Master Bathroom Reveal
/Organic Modern Bathroom
It’s been a loooong road, but I’m ecstatic to say that our master bathroom is complete! Actually, it’s been complete for a couple of months but we just got around to taking pictures. We’re busy, you know, finishing other projects and starting new ones before those are even complete. Better late than never though, right?
As per usual, before I share all the fun “afters”, let’s take a trip down memory lane because this space has undergone some HUGE changes.
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Before
We first looked at this house in September of 2019, and while I wasn’t in love with it, Lucius clearly was. One thing was for sure though, we both HATED the master suite layout, especially the master bathroom. It felt less like a luxurious master suite and more like a hotel bathroom - the vanities were separated from the toilet, which was also separated from the shower. It was just plain weird.
In the image below, I’m standing in the bedroom in the foreground. Lucius’ closet was on the left, followed by the double vanity. My closet was on the right, followed by the “water closet”.
And straight ahead was the shower room. Yep, an entire room devoted to the shower.
Back in the day, it was a working sauna that was clearly long out of commission. Oh, and that door waaay in the back? That was the doorway to the loft. Makes sense you’d access it through your bathroom, right? And do I even need to mention all the carpet? WHY!? Just… why?
Oh, and do you see all the glorious natural light streaming into the bathroom in that very first picture in this post? Notice how there’s ZERO natural light in the original pictures of the bathroom? That’s because all of the windows in the original layout were behind my closet and the water closet. This is what was on the other side:
I’ve described it before, but to quickly refresh your memory this was essentially a long, narrow sunroom called a “loggia”. It had no heating/cooling so unless the temperature was perfect, there was no reason to go out there. It would’ve been a great plant room, but other than that, I can’t think of any reason why we would have used it. Plus… look at all those wasted windows!
Back to when we first looked at the house…. Lucius won me over with tales of what our master suite could be - what we could turn it in to. My mind started spinning with possibilities and before I could wrap my head around it, a month later we were moving out of our classic American Foursquare and moving into our new, quirky house.
Demo
Jump to the following summer and we got the itch to make some BIG changes. We started demo!
Don’t get me wrong, this was definitely an intimidating project. This has by far been our biggest renovation to date. But we’ve simply taken it in stages, pivoting as needed along the way, and trying to keep the dust at bay as much as possible. We’re definitely fortunate that we have the space and amenities to move to other areas of the house as we’ve needed to (i.e., sharing the kid’s bathroom, temporarily moving our bedroom to the loft, using my office as a master closet, etc.) and don’t take that for granted one bit.
I call this picture: The lone abode
Reconstruction
Once everything was demoed, we got to put it all back together how we envisioned. I shared floor plans in this post, and you can see a mood board for the bathroom here.
It’s amazing to think back to each stage of this project and the excitement I felt. From framing out the walls…
…to beginning to install drywall and dry fitting the vanity and tub…
…to tiling the shower and floors and mudding the drywall… (while our tub and vanity took up residence in the corner of our bedroom)
…to painting…
…and every little step in between until we were finally FINALLY able to actually use our bathroom. It’s been a heck of a learning experience, for sure, but I’m so proud of how it turned out.
The Reveal
And that brings us to today, where we have a fully functioning, beautiful master bathroom that I am simply head over heels for. When I was designing this bathroom I wanted it to feel light and warm. That being said, you’ll notice a lot of light tones throughout with the tile choices and paint colors (White Heron on the walls and a surprise of Sea Salt on the ceiling - both Sherwin Williams). To warm things up, I incorporated brass finishes and wood tones throughout.
Allow me to show you around….
Oof, the shower of my dreams! I can’t believe you’re MINE!
This shower was the topic of many discussions/decisions between Lucius and me. We spent a lot of time taping out the subfloor and standing in the bones of the room trying to get a feel for the perfect size before fully committing. Then there was the debate over whether or not to add a curb to the shower. And of course, if we were going to install a shower door.
In the end, our shower ended up being 4 by 6ish feet with no curb or door. It’s separated from the rest of the bathroom by a MASSIVE 6 by 8-foot piece of glass that was tricky to get in place, to say the least.
In fact, the glass installers couldn’t even get it up the main staircase. (#measuringprobs) So, how did we get it in the bathroom, you ask? Innovation! And wall removal.
You see, on the other side of the wall of the shower is our (luckily) unfinished laundry room, which shares an exterior wall with the lofted portion of the mudroom. I’m sure that’s hard to follow, so here’s an image of the mudroom with an arrow pointing to the wall I’m referring to.
