BEDKNOBS & BAUBLES

Powder Room: Product Selections

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SOURCES: medicine cabinet / light fixture / light shades / pedestal sink / faucet / toilet / toilet seat / towel bar / toilet paper holder / tile / hand towel / lidded wastebasket

Our renovations are coming up with work scheduled to begin on Feb. 15! We’re starting with our powder room, which is on the main floor right off the kitchen. This project is scheduled to take roughly two weeks before our contractor moves to our main bathroom on the second floor.

We decided to do our half bath first to give us a functional bathroom on the first floor while our main bathroom is gutted. We do have a shower in our unfinished basement that we can use during the renovation, but I really didn’t want to use the basement bathroom longer than necessary. It’s kind of gross down there and not exactly the ideal location to get ready for the day!

Knowing that we’re in crunch time for making final decisions, we placed a lot of product orders over the past couple of weeks. One of the items I asked for feedback for on Instagram was the faucet. I didn’t realize that sinks have two different standard widths for widespread faucets: four inches and eight inches. Had I realized this before buying the pedestal sink, I would have gone with the eight-inch widespread version because I fell in love with this faucet. We already had the sink delivered and I didn’t want to pay for return shipping, so I had some stress-induced tears and searched for an alternative, coming up with these:

The faucets are both by Kingston Brass and essentially the same design, aside from the knobs. I was originally leaning toward black, but 75% of those who voted on Instagram preferred all brass. I figured I’d give it a go since the faucet I originally loved was also all brass. It’s scheduled to be delivered on Monday. Assuming the color of the brass is similar to the fixture on the right, then I’ll be delighted. I’m hoping it doesn’t read too 1980s-faux-brass-yellow. I suspect it’ll be fine, though, considering all of the fixtures on the brand’s Instagram page look beautiful. (The towel bar and toilet paper holder are by the same company. Hopefully all of the brass hues match.)

We also had to pivot from the floor options I talked about here. I really wanted to go with color for the flooring. I liked the blue a lot, but couldn’t get past the jagged edges of the tile. I stopped by a local tile shop (Malony Tile for those in Madison) and found this tile:

The color is very similar to the tile in the opening photo here (which is the tile I originally wanted to go with), but I prefer that it’s not concrete so it’ll be easier to clean. It also brings in some of the deep blue-green of our stairwell paint. I also love that it makes the room feel more fun. The main bathroom is getting those marble hexagon tiles that you can see here and it’s going to be much more traditional and refined. The house needs a bit of fun that still leans classic.

We are waiting to purchase the medicine cabinet. I really want hidden storage in that space for things like Tylenol, but we need to wait until the wall is open to see where the plumbing stack is. Assuming it’s not right where the mirror is going, we’ll go ahead and order this one. I don’t have an alternative wall-hung mirror picked out, so keep your fingers crossed!

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Renovation Diaries: Our Powder Room Selections to Date & What Flooring Do You Prefer?

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It felt like we had all the time in the world to make product selections for our upcoming powder room and main bath renovation when we committed to a contractor in August. The work was scheduled to begin in February; there was no rush to commit to products. But now that we’re in the latter half of November, we really need to finalize product selections. It’s exciting, but it’s also a bit daunting.

To give you some background, our house has one powder room off the kitchen, a full bathroom on the second floor that serves as the main bathroom, and a full bathroom in the unfinished basement that is, well, disgusting but serviceable. We decided to start with the powder room first. This way we can shower in the basement when the main bathroom is being renovated, but use the powder room during the day. We’re making product selections for the rooms in tandem — and just placed the order for our tub that our contractor is mercifully working out a storage solution for since we don’t have the space to keep it at our house for the next several months. However, we really need to accelerate our plans for the powder room to get all of the products ordered in time.

I need to take proper “before” photos of the powder room, but here’s a quick snapshot I took to give you an idea of what it looks like currently:

Here’s an overview of what we’re doing:

  • First off, we’re keeping all plumbing in its current location. The toilet isn’t in the best spot, but we don’t have the interest to put money into moving any of it. It’s fine where it is.
  • Take the walls down to the studs to put up fresh drywall. It pains me to remove plaster, but there’s no way to remove the tile from the wall without damaging it. If we wanted to add tile to the wall to cover the damage, it’s about $1,000 in labor alone.
  • Remove the wall-to-wall vanity that takes up way too much space in a small room and replace it with this pedestal sink.
  • Get rid of that wall-to-wall mirror and hopefully put up an inset medicine cabinet assuming the plumbing stack isn’t behind that wall. If it is, we’ll consider going with a wall-mounted medicine cabinet (not my preference) or a regular mirror. I’d prefer having some extra storage for miscellaneous items, but it’s not a deal breaker in a powder room. We’ll be waiting to order the medicine cabinet I like until the wall is opened up as it only has a 30-day return window.
  • Replace the toilet.
  • Replace the tile on the floor. It’s the same as what’s on the walls now.
  • Replace the sconce.
  • Keep the window, but remove the blinds.
  • Paint walls, door, and trim white.
  • Add wood baseboards to match the profile of the baseboard on the first floor; paint them white.
  • Add a decorative shelf for plants opposite of the window.

