We did redid a bathroom for our three teenage girls, and the vanity has a marble top. We are all going through an education. Yes, they have creams and potions and lotions and hair sprays, etc., etc., but I am constantly telling them to wipe down the counter. They often don't, and I grit my teeth and yell some more. The beautiful counter is surviving so far. I am not a neat-nik, but I am a great believer in training your children well.

I heard once that you have to tell kids something 99 times, and on the 100th time they'll remember to do something without being told. I'm on reminder number 50 or so about the counters. But I still love them (the counters), and I know the girls love their bathroom too. I would do it all over again.

Welllll, I'm playing it safe and putting in engineered quartz in DD's bathroom. If there's a way to mess something up, she finds it (viz. mold issues that are necessitating the remodel in the first place...grrrrrrr....but I digress), so I'm going with the Mack Truck approach. It's beautiful stuff anyway--reminds me of pebbles on the beach--but it's tough enough I don't have to be worried every time she goes in there.

hmmm...what about the floor? Thinking of marble basketweave...

I would not put stone in a teenager's bath. It's too easy to mess up-- something teens are notorious for.

Ok, you're all confirming my gut here. So, how to do vintag-y feel w/out stone? I've got porcelain basketweave floor, subway tile and beadboard walls, but I'm stumped with vanity top and sink. Integral? Ideas?

you could have a vanity without a sink that you sit at to put on makeup. that would be very vintage. and then a pedestal sink. kren

Don't know if this helps but it might be an option. We are taking the space that would be a linen closet and building in a vanity complete with mirror and flouresent makeup lights. We're going to put a split door with mirrors on the backs to give it that "dressing room" feel. My 14 year old leaves every bottle, jar and tube open with the caps and lids off. She never puts things away though I remind her daily. I must be on reminder #499 by now. I've decided the only way I'm going to win this battle is to make it easy for her to shut the door on all this clutter. Now all I'll have to worry about is the toothpaste on the sink counter. I think I can live with that.

We have honed carrara on our MB vanity that gets no special treatment. DH's shaving cream, coffee cups, standing water, toothpaste - I've decided to let them all go and after 3 years, it looks about the same. We have a couple of marble tops on pieces on antique furniture that look a little rougher, but they're over 100 yrs old and still not so bad that I feel the need to have them restored. The rest of the bathroom has ceramic hex tile, subway tile and beadboard wainscoting. The marble looks so beautiful - it's the perfect vintage look.

When we redo the kids bathroom we're using marble basketweave on the floor because there's only room for a pedestal sink and marble on the walls seems a bit over the top in that bathroom. We'll let you know in a few years if it was crazy.

One of the reasons I think a vintage look is so comforting is that it's NOT pristine.

Bill,
Does that include using granite for the countertops?
Sharon

I still think it's a good idea to use marble on the vanity for my teenager's bath, and we have marble basketweave in our powder room downstairs. We are not the neatest people, but I don't think all teenagers are destructive and so far our materials look terrific. With all due respect, Bill and others, you can train kids to respect nice things. If they don't learn it at home, where are they going to learn it? This stuff is not indestructible.

I meant this stuff is not indestructible, but isn't this the same kind of material they use for some of the world's oldest and finest structures? They're still standing, and so are our bathrooms, kids and all.

They use soap stone in chemistry labs.

Also, you could check out the manmade quartz materials out there.

I'm using that for my kids white painted vanities, hex-tile floors and subway tub surround bathrooms.

I let my daughter chose hers; it is a light blue "Cielo" silestone, and my son is using Caesarstone Galaxy black, or whatever the one with sparkly pieces in the plain black are.

Of course, they are 8 and 7, and not teens, but I wanted them to have a say in at least part of their new bathrooms.

The quartz products are practically indestructible, which is why I went with it in my laundry room and kids' bathrooms.

Good luck!

This forum rocks! Decided on honed marble vanity top, but ceramic dog-bone floor and shower tile, white subway shower walls, Azek beadboard elsewhere. Hopefully will all work together! Thanks for the advice, all.

Here's a good one told to me by the Dad.

Couple across town did marble in their daughter's room. On a makeup/grooming desk.

Mother kept hounding the daughter during the design and installation phase, telling her repeatedly "It'll stain". Daughter kept saying "No it won't".

The next day after the top was installed, the father heard a scream come from upstairs. He ran up to find the mother standing over the grooming table.

There was a discoloration across the stone, slightly darker than the light marble, after a couple of seconds they realized the discoloration read:

"It'll stain! NO IT WON'T"

The daughter had "written" on the marble with lotion. The father went back downstairs and left for work, regretting the scene he'd come home to that night.

That evening when he got home, the Dad was shocked how nice the daughter was to the Mom, and that his wife never even mentioned the stain or talked about punishing the daughter. There was no mention of the stain in any conversation.

Later he went up to the daughter's room to see how bad the top looked, only to find additional staining.

It read:

"I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!"

Mongo

Anne
I too have teens in the house unfortunately with only one full bath home. My idea was to have materials that easily cleaned and maintained. My design was to have clean bathroom with as few brushstrokes as possible ;) I have better things to do with my life than spend it on cleaning bathrooms...
Of course, changing vanity top in a few years if marble starts looking lousy is not a big deal- requires little damage to bathroom itself and minimal plumbing skills.