baby steps with designing a washroom

Photo via The Marion House Book, Photo by Janis Nicolay

I've been dragging my feet with the bathroom renovation. Truthfully I am finding this room extremely difficult to design. I have issues with spacial planning - I'm not awesome at accurately picking items that would fit. Give me a 10 foot wide room and I'd go and pick a 20 foot long couch. (Aubrey can confirm that. I'm not exaggerating at all) Thankfully Aubrey is the opposite (and perhaps 99% of the rest of the population) But my inability to properly judge sizes, and having a hard time conceptualizing the proposed "bump out" in the bathroom have kept me from moving forward. All of that mixed with my indecision as to the style of washroom - well, it will be amazing if we actually renovate anytime soon.

Anyways, thank goodness for Pinterest. I've been able to collect inspirational images while I lay in bed at night. But if you look at my Pinterest board on washrooms you'll see I'm all over the place when it comes to looks. A year ago I would have designed our washroom to be much like the photo above from Emma's blog.  It's gorgeous. But within the past month I've come to the conclusion that I'm overdosing on subway tiles in our house. I used them in our basement washroom and in our kitchen. And although I love them in each application that we've done,.... I think I need to do something different for the main bathroom. The problem is - subway tile played to the classic look that I loved. And subway tiles are quite economical - So finding a substitute I knew was hard.

I have really started to crave a more "zen" look to our washroom. I have a bath every night before bed - it's my little ritual that I've done since being a kid. Shower in the morning, wash my hair and at night I had a bubble bath.* So I would love a "peaceful" room to relax in. I just revisited this image I had pinned from (again) Emma's blog and it kind of sparked something.....

Photograph by Kristin Sjaarda for The Marion House book

The marble tiles are classic - marble is always classic - yet the large tiles makes the shower feel more modern. It's a perfect mix of traditional and modern. Although I love the look of marble I saw that the homeowner found the marble to be "high maintenance" which reminded me that is exactly why we didn't do marble in the kitchen. So I'm not about to put it in our washroom. But I love the look.....

Disregarding the maintenance factor, we couldn't afford marble at $20+ a square foot. Well, we could possibly afford it but then it would mean we'd have to penny pinch elsewhere. Bottom line - I don't feel like busting our full budget on tiles. I did happened to see some "replica" marble at The Beach Tile Store down the street from us that ranges between $2 - $10 a square foot because it's porcelain. I'm not sure if I'm tricking myself to believe it looks like marble?

Anyways, that is where we are. We're pretty much set on the larger tiles that look like marble. Next, I'd love to find a drop in bathtub that fits that would allow us to tile the side of it. Aubrey isn't sold on continuing the same tile from the show onto the floor, so that is up for discussion.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

*My friend has informed me that I am not the norm with my bathing habits of showering each morning (I was my hair every day) and bathing at night. Seriously, I can't think properly if I don't shower in the AM. I've done it since I was a kid. Funny to realize people have different rituals!

*Update - the second picture is a subway pattern - the pattern itself I still love but the fact that it is with HUGE tiles makes it more appealing.