I know exactly what this is like. I can be a bit obsessive about certain things, and understand about the quest for THE perfect whatever.

However...I'm slowing discovering that many times, "good enough" is just fine, and the endless searching and shopping and research is the road to insanity. At the end of the day, I have to ask myself "who will care about this/notice besides me?" As far as home decor goes, it really is just stuff, and sometimes you have to just buy the $49 thing and call it a win.

Save your time and money, pick something reasonably suitable, and move on. It's just not worth it. I've seen enough of your work that I know that it's going to be fabulous whatever you decide.

Have you checked ebay for vintage?

how about an antique store? I have some awesome old items I picked up from antique shopping, I use them as art pieces but they certainly could be reused purposefully. I love the ones with porcelain on them!

I have fantasized about buying a kiln to make my own sinks and tile and having faucets manufactured to my specs by my dad's old valve company. I have also tried to build my own copper lights (abject failure) and my own furniture (success!). Sometimes it's just not out there, or if it is, it's $75.00 a square inch.

I think this has to do with trends. There is so much out there, high and low, but in the same formats. I could make a list of what I am so tired of looking at and believe is quickly going to be yesterday's "why did I do that". And not without a great deal of expense put into it. Hopefully my thinking is wrong with some wonderful decors seen.

Perhaps what you are going through looking at 1000s of ideas is trend overload. Primarily do what I love, but get caught up in something else a few times and regret going there.

Stick with what you love and as another mentioned, try heading to a Restore. One would be surprised what is sitting there. Many businesses hand over new/boxed items and displays never used to keep up with today.

Meant to add that this is a great time to look at Restore. Businesses want to get rid of inventory for tax time.

Technicolor, I believe that Pal isn't looking for anything trendy, so not trend overload. It's that if something isn't trendy, it's not out there, except at a high price.

This is how I feel about my quest for the perfect sconces.

I've been to the Restore a few times and it was so much unappealing junk, like our Craigs List (which also seems expensive!). I will have to check out a seasonal difference! Good point.

"I have come to the conclusion that For This Particular Project, I dislike about 99% of kitchen and bath faucets and 95% of suitable lighting fixtures available, and the vast majority of hardware as well."

So that means that you possibly like 1 out of every 100 faucets and if you have looked at 1000's there should be a few you can choose from and even more lighting fixtures.

I seldom have this problem as I'm not a purist but life can be frustrating enough without looking for that elusive "perfection" thing. Sometimes "good enough is good enough". Few things are worth that much angst.

The light fixtures may well end up being vintage, but for plumbing I am just going to have to go with one of the companies that offers everything they make in multiple finishes.

The architect who designed these houses had a particular esthetic, and the houses in this particular redevelopment were hampered by budget, and subsequently by limited choices. It's by looking at his commission work that you see what he would have done with a better budget. That said, the overall "feel" of the inside of the house is good.

I don't know what the original kitchen and full baths looked like in these houses, in this house they were replaced with very cheaply done new ones. I saw the powder room before it was converted into a 3/4 bath, and they turned it from a tiny plain powder room with sturdy materials and fixtures into a very cheap 3/4 that will be gutted even though it's not yet 2 years old.

In the main bath, I want everything to match, from faucet to hooks, to grab bars etc. I think I found the plain looking faucet I want to use, but the unfortunate thing is that the tub filler in the line-up is weird looking. I hope I can buy bits and pieces a la cart or I will have a $100 tub faucet lying around doing nothing.

Luckily, plain Daltile will be the tile of choice: it's what would have been used and I think anything fancier would be making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I will just have to accept that the faucets/toilet handle/grab bar-towel racks will be a big percentage of the overall budget. In the 3/4 baths, I will probably go with the Kohler Triton which is an appropriate, and not too expensive choice.

I think I am getting "trend overload" just by exposure, even while trying to avoid trends. It's just surprising how many faucets from so many different companies can all look the same as each other. It's interesting that it used to be that if you were trying to do something on a low budget, you were hampered by everything being utilitarian. Now, it's easy to do a low budget project if you want to do something flashy and faux riche. Plain and sturdy and utilitarian is what gets pricey.

I want to add that I really do try and Not be a Materials snob. I just specified kitchen cabinet pulls for someone that were $1.36 each.

