With workers coming to and fro, me painting and caulking and finally, getting to the fun part of shopping for things to refresh our master bathroom, poor tiny chumley has had less attention
than usual lately. But with everything in the real world coming very
quickly to a snail’s pace, that will soon change. Completing bathroom
refresh will have to wait, delayed by an over abundance of pre-emptive caution. And the world, tiny chumley's world, will be back to the way he likes it, a little wolf curled by my feet while we makey make the day away.
In the coming days and weeks, I hope devote a bit more time to writing these blog posts than I have in recent times. More words, because all the words I'm seeing out there, though valuable and necessary, are just making me crazy. There's a lot to deal with out there. Let's hide together under this blog rock for a few blissful, normal feeling moments at least, shall we?
Anyhow, let me ramble a bit today about our bathroom. And please, feel free to skip it and just jump down to the photo of tiny chumley down at the bottom. Some days, it will feel like there are just too many words. But some days, we need that diversion. It's totally up to you, friend.
So, the bathroom. Once we finally got into the right mode of, okay, yeah we should really consider doing this, it still took quite a bit of thinking and searching to come up with a plan that I felt suited our aging needs, my visual sanity, and our budget. Yes, freestanding tubs are a visual wonder, but have you ever tried getting in and out of one? We kept our giant garden tub and deck surround, because ultimately it seems safer for us as we age in place. The tub I do use occasionally, and we use that deck, like, all the time. To get in and out of the tub, you sit on the deck, spin your legs over and voila, stand up ezpz. The deck is sturdy, and will never slip out from under us as we put on socks, or whatever. The real splurge here was for a quartz top, and it's a tradeoff in cost I happily made when I first wondered about getting a freestanding tub. A quartz deck means cleaner lines visually, no grout lines in fact. Solid. Sturdy. Lovely. Cha ching.
If you've shopped for bathroom tile and stuff in recent times, and lived under a rock as I have, you'll wonder what the heck happened to those ceramic wall soap holders, bullnose trim tile, ceramic towel bars, and marble thresholds. Nobody makes that stuff anymore. It's all schluter metal edge trim and niches now, baby. Alright, that's what I felt every salesperson was telling me when I'd ask about all that stuff. But nobody was really that fresh. The closest I got was jaded eyeballs peering over serious eyeglasses, quietly saying what the eyeball's owners wish she could say.
Here's a random rundown of some design decisions and selections I made , and why...
AGE IN PLACE improvements, tempered by no floor design or significant plumbing changes: We already talked about keeping the tub. There wasn't enough space for a curbless shower, which is fine. Chances are if we are having problems managing the shower curb, we wouldn't be up there in the first place cuz the stairs are way worse in the tall department. Grab bars (one that can double as a towel bar, thank u) and an adjustable handheld shower head seemed like good ideas, and luckily Moen offered what we needed and Amazon had some as open box/like new ones, which provided savings of roughly 30 to 50% off.
NO NICHE, ONLY SHELF: The best place for a niche would have been on the exterior wall, and though some feel that's okay insulation wise, opinions were divided enough that it wasn't worth the risk. Plus, no matter how well tiled it might be, the grody potential was high, with it being in a prime splash zone. Instead, the shopping gods pointed me to these moderately priced schluter shelves. Which totally worked out considering these shelves don't interrupt the accent tile band and allow for the product to be illuminated, rather than hiding in a shadowy cave niche. Plus , they were way less pricey than similar shelf concepts from the same luxury bath fitting store that had a thirty five thousand dollar really majestic carved stone tub. That tub? You could bathe a family of four in there, plus their five dachshunds, in that thing. Yeah lovely but no thanks.
SOAP DISH: Even if we don't end up using it for soap, it's still a good place to put something like a scrubby or a razor. And luckily, I found this sleek little fella online at Home Depot, also moderately priced and complete with little drainage slats. That was a total needle in the haystack of a find.
TILES: I have to say, the going was rough at first in the tile selection department. When I make things, I often can see the finished product, or at least a good approximation and feeling of it, in my head beforehand. It's sort of like a language of its own, but instead of words, it's an internal vision. The materials are my building blocks, and just as one puts together words to make a great book, one puts together materials to make a great something. With tiles, at first, my brain sat in a world of darkness, visually speechless. I lacked a workable visual tile vocabulary early on, and leaned heavily on the tile store designers to point me in the right direction. Only what they came up with, I just wasn't feeling. And the offerings certainly weren't meeting my desire to minimize grout lines in the shower area, the wettest of all places. Those jaded eyeballs I talked about earlier? They spoke glaringly. One simply does not mix tiles like that. It would look too busy. Trust me you won't be happy with it. Keep it all one tile on the walls. Don't use too many different tiles, they said.
I get it. I appreciate that look. But that's not us. So here we are now, with five different tiles, all cohabiting the same bathroom. And I think it totally works for us.
