Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Design Board: Carrie's Bathroom - Part I

After my call for requests, Carrie e-mailed me about her master bathroom:

I read your blog pretty frequently, and I love all the things you've redone. Since you're offering free advice and I'm cheap/on a budget, I'd like to get your input about an update in this sink area of our bathroom. We've lived with this awfulness for the past few years. We're planning to eventually redo the whole bathroom (and remove all the awful seafoam floor tile). We have 2 year old, so our projects have concentrated more on areas of the house other people actually see. After a leak under one of the sinks, we've decided the vanity needs to be replaced, and therefore it's time to give the bathroom a facelift. The only thing we need to keep is the floor tile. So, do you have any wonderful & budget friendly ideas?

Here is the picture she sent:


It's such a great space! A nice private nook for your sink, separate from the other sections of the bathroom. Since "budget friendly" can be defined in so many ways, I did three design boards for her. Here is the first (and most budget friendly) design:

For the first design, you can get all the basic material (sink, medicine cabinet, faucet) for under $750! Pretty good for a bathroom for two! Here are all the details

1. Since there is a defined nook where the bathroom sinks should go, it would look nice to have too white pedestal sinks. The sink top runs a cool $90.90 and the bottom is a steal at $84.15 -- both from Lowe's. Oh yeah, the best part is that the price includes shipping! Score!

2. This faucet would look just lovely with the sinks and the price is not too shabby either. For $113 this baby is a fraction of the price of other look alikes.

3. With a pedestal sink, you loose the under sink storage, so I went with these classic medicine cabinets. I've seen many of these medicine cabinets as higher end stores like Potterybarn and Restoration Hardware. But, this one is actually affordable. For $84, you can store your good in style.

4. Another way to store your wares is in these gorgeous chrome shelves. One next to each sink would be great! For $40, why not? An interesting tid-bit is that I also saw them at Kohls for $64. Hmmm...

5. This wastebasket continues the theme of white porcelain. It would be a great addition in between the two sinks. For just a little over twenty bucks ($20.50), it's a good deal.

6. I love white towels. Big fluffy white towels. It makes you feel like you're at a spa and you can bleach them and they look as good as new. These towel sets at Target are only $29.99.

7. Coordinating with the wastebasket, these little accessories would look perfect inside or outside the medicine cabinet. The whole set can be snapped up for $19.96!

8. Though you can't see Carrie's shower in the picture she provided, I assumed there once one and added in this grey-blue curtain to tie in the crisp white fixtures and the cool blue towel. At $34.99, this one's a keeper.

So, what would the grand total be? For two sinks, two medicine cabinets, two faucets, two shelving units, a wastebasket, accessory set, two towel sets, and a shower curtain, the grand total for the materials for this bathroom make-over are. . . $959.53!!!!

Stayed tuned for the next two designs. . .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Joseph said...

You have started a very interesting discussion on bathroom design. I'm a cabinetmaker who really does not want to make kitchens and bathrooms for a living, because the most of what is done in the US is just boxes with a "choice of doors and drawer fronts," the most of which are made in a factory somewhere. Boring. I want to do something else if I can, but what?

Last year I started a blog site with a fellow cabinetmaker and have since been exploring this very subject. European design just absolutely blows my mind, and I find myself doing quite a bit on it, even though these are often modular kitchens and bathrooms that one would simply send away for and have installed by a local craftsman. But what fascinates me is the utter innovation of those designs, so I find myself returning to them quite a bit.

I am also looking to design two bathrooms and a kitchen for my wife in too-small spaces in a tract home, which necessarily lets out those wonderful European designs that excite me so. And whenever I find myself going out on a limb with some idea or another, my wife always grounds me by saying, "If you stick with the classics, you won't grow tired of them."

So, what do you do that is different and yet timeless and practical and stimulating to make if you're a cabinetmaker? Damned if I know, but if I ever figure it out, I mean to make it for us and splash those babies all over the Internet!

What you've written, though, has given me quite a bit to think about, and I thank you for sharing your concepts.

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