This post was edited by palimpsest on Sun, Feb 3, 13 at 11:51

"So that means that you possibly like 1 out of every 100 faucets and if you have looked at 1000's there should be a few you can choose from and even more lighting fixtures."

I think you're taking an exaggeration to make a point too literally. :)

I'm a Completionist in Training, meaning I will indeed begin looking through a kajillion websites before overload and boredom set in. At that point, I just stop looking for kitchen light fixtures or whatever and start looking at kajillions of bamboo blinds or whatever. Hence the fact that, not all that long ago, someone asked, "Did you just move in?"

"I did find one sconce I really liked that is "of the period" but transcends a particular date. It is made-to-order and starts at $2500.00. (That's about $75 a square inch)."

Oh yes, I feel that particular pain. Last night, leafing through a magazine, and I come across an amazing light fixture. Not even close to what I would have thought of as "my style," whatever that is, but I really, really liked it. Never mind that it wouldn't go with this house, it was the $11,000 price tag that definitely killed the deal.

Lynxe, the "thousands" of faucets isn't an exaggeration. I had a search for something the other day that was 100 per page, 20 odd pages. When I say I look at Everything, I do look at Everything. I don't watch TV. :)

I think it's really hard when you want something specific or particulars are already set in your mind. Either they don't make it or it is unaffordable (for most people). I end up wanting to make or adjust a lot of things. I think it would be a lot easier to decorate with things like chrome, white, transitional or traditional because they are either more flexible or more available and affordable.

Gosh, and I was stymied when the lamps for the bedside tables turned out to be $6,000 each, "But that includes freight and tax," I was reminded.

You might head to some plumbing supply stores that have been around awhile and check out what they have stashed in a warehouse. We drove by a plumbing supply store that's been in business probably 60 years and they had sinks stacked out front that were for sale at $5 each...and they were authentic 50s for sure given the colors...aqua, pink, gray.....

"Lynxe, the "thousands" of faucets isn't an exaggeration. I had a search for something the other day that was 100 per page, 20 odd pages. When I say I look at Everything, I do look at Everything. I don't watch TV. :)"

Yes, you are right, actually. It's possible to scroll through hundreds of near-identical things in a minute or two. What's so frustrating is how few might jump out as being interesting or even worth enlarging for a closer look.

BTW I REALLY like the Kohler Triton fixtures. I've never heard of them, but I find them beautiful. A problem with buying expensive things that are trendy is that once the trend is over, you might still have the expensive things working perfectly well. The PO here installed high-end Grohe fixtures for the master bathtub. I think they're hideous, but it's hard to justify replacing them.

"I think anything fancier would be making a silk purse out of a sow's ear" When we were doing our reno's I was very clear that I wanted to avoid this particular mistake. We live in a 1972 post and beam - definitely nothing fancy. But, sometimes keeping it simple is the best option and gives you the best result. That's what I discovered.

I also discovered that sometimes simple can be inexpensive and sometimes it can be downright outrageous. I also discovered that we can have weaknesses in different products. Taps had to be simple but beyond that I didn't care who made them however it turns out I have very expensive tastes in lighting and it seemed the simpler the more expensive.

Yes, almost always. My husband thinks I should seek help (I do, GW, but DH thinks GW feeds my obsession). I too look at every single light fixture I can find. Maybe I should start watching TV again.

kitchendetective - love the freight and tax line. In that case, I'll take four.

Here's the Tritons. I will most likely use these in the 3/4 baths that get chrome. Almost no faucet is shaped like this anymore. You can get them with pop up drains and a couple handle options.

Have you looked at troy lighting by chance? I just came across an ad in a mag and it looked like they had some different stuff...

Here is a link that might be useful: Troy Lighting

Hubbardton Forge - their catalogue is 356 pages of heart-stopping lighting eye-candy. (for me anyway)

Oh, Pal. We are somehow related. I never knew it had a word!!

I ended up finding two companies I had never heard of for DD2s MBath gut. Impressed with both of them. I like the Tritons.

blfenton, almost all of our interior lighting is from HF. Love 'em.