Essentially, Lucius removed the drywall in the laundry room so that he and six other men could hoist the glass through the opening, through the laundry room door, and into the loft. From there, they were able to finagle it down the hallway and into the bathroom. WHEW! To say I wasn’t sweating a little at the end of it would be a lie. Here’s what it looks like from another angle:
For the wall tile, we went with a smaller-scaled herringbone tile across the shower surround and spanning the entire back wall. Since we decided to go door-free, I think spanning the tile across the entire back wall helps make the shower more like part of the room and helps it feel less separated.
I cannot for the life of me find the link for the shower tile, but we essentially went with a smaller version of the floor tile we used in the rest of the bathroom. It’s a matte porcelain tile and I luuuurve it. We used light grey grout throughout. The image below shows a little glimpse of the tile on the shower floor. And a better view of the greeny-blue ceiling.
Along the back wall, we also installed some simple shelves that I made out of pine boards, stained with a natural-toned stain, and threw a couple of coats of Polycrylic on them for protection in the humid bathroom environment. We hung the shelves using these brass brackets and added these baskets, which are strategically filled with shower-related items (razors, extra shampoo, etc). I also snagged this faux string of pearls from World Market, because every corner needs a little green.
For towel storage I played a little game I like to call “basket shuffle” where I tried out every basket I own in this corner to see which one looked best. In the end, the Snidad from IKEA won.
The towels are currently hung on these brass hooks. Although I love the look of a towel hung on a hook, we’re planning on switching them out for the matching towel bars to get better airflow to our wet towels and help them dry faster.
One happy little moment I love with this bathroom is when the bathroom door is open and you get this bold pop of the bedroom color.
Flipping over to the other side of the room, we have the vanity area and a glimpse of the beautiful contrast of the cozy bedroom next to the bright bathroom.
We went with a 60-inch vanity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this exact vanity is sold anymore. But can I just say that this is the first time I’ve had a bathroom with under-mount sinks and I’M NEVER GOING BACK! So much easier to brush the beard hairs Lucius leaves all over the place into the sink. 10/10 would recommend.
I paired the vanity with these faucets and these mirrors, which are impressively nice and heavy for the price. And here’s a link to the light over the vanity. But possibly one of my favorite finishing touches in this bathroom are the hooks for the handtowels. Luckily, they come in a pack of 6 so I have some spares to use elsewhere throughout the house!
I mean, c’mon….
I finished off this corner with a warm-toned runner that I actually love so much I bought it in a 9x12 size for the living room and I love it just as much in there! Ours is the Tangerine/Mist.
Opposite from the vanity is the soaker tub. Ohhhh, the soaker tub. How I love you.
I’ve never been much of a bath person UNTIL NOW.
It doesn’t look like they sell the same one we have anymore, but this one is similar. Would you believe I got it on Amazon!? Man, the world we live in… My tub has the chrome drain kit and I paired it with this tub filler, which echos the shape of the faucets on the vanity.
I made some multi-media abstract paintings above the tub to add some color and break up that empty wall. I put them in natural-toned frames to match the shelves we installed.
I honestly have no idea what toilet we bought - Lucius just grabbed one he liked from the hardware store. But above the toilet, I placed another shelf that matches the ones by the shower. I found these adorable canisters to fill the shelf while simultaneously hiding my feminine products. #smartstorage
Since we don’t have any walls next to the toilet on either side, I opted for a free-standing toilet paper holder with a bar for extra rolls in brushed brass, and let me tell you, it’s a game-changer! I’m pretty sure I’ve noticed at least a 75% increase in the likelihood that Lucius will refill the toilet paper since we started using this.
And last, but not least are the windows. The glorious, glorious windows.
I know, windows in a bathroom can be a bit controversial. But as I covered in my tutorial, I frosted them! No funny business is going down here!
I strategically chose to frost them only about 2/3 of the way up simply for a little extra design aesthetic. The light filters in so beautifully now and disperses throughout the room. But late in the afternoon when the sun is on this side of the house, it shines through the top 3rd and we end up with amazing shots like this:
And do you even need to wonder if my plants like it in here? They abso-freaking-lutely do! The typical bathroom humidity combined with all the natural light is like a greenhouse. This room has quickly turned into a propagation station.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it - the official reveal of our bathroom! I know it’s down the line a bit considering we still have several projects in progress right now, but now I’m definitely feeling the itch to renovate the kids’ bathroom and our half bath. I need to slow my roll, but that probably won’t stop me from gathering inspiration images in the meantime!
