New Bathroom

We are finally finishing up our latest home improvement project! This bathroom needed an update, and we know some tile setters at church so we thought it would be a good time to make the transition. Here are some "BEFORE" pics:

Shower... needs some kind of window treatment and get rid of the breaking plastic thing stuck on the wall!
Not a fan of the baby blue color either...

Some organizational problems for me to work on as well...

So, out with the old! See Bryson with his tool box? He is ready for a project!

I have definitely learned a lot about tile from this project (as I apparently didn't know anything before!). I went to The Tile Shop to pick out the tile, and met with a designer who asked me about my style. I said I wanted something neutral, light and artistic. A natural, earthy and original look. He also asked what Caleb liked, and came up with some options that we could both agree on. He said since it was such a small space, don't worry about the cost, just pick what I liked! (Ha! and I believed him!). So, I picked out beautiful natural stone pieces, borders, trims and the whole works and had a great time constructing an amazing design with money as no object!

Then I came home, measured the space and added up the cost. Oh. We were not planning on spending thousands of dollars on our bathroom "update". So I scrapped the whole thing, mourned for a few days and started over.

I went back to the Tile Shop and said I needed to get some less expensive tile. A different designer worked with me this time, and asked what I had picked out before. I showed her, and she suggested corresponding tiles in ceramic and porcelin instead of natural stone. While I loved the original look of the natural stone, the ceramic and porcelin was very similar and brought my cost down by about 75%! Ceramic looks like stone and is good for low impact areas like the walls. Porcelin looks and feels like stone, is very durable, and neither has to be sealed so they are maintenance free. This was also a big plus for me. With my cost down, I was able to keep the natural stone border, which I had based the whole design around. So overall, was happy with the compromise!

And here is our new look!

New shower head and wood blinds for window treatments. The wall color is Ralph Lauren "Parchment". It is a nice warm neutral that I have used in two other rooms in my house.

Floor tile set at a diagonal makes the room look bigger.

Light fixture on clearance at Lowe's, mirror from a garage sale for $5! (replacing a broken trifold medicine cabinet) and baskets to help organize shelves.

Here is a close-up of the natural stone border. I love the colors and variations in the stone.