As an aside, can you post the 3x7.5 three qtr bath? If our beach house ever closes we will probably build a guest house and we may want a small bath to minimize footprint. That sounds really compact.

thanks

PS Sochi, this is no cure for completionism. We are enablers. Only here can we reveal our true selves, met without shame - nay, with enthusiasm.

mtn, it's in my head but here it is:

28" for the toilet. 24 between toilet and shower as minimally required, 36" wide shower. Small wall hung handwashing sink in between. I may be able to go slightly wider in room width. Out swinging or pocket door in between toilet and shower across from handwashing sink.

does the shower have a shower door?

thanks

No it will probably have a shower curtain. I have though of doing the entire room as a wet room, but I am afraid to get anyone to try it.

If the sink could be recessed into another space to allow an outswinging shower door to swing against it, it could be a possibility. But with only 24" between the toilet and shower the shower door could only be 24" wide anyway. This is allowable here, but I would like full access.

In any case I would probably do a wall-hung toilet with in-wall carrier tank. That would also gain a few inches.

I've had bad experiences with wet rooms.... I'd avoid it unless you think you have or can hire expertise,.

also have a toilet w the tank in the wall. its ok.....

I love love love decorating and making things just perfect and exact. My home has always been important to me, no matter where I lived, still is. However, when does it become an obsession?

I just don't want to end my life dropping a snow globe and whispering "Rosebud".

Anele, I understood Pal was not looking for trends. Probably didn't explain correctly where I was going. Meant that there are so many trends it is difficult to dig through all and find the piece we have envisioned.

It is a shame that wet rooms are such a rarity on this side of the Atlantic, they make a lot of sense. Lack of expertise is the problem I guess, although perhaps this is changing?

"Lack of expertise is the problem I guess,"

And codes. A relative of mine had a gc give up on his wet room bathroom because the code inspector and the architect did not agree on what met code. The wet room seems to be a bit of a frontier here--actually, this was in Los Angeles.

We have a wetroom as our downstairs bathroom (off of den/guest room) and so far have had no problems at all. We have 1" x 1" tile on the floor and larger tile on walls and ceiling. Our architect drew the plans for no step up from the den/guest room, unfortunately our GC and/or framer (lots o' finger pointing, no clear resolution) failed to properly read the plans and we have a 3" step up into the wetroom from the den. The tile guy did his best, but since the room is small at 5' x 7', he needed a certain slope to properly drain the shower and since the framing was done incorrectly, the step up was necessary. It's set up for full handicap access cuz our SIL is in a chair, so mr. sandyponder made a little ramp and she wheels in to use the toilet or shower independently. It's also handy for washing dirty dogs when it's too cold outside to use the hose and for giving my numerous houseplants a shower during the winter.

The shower is not used daily, but it's used frequently during the summer when we have more company. It has a barn door (36") from the den for wheelchair access and a door to a side porch so said dirty dogs can be walked straight into the shower and children can access a toilet without walking their wet and sandy selves through the house. The wetroom has worked out well for us and if you can find a tile person who has the skills, they are really handy.

WRT disliking everything, I wish I did, I have the opposite problem, I like too many different styles, colors, patterns, etc. and find it hard to pare choices down to manageable levels for true consideration.

sandyponder

Interesting sandyponder. I'd like a wet room for one of the bathrooms in the lake house/cottage we are building. We have very little space and I thought it would be handy for the kids bathroom, near the lake front entrance to the cottage - to hose down kids, but I also imagine several hooks for dripping bathing suits, towels even life jackets. Of course they can hang outside too though.

It really shouldn't be that difficult. The entire floor has to be a shower pan and all the walls have to be water proofed like a shower. If it was approached as a large shower with a wall hung toilet in it, I wonder if contractors and inspectors would be able to wrap their heads around it a bit better.

According to our architect (old school individual, so take that FWIW), the best wetrooms are a "full mud job" with a Kerdi membrane. He is not a fan of pans and much prefers the Kerdi membrane with a full mud job. That's why the framing was incorrect, it was supposed to be lower to accommodate the full mud job, and while they did beef up the framing (it's a LOT of mud), they didn't lower it. We have a full mud job in our upstairs bathroom as well, and same thing, a small step up from the bedrooms into the bathroom (it's a jack and jill, which I know many people hate, but we really like), than no step into the shower and no lip or curb, just a gentle slope to the drain.