My biggest consideration right now is the new flooring because I think it’ll set the tone for the room. I fell head-over-heels for the tile in the opening image. The room is just 25 square feet and with 20% overage, the tile came in at $267. It’s such a great price for stunningly beautiful tile. However, I hesitated when I saw the brand’s extremely rigid return policy and the fact that shipping would be $200. (And I totally understand. It’s a small company and tile is heavy and fragile to ship. It would be a slam dunk if money was no object, buuuut it is.) So, I wanted to take a look at other options before committing and landed on these two from Home Depot:

I ordered a sample of the one on the left to see how it compares to the one from Clé. It’s a bit more expensive per square foot for the product itself, but we’ll ultimately save money when shipping charges are taken into consideration. I don’t love the lighter edges around the sides of the tile, but we’ll see what it looks like when it gets here. I also thought I’d shift gears from a colored tile and see what marble looks like in my mockups. I’m doing a marble hexagon in the main bathroom and didn’t want the two rooms to be too matchy-matchy with the flooring materials, but this marble herringbone is beautiful. (You can see the marble hexagon tile I picked for the main bath in the opening image.)

I just started putting together a product collage to see how the pieces I’ve already selected coordinate with the flooring. I still have to pick out a toilet and hardware, but here’s where we’re at:

I do really love the playfulness of the blue flooring here. I think it’s fresh and a bit unexpected for our house without straying too far from the midcentury-meets-traditional look I love.

Here’s the other option:

Pretty, right?! So you can understand the dilemma. I love how elegant this one looks! The powder room is right off the kitchen, which is, shall we say, “underwhelming” at best? So, I almost feel like this is too pretty to be right next to the kitchen. (Whenever we tackle the kitchen, it’ll be a budget-conscious face lift and not a full renovation. I’d rather not spend that kind of money when we don’t think this is our “forever home.” That said, given the staggeringly high house prices, it’ll likely be our home for the foreseeable future while we live in Madison.)

I think I know which one I’m leaning toward, but I’d love to know your thoughts!

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Progress Report: New Outdoor Sconces & 12 Options Under $100

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I feel a little embarrassed posting this photo since our house is in desperate need of a power wash — but, I like documenting our progress. So, today’s post is about the small-but-necessary updates we’ve made to our front porch recently: new sconces and an outdoor outlet!

The outdoor outlet is definitely an eyesore, but it’s a small price to pay to be able to hang Christmas lights outside. I had been using these socket adapters with our old sconces and they’re great in a pinch, but an outdoor outlet is really a necessary upgrade. We have an outlet on the interior side of this wall in the same spot, making it the easiest placement for the outlet. I would have preferred to have it less obvious, but it doesn’t really bother me that much. I’ll put a potted plant in front of it next year.

The more exciting change was swapping out the old sconces. As a reminder, this is what we were starting with:

Sherwin Williams SuperDeck Wet Clay

I don’t mind the farmhouse shape of those sconces, but they didn’t work with our aesthetic. Beyond that, they were flimsy and were starting to rust. (I don’t know about you, but rusting electrical fixtures don’t give me peace of mind.) You’ll also notice that the canopy is circular and the siding trim behind it is a rectangle. There’s an overhang, so I don’t think much moisture made its way in, but it was a haven for insects. We had a hornet nest under the one on the right, which was thankfully abandoned when we took down the fixture.

My main priority for a new sconce was one with a rectangular canopy that would fit within the existing trim. I have the biggest crush on this sconce from Schoolhouse, but the canopy wouldn’t work and, well, $300 per sconce simply isn’t in our budget with an upcoming bathroom renovation. (We have two sconces in front and one over our back patio door.) I strongly considered this one from Rejuvenation, but after measuring the sconce plus the globe, I discovered that the top of the globe would be in line with the very top of the door and that seemed too high. I eventually came across these. Are they my favorite sconce? Not by any stretch of the imagination. However, the canopy was correct, the size was spot on, and the price at $40 each was enticing enough to place an order. I figured I could always return them if I hated them. They ended up being far better quality than I expected for the price. (It’s also worth noting that we did not want a light with an integrated LED; we wanted to use our own smart bulbs to set the automation.)

Since I’ve done a lot of sconce-searching over the past few months, I thought I’d put together a roundup of outdoor sconces under $100:

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT | NINE | TEN | ELEVEN | TWELVE

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Here’s a sneak peek at the materials we’re using in our main bathroom remodel!

