We needed a little inspiration.  Obviously, most people go straight to Pinterest for inspiration, which can be both good and bad, because you can find many things that are drop dead gorgeous, but they’re also drop dead expensive and sometimes do not work with the space you have.  We knew we wanted marble, masculine, and sexy.  We didn’t want to go too modern because of the style of the house, so we just wanted updated traditional.

Something we loved about this shower is how they used the different patterns of the same tile to create a textural backdrop in the shower.

In this bathroom, we loved the dark, dramatic feel.  We also liked the wood vanity against the dark floor and walls, but our space was way too small for a bathroom this dark.

We liked this bathroom for its country look and feel.  We knew we only had room for a single sink vanity and like the double doors on the cabinet.  We also like the sconces on each side of the mirror.

Probably the most inspiration we gained was from this stunning bathroom.  In the tile pattern, the warm gold accent mixed with the white and gray carrera marble created a color combination that was unusual and had a timeless feel.  We checked in to a tile similar to it, and it priced out at $40 a square foot.  That just wasn’t in our budget.

After we saw the gold/antique brass color with the white and gray marble, we knew we just had to do it but we weren’t for sure how to pull it off with the tile, the lights, and all the fixtures… until we found this!

Most of the light fixtures we could find were all nickel or chrome, and we knew we wanted something that looked like it was meant to be with the house.  We didn’t want to buy an older home, gut it with all of this super modern shiny stuff, and lose all of the charm we had been searching for in the beginning.  So this light fixture totally started the whole course for the the bathroom remodel.   We decided that we wanted to really use the antique brass as an accent with the entire bathroom, which we thought was going to be really hard, but it didn’t turn out that way.

When it came to tile, we knew we wanted carerra marble, but couldn’t spend a fortune on it.  Little did we know that there are other kinds of marble, that look very similar to carrera, but don’t come with the same price tags.  We also knew we wanted to do a different pattern in the back of the shower made out of the same material, and that some how we wanted some kind of antique brass detail.  We were a little concerned that the brass would seem odd coupled with the cold white and gray marble, but that’s when we found a white marble that had both gray and brown tones running through it! BINGO!

Our plan was to use to the white marble subway tiles for all of the walls, and then use the herringbone tile mosaic as an inset on the back wall.  We would then use the antique brass border seen at right in image to wrap around the back inset herringbone panel.  For the floor,  we actually decided to use 12″x24″ ceramic tiles that are finished to a gray/black finish like concrete.  There’s a long funny story about the floor, that we won’t bore you with, but we got it for $ .90 a square foot,  where other actual concrete tiles were $12 a square foot!

Then we found the faucet!

It’s hard to see in this image, but the top of the cross bars have a white inset with a C and H on them.  They look so historical! Exactly what we wanted.  We found this one online, but had a lot of difficulty finding shower valves and heads to match.  So we went to Ferguson’s, and Kristy helped us find exactly what we wanted: a cross handle and a rain shower head.

 

Finding the vanity was hardest part.  First, they aren’t cheap.  And second, there are a lot of options out there.  However, we were looking for a specific look and style: old piece of furniture, marble top, matte wood finish.  With those in mind, that meant that options were limited.  We found a couple of pieces from Restoration Hardware that we really liked, but as you can imagine….vanities from them  weren’t cheap.  With all of the people that we had talked to who had gutted their master bathrooms before, there was one constant in all of the conversations.  They wished they would have bought the vanity they really wanted, and not settled.  Hearing this time, time, and again, we really wanted to do it right the first time, so we were  prepared to do that, even if it hurt a little in the wallet.

Then one day, we found this vanity, and the rest was history!

We love farmhouse sinks, and never imagined finding one for the bathroom! It was immediately love at first sight.  Now we had all of the stuff, now we just needed to demo!

Ready, set…where’s the sledge hammer!