sochi, we live year round on a lake in NNY, so we have 4 seasons, 5 if you count mud season, and the door directly to the downstairs bath has been great. The wetroom exterior door opens onto a side porch that has a door facing the lake, and we do indeed store life jackets, beach chairs/toys/games, beach bags, kayak paddles, etc., on that porch. The wetroom is a rectangle bisected by a shower curtain the short way, behind the curtain is the toilet and shower head/faucet, on the other side is the console sink (so SIL can roll her chair up and use sink or blow dryer, etc.), the door to the side porch and the door to the den. When operating the shower the toilet doesn't get very wet, and the sink area, with towel bars on the door to the outside, stays dry. The flooring is 1" x 1" tile set in sheets, the walls are 5" x 7" rectangles set in a running bond pattern and the ceiling is the same tile as the walls but in a 12" square. All of them are the color of the sand on our beach, we are not clean freaks and wanted it to blend in as much as possible.

I heartily recommend the wetroom with door to the outside for just what you said, hosing off sandy feet, drying bathing suits and in general keeping sand out of the house, well, as much as possible, that is.

sandyponder

Hi Sandyponder,

In a completely unrelated it's a small world detour, I have been to Sandy Pond many times as a teenager. I miss upstate NY summers and falls but white outs and black ice and lake effect and endless gray days have scared me away permanently.

My kids will never know the disappointment of trick or treating in the snow AND going to Easter service in the snow. Unfortunately, they are very familiar with high humidity, frizzy hair and "palmetto" bugs.

Sandy Pond is a lovely place.

Dee

I am also a "completionist," hence the many unspecified items for our house. I dislike nearly every option I see (and am this way about clothing lately as well) and determined I'm going to wait for the right thing to come along for many of our rooms at the moment.

Threeapples I don't know that it is so much that you dislike everything, but like me, you are looking for very specific types of things to fit your very specific house. We are looking for "period appropriate" when it comes to most things, and your job is hard because you are looking for "appropriate to formal colonial revival while meeting modern sensibilities". That's limiting.:)

sandyponder, thanks for the recommendation! I had included it as a want in my list for my architect, I might move it up to a need!

Oh, deee, you are so right, it is a very lovely and special place, and living here is like being on vacation all the time. I didn't grow up here, and I really can't say exactly why we moved here 9 years ago, but it was the right decision for us, we truly love it here. Hope you get to bring your kids to the pond someday, it really is a special place.

sochi, sorry for upselling you on the wetroom, but we do find it handy. Good luck with your build.

sandyponder

newdawn1895 hahahaha ....R O S E BUUDDD.... thanks for the laugh.

I always said I didn't want to die falling off a ladder while repainting the living room for the third time in a week and the neighbors shaking their heads saying well she died decorating, whatever, shrug and walk away, lol : ) I listened and am not nearly like I was when I was younger, now I just frustrate my own self... : ))

Everything is so ugly. Everything is so boring.

This is exactly what I was thinking after we spent a couple of hours walking around a big mall, only because it was freezing but I wanted to walk. It might not have pushed me over the edge as much as it did, had I not also been looking at thousands of cabinet knobs and faucets and hinges and every other damn thing you can put in a kitchen.

I know you're talking about not being able to find specific things. I have that problem, too. The 1920s faucets that were still almost universal in utility sinks when I was a kid are now special order high priced items.

But I also think things in general look repulsive. Crate & Barrel seems to have bet its entire product line on the 587th revival of the 1970s we've had to endure over the past two decades. In each object in the store, ugly fights with boring to see which will emerge as dominant. There is not one single dinner service that you could call elegant without laughing, and more than a few you could lose your lunch on as soon as you ate it. I know some here swear by PB but it is worse than ever, everything dull as death and clunky as an elephant's foot.

Things that might've been somewhat interesting when they were novel ten years ago, like "vintage" faucets, have been overdone and dumbed down to idiocy. There never was a real vintage faucet that had those big knobs on top with sheep hook spouts, and all those pull downs look like something you'd be embarrassed to touch in polite company.

I guess it's cheaper to shave all the fine edges off everything than to produce items with the slightest character or delicacy, whether they are traditional or modern. The sad part is no one even seems to notice. Consumers are eager to show they will be no trouble to their Chinese manufacturers.

