We haven’t finalized every decision with the basement bathroom, but I feel like we’ve narrowed it down enough to share our general design direction (click to enlarge).
It’s a shocking departure from the rest of our house, right? Kyle and I joked about how it does have a lot of similarities to our other bathroom but what can we say – we did that space in 2008 and we still like it! Besides, the basement bathroom door is already painted the same aqua color (BM’s “Thunderbird”) so that was a good starting point. As mentioned in our last post, the room is also really small (only 4′-6″ wide) so we wanted to keep it as bright and airy as possible. For now, the bathroom will mostly be used by me while I’m working during the day, but will eventually become a kid’s and guest bathroom. So, something fun and playful yet simple and clean. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what we’re planning:
+ Shower/Tub: we already have a standard tub with integral apron (I believe it’s American Standard but I’d have to double-check) and we’ll be using a shower system from the Kohler Purist line. We don’t need another hand shower, so it will be a bit simpler than the system in our upstairs bathroom. The shower rod is from Moen (need to check that we can cut it down to size for our 4′-6″ width) and the curtain is from West Elm. We’ll likely do a simple white subway tile, though we’re looking for something with more of a rectified edge than the Daltile we used upstairs.
+ Vanity/Mirror: We already bought the IKEA vanity and integral sink (though ours is wider than the version shown). Since one side of the vanity will be exposed we’ve thought about mounting a piece of cabinet-grade plywood to just that face to make it look more finished and bring a little warmth to the space. (Back in 2008, IKEA didn’t have the integral sink/counter which is why we wrapped both the top and side of our upstairs vanity in teak plywood.) We’ve been hesitant about using IKEA’s faucets but decided to give the DALSKÄR a shot after hearing that people were generally happy with it. (Professionally, we get this question a lot so we decided to be our own guinea pigs.) The mirror/medicine cabinet is also IKEA and the sconces are the same ones we have upstairs from Resolute. They’re a bit of an investment but I swear I searched the entire internet and couldn’t come up with something we liked better. We thought about a linear bar light above but they’re not as effective and with the smaller mirror it didn’t really make sense. I’m also considering this floating shelf from West Elm to mount under the mirror. I’m not convinced it will work in real life but that’s what return policies are for, right?
+ Miscellaneous: For flooring, we’ll go with a similar large-scale (12″x24″) tile but are thinking something in the gray range rather than brown. (We’ll also do electric radiant heat below the tile.) We’ll do another Toto Aquia toilet as we love our other one and have had zero problems in the last 6 years. The TP holder shown is from Linnea, but we’ll likely try to find a more affordable option(!) The wood shelf and pegs are from IKEA’s PS line – I’m just showing one of the wood pegs as yellow instead of orange. We’ll have to experiment and make sure it works for holding towels but with an already narrow space I didn’t want a towel bar that projected too far into the room. (We could always do something on the back of the door too, though it’s nice to be able to grab a towel without getting out of the shower. Speaking of towels, we’ll need some new ones (and maybe for the upstairs too, considering we’ve been using the same 4 towels since we remodeled that room). I haven’t checked out these West Elm ones is person, but I like the colors. Finally, we’ll likely add a few small details to wrap up the space (flower image found here) and up the cheeriness factor a bit.
So that’s where we’re at. I’m sure we’ll tweak some things here and there but I’m pretty happy with this current direction. (Ooh…bonus points, the proposed palette also matches our blog!)
Once the space is finished, we’ll be sure to do a full resource list of everything that was actually used (including items not shown here like recessed lights, vent fan, switches, etc.). For now though, it’s back to construction. Kyle worked this past weekend and made some good headway, though we quickly realized that remodeling with a toddler is way more difficult than with a newborn! Even though the space is physically isolated from the main house, the loud drilling/hammering noises created quite the frenzy.