Modern bathroom decisions Part II: materials

14 years ago

(Cross posted to Home Decorating)

Thank you so much for your layout input, folks!! Now I have one last fairly major decision I need to make, so hoping you might like to chime in.

In the last 2 days I've changed my mind about using the honey onyx mosaic tile... I fell in love with a fabulous calacatta gold mosaic. I don't have a photo of it, it is a unique sort of random pattern, basically in the 1.5" x 1.5" size range but with a lot of slivers and cut-off corners. Beautiful, and still pulling in some warm golds and greys. So that's going on the shower floor, and probably in the niches. I guess the shower curn will be made of 12x12 calacatta gold tiles cut down and bullmosed. Same with the niche shelves.

The floor is a lovely 12 x 24 porcelaing tile by Iris called Oyster Brushstroke. Off-white (sort of grey/beige) with a lightly varied, matte/textured surface.

The walls in the shower, behind the tub and sink are a very WHITE glass mosaic. It is not blue-ish like my pictures show, more a clean bright white with no color variation but some surface dimpling which I hope will keep it from being too uniform. This material is really pretty non-negotiable, since I found an incredible deal on it ($2.50/sf). I can't afford to use anything else because I need so much of it! I am putting my $$ into other bling materials with less square footage instead, I think.

Vanity and wall cabinet by toilet will be mahogany, on stainless legs with 2 white porcelain sinks like Ronbow (semi-recessed.) Faucets are Kohler Purist. Toilet is Toto Aquia III, tub is Kohler ARcher drop-in.

Here's my dilemma!!!!!

Should the tub deck be tiled with the same floor tile..... or should it be tiled with 12 x 12 calacatta gold marble tiles?

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Comments (4)

Natalie Skadra
14 years ago
In my opinion and from what I've seen, the tub deck is often the same as the wall. I think it would look nice this way b/c visually it would be seamless. Or you could do the deck in the white glass mosaic and the surround of the tub in the calcutta. But I think to be true to a modern sensibility if you stick with one tile. I vote for the glass mosaic. Good luck. it's a beautiful bath. We too are going with the Purist faucet but in Smile.
Stacey Collins
Original Author
14 years ago
Interesting. My architect brother voted for the white glass mosaic as the tub deck, apron, and wall surround as well. The tile store lady, however, voted for the floor tile. She said it will be a lot easier to keep clean, which makes sense.

Oh- I am so torn now!!
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I would see if the people who recommended "company B" to you would allow you to see the work the company did for them. That might make the choice easy for you. A few years ago, a friend of mine raved about her kitchen contractor. After I saw his work, I threw away his business card that she had given me. If what you see meets your standards, don't hesitate to ask "company A" to explain the areas of their bid that seem totally out of whack. Sometimes, businesses will low-ball their first project for a client due to the economy at the time or in an attempt to "buy" a lifetime relationship (where they'll re-coup the costs in future projects) or for other reasons. Or, maybe the contractor has made some erroneous assumptions about the job that drove up the costs, in which case, a discussion to determine the discrepancy may cause the bid to be adjusted down. I don't think the adjusted bid needs to match Company A's exactly since there is value in the comfort that they're a known quantity and that you already have a good relationship/communication history with them.
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We used two of the lights - one over each sink. We did another bathroom in that house (we've since moved) - that bathroom was 5'x8', and we used one of the Artemide lights. It was plenty bright enough in there! We had the lights on a dimmer, which was really nice. Yes, our contractor built out a soffit above the medicine cabinets. It wasn't my first choice for how to do it, but it ended up looking really good. I wanted to recess the cabinets, but the Ikea ones are not made to do that, and the finish details were too complicated to make it work. So we decided on the soffit, which was much simpler. I wouldn't hesitate to do it the same way again.
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Hi Flyleft- I ordered my glass tile so now I am not worried about supply-- sorry about that! The place I used is okglasstile.com. I took my sample into the high-end tile shop nearby to look at it with the other materials I am ordering, and we compared it to the MEGA expensive Bizzaza glass tile, and the tile saleslady agreed it looked like essentially the same thing. It ends up being less than $2/sf if you order it in bulk (compared to ~$35 for the Bizzaza!). Hope it is OK. Another place I considered is Susan Jablon mosaics. Her very plain 3/4" opaque glass mosaics are about 3.50/sf if I recall. I did look at the Hollviken, but these sinks are what appears to be knock-offs of the Ronbow CB3028. I got them on eBay for about $150 each, they have not yet arrived so I hope they aer decent. I actually bought the new Ikea Godmorgon Braviken vanity top, but then we decided we preferred ceramic, so now I have to drive all the way back to Ikea to return it! We decided to do the white glass mosaic on the tub apron and deck, after all. Hope that's the right choice! I'm probably going to look for an 18 x 18 white marble tile that goes with my calacatta mosaic (but without veins) for the shower curb. It'll have to be sliced up and bullnosed.
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Thank you Sophie. I will have hubby research this as we were not aware. We thought the pine floor counted as the wood subfloor. If you are saying this to preserve it for a future owner, trust me it is too far gone. This is a picture of the floor that was not heavily damaged, we are going to try to refinish those. Benjesbride, I just got back from lunch with hubby. He actually really likes your idea and thinks if we go with the whiter version he can dress it up with some after market trim. Did hold out much hope of matching stain on the wood one. I like the $500 vs $1200 for the black one. Even if we buy a faucet still saving money. Mayflowers, we had a blue gray in there and the kid hated it. She picked out the color we used, so I don't want to change it. The boob light is actually the vent fan. It needs to go back in. I'm generally not a fan of boob light fan either.
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homey_bird
14 years ago
I vote for the glass mosaic for seamless look as well. Even when I read your description of the mosaic on the wall etc I was thinking about how cleaning could be a lot of work. But, if you've chosen the mosaics there anyways, what's a bit more of cleaning? With that, you will admire the look and fall in love with your bath everyday!

Seems like it's going to be a fabulous bath. Hope you finish soon; cannot wait to see finished pix.
Stacey Collins
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks folks. We are leaning towards doing the tub deck in white mosaics as well. That keeps the floor tile ONLY on the floor, and the only calacatta marble is the cool mosaic on the shower floor, and the shower and bathtub wall niches.

My only dilemma with that design is what to do on the shower curb (where the frameless glass wall and door will be). Lots of folks here, including Bill Vincent, think a solid curb is much better. But I really can't see a material that works for this design!!!!! I see lots of showers in magazines and on line with glass mosaic curbs, so I just don't know... :(

homey_bird... we're hoping to get the tile done around Thanksgiving, so perhaps I will have finished pics sometime around Christmas? (probably am jinxing myself by saying that. Our kitchen/LR/Dr reno, started in April, is STILL incomplete because this bathroom mold problem necessitated shifting focus mid-project. Argh.)

Modern bathroom decisions Part II: materials

Comments (4)

Natalie Skadra

Stacey Collins
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Modern bathroom decisions Part II: materials

Comments (4)

Natalie Skadra

Stacey CollinsOriginal Author

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Stacey Collins
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