In the coming days and weeks, I hope devote a bit more time to writing these blog posts than I have in recent times. More words, because all the words I'm seeing out there, though valuable and necessary, are just making me crazy. There's a lot to deal with out there. Let's hide together under this blog rock for a few blissful, normal feeling moments at least, shall we?
Anyhow, let me ramble a bit today about our bathroom. And please, feel free to skip it and just jump down to the photo of tiny chumley down at the bottom. Some days, it will feel like there are just too many words. But some days, we need that diversion. It's totally up to you, friend.
So, the bathroom. Once we finally got into the right mode of, okay, yeah we should really consider doing this, it still took quite a bit of thinking and searching to come up with a plan that I felt suited our aging needs, my visual sanity, and our budget. Yes, freestanding tubs are a visual wonder, but have you ever tried getting in and out of one? We kept our giant garden tub and deck surround, because ultimately it seems safer for us as we age in place. The tub I do use occasionally, and we use that deck, like, all the time. To get in and out of the tub, you sit on the deck, spin your legs over and voila, stand up ezpz. The deck is sturdy, and will never slip out from under us as we put on socks, or whatever. The real splurge here was for a quartz top, and it's a tradeoff in cost I happily made when I first wondered about getting a freestanding tub. A quartz deck means cleaner lines visually, no grout lines in fact. Solid. Sturdy. Lovely. Cha ching.
If you've shopped for bathroom tile and stuff in recent times, and lived under a rock as I have, you'll wonder what the heck happened to those ceramic wall soap holders, bullnose trim tile, ceramic towel bars, and marble thresholds. Nobody makes that stuff anymore. It's all schluter metal edge trim and niches now, baby. Alright, that's what I felt every salesperson was telling me when I'd ask about all that stuff. But nobody was really that fresh. The closest I got was jaded eyeballs peering over serious eyeglasses, quietly saying what the eyeball's owners wish she could say.
Here's a random rundown of some design decisions and selections I made , and why...
AGE IN PLACE improvements, tempered by no floor design or significant plumbing changes: We already talked about keeping the tub. There wasn't enough space for a curbless shower, which is fine. Chances are if we are having problems managing the shower curb, we wouldn't be up there in the first place cuz the stairs are way worse in the tall department. Grab bars (one that can double as a towel bar, thank u) and an adjustable handheld shower head seemed like good ideas, and luckily Moen offered what we needed and Amazon had some as open box/like new ones, which provided savings of roughly 30 to 50% off.
NO NICHE, ONLY SHELF: The best place for a niche would have been on the exterior wall, and though some feel that's okay insulation wise, opinions were divided enough that it wasn't worth the risk. Plus, no matter how well tiled it might be, the grody potential was high, with it being in a prime splash zone. Instead, the shopping gods pointed me to these moderately priced schluter shelves. Which totally worked out considering these shelves don't interrupt the accent tile band and allow for the product to be illuminated, rather than hiding in a shadowy cave niche. Plus , they were way less pricey than similar shelf concepts from the same luxury bath fitting store that had a thirty five thousand dollar really majestic carved stone tub. That tub? You could bathe a family of four in there, plus their five dachshunds, in that thing. Yeah lovely but no thanks.
SOAP DISH: Even if we don't end up using it for soap, it's still a good place to put something like a scrubby or a razor. And luckily, I found this sleek little fella online at Home Depot, also moderately priced and complete with little drainage slats. That was a total needle in the haystack of a find.
TILES: I have to say, the going was rough at first in the tile selection department. When I make things, I often can see the finished product, or at least a good approximation and feeling of it, in my head beforehand. It's sort of like a language of its own, but instead of words, it's an internal vision. The materials are my building blocks, and just as one puts together words to make a great book, one puts together materials to make a great something. With tiles, at first, my brain sat in a world of darkness, visually speechless. I lacked a workable visual tile vocabulary early on, and leaned heavily on the tile store designers to point me in the right direction. Only what they came up with, I just wasn't feeling. And the offerings certainly weren't meeting my desire to minimize grout lines in the shower area, the wettest of all places. Those jaded eyeballs I talked about earlier? They spoke glaringly. One simply does not mix tiles like that. It would look too busy. Trust me you won't be happy with it. Keep it all one tile on the walls. Don't use too many different tiles, they said.
I get it. I appreciate that look. But that's not us. So here we are now, with five different tiles, all cohabiting the same bathroom. And I think it totally works for us.
The next challenge, challenge interrupted really because it won't happen til after shower glass/trim and toilet install/final inspection - you know, the stuff on hold - is all the goodies like rugs and plants and pictures. The tiny red rug from Turkey that caused me a few moments of anguish as I worried about transacting that purchase on Shopier, a system now used because Paypal pulled out of Turkey? The rug that tiny chumley has obviously already claimed? That will go in the throne room most likely. But for now it will sit where it is, bringing in a cheery, ferocious pop of color in our otherwise serene space. And that's all I have to say about that. :)