Preach it Marcolo. I couldn't agree more....we've been punked. We're the suckers who gave our country away and now we have to borrow money from them to exist. Our young people don't even know the difference. They weren't around when you could buy something that was honestly manufactured with dignity and quality in mind to please and court the consumer. Because the manufacturers were "us" we had a dog in the fight with pride and excitement to see our own. Sadly, when we are all gone, it will be the end of an era where anyone even remembers what the original looked like that is now called vintage in some grotesque import imitation. I weep for my country. So much has been lost.

In the accidental hipster thread, this process is involved.

The house in the original post is filled with modernist furniture that was new around the time the house was new, designed in the 50s to about 1970.

As dreary as the color scheme is, in that 1970s way (the house has been filled with brown paneling), the furniture physically "fits" in the house...it is the right scale.

Now some of these pieces are iconic and get good prices on the vintage market, although they are not astronomical.

But the newly produced versions of furniture like this are Very expensive, no longer furniture of the masses as it was meant to be. A schoolfriend's parents' living room was full of Adrian Pearsall furniture, and my friend's father worked in a factory and made high 4, low 5 figures.

Now the furniture that is produced for the masses is based on 2x4 construction, cardboard and foam and is enormous.

The houses in that thread, never large, look Stuffed with all this overstuffed overwrought furniture.

re: marcolo's rant - my parents' early 1960s house was recently sold. It was, and still is, a modest, small-roomed, split level although in an area close enough to a high-priced zip code to pull prices up such that the words "starter home" would raise eyebrows. I think the houses in that area sell to people who might have small condos or apartments, want to be close to that pricy zip code, but won't be affording it any time soon.

One of the things I dearly wanted to take from that house before it was listed: a solid stone utility sink with its original faucets. I have no idea how much the sink would cost today as a repro or as made by craftsmen, suffice to say, not in most people's budgets. Certainly not in mine.

It was impossible to remove interesting elements before house listing because over the years my parents had done what so many people do: they "upgraded." Like so many people, they "upgraded" with what magazines, advertising, and stores told them was desirable (i.e., trendy) at the time. The result was that most of the easily moved interesting elements, some of which were probably well made relative to today, were long gone. One of the few things I snagged was the DR fixture, an early 1960s thing my parents had bought but with, unfortunately, one chipped shade. I replaced it with the cheapest fixture I could find at Home Depot. But so what? It was new. An "upgrade"!

At Christmas time, with my dad's approval, I removed the tole ceiling fixtures from the kid's bedrooms and replaced them with plain, white, melon shade fixtures: the least "droopy boob" looking ones I could find at a low price. Not nearly as nice as the originals, which would be considered outdated by most buyers, and replaced anyway.

Also to be removed will be the chandeliers in the MBR and dining room, and the tole bouillotte fixture in the eat-in kitchen.

I don't really know what the relative price of Danish modern furniture was when it was new, but I do know that the only two families that I knew that had it were working class. But it wasn't Hans Wegner modern from Denmark, for example.

However, the closest things to the folding chair (Fritz Hansen) is $750; and two similar armchair versions by Hans Wegner still produced (Carl Hansen & Sons), retail for $3500-4500. Those aren't really prices that are accessible to the masses for a folding chair or armchairs.

Re marcolo's rant: "Everything is so ugly. Everything is so boring." And that is why I wound up, after weeks of looking at cr&p, designing my own front door (hopefully it isn't ugly or boring) and after months of looking at ugly wrought iron railings for our stairs, tweaking a pattern that I saw to make it fit the look of our house and having it custom-done.

If I could have afforded to design my own lights I would have done so.

It gets tedious going into store after store and seeing the same stuff over and over again. It didn't take long before I could walk into a store and with hardly a peek know whether it was worth entering. And don't get me started on quality.

Funny you should mention dinner ware - I have been looking for something decent for over 2 years now. I want something elegant without being frou-frouish, something with a little something on it, perhaps a little colour, but no flowers or birds or bows. And I'm definitely not artistic enough to design my own. (oh and I don't get the attraction of Fiesta Ware - there I said it.)

Pal

My parents were college professors, and did some time before tenure at the University of North Dakota.

My mother still speaks of some of the lovely Danish Modern furniture that some of their colleagues had. Back in the day at least in that region a lot of the folks had Nordic heritage.

So a young married professional couple paying their way through school would have been able to purchase that type of thing.