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Our contractor is selected, deposits are paid, and our remodel begins in February! We’ll be doing both our half bath on the first floor and our main bathroom upstairs. Here’s a peek into the direction of our main bathroom:

  • Polished nickel fixtures – I like the warmth of nickel over chrome.
  • Marble hexagon floor tile – Just wait for all of the “shoefies!”
  • Subway tile in 4″ x 12″ inches instead of the traditional 4″ x 6″. We’ll be going up to the ceiling in the shower/bath and 48″ up the wall around the rest of the room.
  • Paint in Sherwin Williams “Riverway” that I painted last year and am still in love with. We’re completely gutting the bathroom because there’s water damage and the previous owners put the tile up higher than what I’d like to go with, so we’ll have fresh drywall to work with.

I’ll link the materials eventually, but I need to place my own orders first with the supply chain issues! 😉 This weekend, we’ll start looking at bathtubs, toilets, and faucets. Our contractor suggested that we start selecting all of the materials and ordering them as soon as possible to avoid delays.

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We stained the front porch!

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Sherwin Williams SuperDeck Wet Clay

You may remember last year’s front porch project when we replaced our screen door. And, now, we’re another step closer to completing the front porch now that we’ve stained the floor!

The process wasn’t without its frustrations, though, as you’ll see below. But first, let’s start with a before photo of the front of our house. (Side note: you’ll notice that the siding looks different in just about every photo depending on the light. The most true color is what you see above. It’s also in desperate need of a powerwash.)

Two year update: See how the stain held up here!

Progress Report: Front Porch

Okay, so this isn’t a real before image when the entire bottom portion of the house was unpainted wood and we still had the old storm door, but this gives you an idea of what we’re working with. Ultimately, we’d like to give our house a full face lift. The original front porch that went along the front of the house had been closed off years ago. We’d like to add more windows (vertical, double-hung) to give the home more appropriate historic curb appeal. Plus, that door to the right is permanently sealed. It would have led to the porch at some point. We need to have that removed and scrounge up enough siding remnants to close it in from the outside. Whenever we’re able to do this, we’ll redo the front stairs entirely. They’re someone’s DIY project and they’re not even deep enough for kickboards. But, as with everything, these lofty plans cost a lot of money and we needed to do something to make it cuter in the meantime.

We had left the wood raw for the last three years as we hemmed and hawed over the the pros and cons of paint versus stain. I preferred the opacity of paint, but everyone seemed to be pushing us toward stain because of its durability. It wasn’t until earlier this summer that I discovered that Sherwin-Williams carries an opaque stain, which is the best of both worlds!

I was a bit cavalier about my selection of colors, holding up the color chips to the siding and went with my first impulse: Gray Birch. From the sample, it seemed to be a warm, light gray. Clearly, I wrong:

There were so many blue undertones to this stain that it appeared baby blue next to the color of our siding. I probably should have stopped earlier, but I kept wondering if it would dry differently or that I’d like it if I really gave it a fair shot. Instead, I hated it more and more. At one point, I thought I ordered the wrong color and peeled the chip off the card to hold against the applied stain. A perfect match. It’s just that blue.

(P.S. We’d eventually stain those stair risers when we figured out the right color.)

Sherwin-Williams SuperDeck Wet Clay vs. Flagstone

After that fiasco, I had about a half-gallon left and talked to Sherwin-Williams to see how I should proceed. They told me that the wood could really only hold one more coat of stain before it would just chip off and ruin the integrity of the product. They stained it deeper, getting closer to the King’s Canyon color and gave me a paint stick dipped in the hue to hold up against the house. That ended up having purple undertones, so I switched gears entirely and picked a new area of the color chart to try, opting for Wet Clay (above, left) and Flagstone. (They weren’t able to do samples of these in stain, but were able to give me paint to use on a piece of poster board to check against the house.) These colors had more yellow to the base and ended up being really great options. (Let that be a lesson to you to always get samples first!) I went with Wet Clay and the second coat of applied stain completely covered the first without any hints of color coming through.

Note: I’m unable to find the Wet Clay stain color on the Sherwin-Williams website. The color code is SW 3083.

Sherwin Williams SuperDeck Wet Clay

I am so happy with how it turned out! I can’t speak to the durability of the color until we get through a Wisconsin winter, but I did try to chip at it with my fingernail and it held tight.

Two year update: See how the stain held up here!

So, next on the list is doing something about those iron railings (might replace, might just spray paint them matte black with Rust-Oleum), touching up the white paint, and replacing the sconces. In full disclosure, I don’t mind the shape of the sconces, but they are so incredibly flimsy and cheap — and they’re starting to rust.

Sources: Andersen storm door | CB2 mailbox (also love this one) | House of Antique Hardware doorbell | Sherwin-Williams SuperDeck opaque stain in Wet Clay

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