes that would be covered by a white vessel sink that sits on the vanity. I was really digging the idea of chunky white porcelain sinks on the vanity to balance out the warm tones, plus it just seemed more cost-effective (and an interesting DIY challenge) to cut it ourselves. Here is a little rendering I drew of how I pictured it all turning out.
At first I bought true, sit-on-the-counter, vessel sinks, but they were honking HUGE and looked so disproportional. So, we re-ordered semi-recessed vessel sinks and Jake was able to rough cut the opening for them to sit in.
We had to chop the legs down on the vanity by a few inches because of the added height of sinks. Then, I ordered new handles from Amazon, and this vanity was already looking pretty snazzy! I’d say it looks pretty high-end for a $500 double vanity, wouldn’t you?
At this point, the plumbers were finishing up with replacing all the rough plumbing. Once they set the tub, Jake was able to put in the floor and drywall. After that we installed the vanity and the lights.
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And then it was straight to work on the shower tile, because I was ready to have a shower again.
I picked a different option entirely from my original inspiration above. I liked the larger scale take on subway tile, plus with our hard water, I was worried about doing a mosaic and having so much grout that could potentially stain. But, I didn’t realize it takes quite a bit longer to set individual tiles than lay up a bunch of mosaic sheets. Oh well… *worth it* 😉
We laid the tiles to be offset in thirds. And, we used this PVC nifty edge trim from Menards. It turned out to be a great way to achieve a finished look on the edge of the tile. Jake waterproofed the whole shower before tiling, just to be on the safe side.
In our last house we added a shower niche, but I remembered that it was kinda tricky to do, and didn’t have all that much space. So this time we opted for a shower ledge. It was fairly simple to incorporate because Jake was building the wall there anyway for the enclosure and closet. We made it 6″ deep and it has TONS of room, and is high enough to avoid most of the shower spray.
Only a few things left on our list to finish off this bathroom. I can’t wait to share the official after pictures with you all!!
MAIN BATHROOM POSTS
Hoarder House Bathroom Situation
Main Bath Design
Tile Trend – Black Hexagon Tile Floors
Main Bathroom Reveal
Main Bathroom Sources
Main Bathroom Budget