If it's what your comfortable doing :) Than do it. Personally, my lighting is antique so it won't "match" the modern finishes although I kept tones the same (the oil rubbed bronze bath has gold fixtures with brown accents and the brushed nickle bath has silver).

One fixture was listed to be "gold" metal and instead was silver. This is in my polished brass (read gold) bathroom so I went ahead and took the thing apart and painted the silver parts gold.

Personally I don't mind mixing silvers (My faucets and shower are polished silver and the towel, toilet and hand hanger thingies are brushed as are the knobs) but given that we have shiny silver on the lighting it all blends comfortably.

I'm definately not a matchy matchy person though :) So I find this comfortable. I wouldn't even consider having the faucets match the shower head heh heh (same tone though, but different company etc).

I like things to match but obviously it can be tough to get everything from the same line... sometimes for money reasons, sometimes you don't like everything they make, sometimes they don't make what you need.

In my planned bath remodel, I am actually using black porcelain light fixtures to match the black ceramic chair rail and liner in my black and white bath. The rest of the fixtures are chrome and I've ordered the faucets and shower stuff from the Rohl Country - the faucets are the C-spout with cross handles and the shower is a combination of lever and cross handles. I ordered a chrome speakman showerhead for the fixed shower since I've been reading they are the best and the Rohl seemed outrageously overpriced. Even though Rohl makes a clawfoot tub faucet with handheld shower, I didn't care for the lines of it and the cost if it plus the adaptors to fit my tub was going to be nearly $800 for the set, so I ordered a sunrise specialty set in chrome for half the price that I liked twice as much.

One of my sinks is on chrome console legs and I like the fact that the "ball" joints and exposed screw escutcheon plates match similar details on the myson radiator/tower warmer I got. I also chose a glass shelf from a different line than the rest of my accessories that matched those details to go over the sink on the console legs, restoration hardware "vintage." The rest of my accessories are restoration hardware "bistro" but I did not care for the shelf brackets they had.

I personally don't think the fact that I have all chrome is "too much" of the same finish. It's easier to match and have it come off looking planned than it is to pull off something that is mismatched. I think even if you want something mismatched you need to be careful how you do it. Polished chrome and polished nickel never look good together IMO, one of them always looks "off" but if you get one of the more blue brushed nickels or brushed chrome, it goes fine with polished chrome. I think black goes with anything but you should probably stick to mixing warm tones with warm tones and cool tones with cool tones if you want to mix. In a small space like a bath though, I don't think it's necessary to still get an interesting space - it certainly is one method you can use but isn't necessarily the only one.

I've always been a matchy matchy symmetrical type person and it's been tough learning I can go against that flow. I'm using brushed nickel plumbing fixtures to tie in with my blue/aqua "sea tones" crushed glass tiles. My vanity will be a deep rich brown stained maple. My plan is to use dark bronze hardware and lighting to compliment the vanity. I've seen this mixture of metals in bathrooms similar to what mine will be and it looks great.
Monica

I'm not normally a matchy person but everything in my master bath is brushed nickel - faucets, radiator/towel warmer, accessories, lighting. It's not all from the same manufacturer and there are probably minute differences in the BN finishes, and there are differences in the design of the different items. Things "make sense" to the eye because the tub/sink faucets (Elizabethan Classics) are both BN with white porcelain handles, the faceplate on the American Standard BN shower trim is white porcelain, the Hudson-Reed radiator is BN with white porcelain in the middle, and the Rejuvenations BN lighting has white glass shades - the repetition of the BN-and-white holds it all together. It only looks like too much BN when I'm in one of my irritable "I don't like silvery metals" moods (we had chosen BN to go with a console sink we liked but ended up not using because the height and scale were off, and by that time I was stuck with all this BN stuff... next bathroom I am doing my copper finishes, dangit!). :-) There is plenty of other color and other interesting stuff to look at, the BN just ends up being little "pings" here and there.

The upstairs bathroom has all chrome bits and bobs, but again, nothing is "exactly matched" so it satisfies my penchant for mismatching but still has a cohesive appearance.

I think if you want to go with something not-BN for the lighting in the master bathroom, it would be easiest to coordinate it with something else in the room, like ceramic matching the tile as Lisa is doing, frosted/etched glass, painted finishes (there are paintable sconces on the market too, so you can have any color you like - Lighting Universe has a nice selection and they're not even all modern styled), or even novelty fixtures if you have a theme in place.

Main bath we have chrome with white. Not a problem to match.

Half bath I have all sorts of variations of bronze. Unless you buy EVERYTHING from the same line I find nothing exactly matches. However, I find this looks OK; better than I envisioned.

We have 2 finishes in our new master bath:

** ORB (RH Gilmore pulls) for the cab hardware (there are 13 drawers and 3 doors)

** ORB for the towel hooks and toilet paper holder (Gatco Austin)

** ORB for the 3 door levers...2 closets and the door (Kwikset UltraMax)

** ORB for the main vanity light...it's really more of brown than bronze (Rlights.com)

** Stainless (Delta) for the two sink faucets and tub/shower combo -- looks like BN

I don't mind this, except we have yet to put up a shower rod...I hate to cover the tile and also not sure which to go with...a BN or ORB. I think an ORB rod will look odd running across the top of the surround since the shower head is stainless. What to do...

Susan ~

I'm a BIG matchy matchy person......but I didn't even think about matching my lighting to the master bedroom. My lamps and fan in the master are kind of a brownish, and in the bathroom, I have BN. Everything will be BN in there. But all my door handles are BN thru out the whole house, so I do have that to tie between the bath and bedroom!! LOL!!!! Of course, the bath will be painted the same color as the bedroom, and has the same "feel" decorative wise.

If your plumbing fixtures and towel racks are brushed Nickel, I would tend to keep all metallic things, such as door knobs. But who says that lighting even has to have any metal in it at all? Sure, if you are going to use metal bracket lights or metal hanging sconce lights I'd stay with brushed Nickel or Satin Nickel. But you can have beautiful hanging glass pendant lights, LED's in a colorful material, etc. These don't have to have any visible metal.

Bottom line is---do what pleases you.

Greg