Thank you for the EXACT details of how to order that exact configuration of drawers as a sink base. When I went to IKEA they showed me how to use their computer program (which I've played with at home, it's really fun)but no one said there were any options for cabinets other than those on display. I'm so ridiculously psyched about this! I can't wait to show my husband. Our bathroom reno was originally supposed to be major but once the quotes came in it got progressively tinier and we are now leaving the existing tile (but getting it professionally cleaned and regrouted), leaving the existing floor plan (but putting in a new bigger window to let more light and air in). Instead of a stone or quartz countertop we're using laminate or butcher block. Instead of custom cabs it's IKEA. Believe it or not, I think I'm gonna be just as happy with this more minor reno. Sometimes the problem with spending a ton of money on something is that it's a let down when you are not delighted with every single thing. Your bathroom just came out so beautifully! If ours looks half as good I'll be happy.

Hi Blessedbe. I used to live in an incredible Streamlined Deco apartment building built in 1940, with terrazzo floors, glass block walls & steel casement windows with metal Venetian blinds 12 feet wide--the widest made--and although it's been 25 years since I lived there, I still love that sleek look. OK, so you don't mention whether your whole place is, like mine was, actually of the period, or if it's newer construction, and you also don't say whether you're going for an authentic period look--as though your bath might have been decorated during the era & somehow survived intact till now, or whether you're making a room that's about the era & the style. They're two totally different things. Either way, forget Maxfield Parrish & Alphonse Mucha. Both were wonderful artists, but they're both way earlier, and their lush colors & lavishly ornamental style have nothing to do with the slick, high-contrast style typical of late Art Deco that you're after. In fact, when Bette Davis' elegant movie characters were swooning about in sleek penthouses & nightclubs, both Mucha's & Parrish's artwork would have been considered hopelessly old-fashioned, and all that adding them into the mix would do is muddy the concept. Paris & San Francisco, on the other hand, were both sophisticated & up-to-date, with plenty of shops & theatres & apartments & hotels executed in just the glamourous style you're after. In fact, Paris' exhibition in 1937 & San Francsco's in 1939 represent the pinnacle of the style's development just before the dark days of WWII put a sudden end to the party. But watch out if you're thinking about using photos: there are a lot of classic photos of both cities that, like the Mucha & Parrish posters, would only confuse your decor. The Eiffel Tower is too old by half a century to say anything about the Art Deco era, and while the Golden Gate bridge is an icon of 1930s design, neither image would have been used to decorate a bathroom of the period. Nor would a picture of Bette Davis, talented though she was. No, those things--movie star portraits, photos of landmarks of the period, vintage magazine ads for, say, Evening in Paris perfume or Packard automobiles, covers from Fortune magazine or Vogue, colorful fruit crate labels, vintage travel posters featuring the Pan-American Clipper or the 2oth Century Limited--while perfect for a room that's ABOUT the period/style, are all wrong for a bathroom that's meant to look as though it's FROM the same period. OK, maybe a struggling actress or a shopgirl living on the cheap in an efficiency apartment might hang a picture of Bette Davis in her tiny bathroom, but only becasue she could tear it out of a magazine for free and hang it in a ten-cnt frame from Woolworth's. But a wall full of ads & commerical art wasn't likely to appeal to most people, even if they wanted to hang artwork in their baths, which generally, they didn't. For the upper classes--the target audience, after all, for the styles that we call (thanks to Kelly Werstler & Bevis Hiller) Hollywood Regency & Art Deco--the whole point of 1930s baths was Glamour Without Fussiness. That's why they went for rich or striking new materials on the walls--marble, Vitrolite, colored or engraved mirror--and often, strong color in the fixtures: by making beauty inherent in the materials themselves, they could eliminate superfluous ornamental touches. You wouldn't have found pretty crocheted doilies or dainty flower arrangements or frilly curtains in any high-style bathroom of the period. As Belle Watling said in 1939, "It wouldn't be fittin'." So, if you want a true period look but you still want a bit of decoration, you might try adding a stenciled (or taped) border (a zigzag, or a Greek key, or a very-authentic angel-fish-&-bubbles motif in black & one other color--there are lots of possibilities) just above the tiles or just below the ceiling. Stenciled & painted designs are an authentic look, because a border is actually part of the room rather than something in the room. And, on the other hand, if you're doing a room that's not intended in any way to be authentic but one that's, rahter, ABOUT the period, you have a lot more possiblities beyond the obvious cliches. If it's photos you want, look at the striking black-&-white images that Hedrich-Blesing took for the 1933 World's Fair here in Chicago. Their lustrous shot of the Chrysler building at night has gotta be the most drop-dead glamorous photo of the whole century. I think you can buy a reproduction from the Library of Congress. Or check out Ewdard Weston's work, if you don't know it. Once you've seen his voluptuous, suggestive photgraphs of produce, you'll never look at a green pepper the same way again. For Art Deco drawings, look up Hugh Ferris' work. His renderings of Hoover Dam are awesome. For posters, look at the work of A.M. Cassandre, or Joseph Binder, whose graphic work between the wars is some of the most powerful ever. And since this approach is not really authentic for the period, anyway, there's one more image that would fit in just fine with the style & also with the black-&-white scheme you've already got going on: Richard Estes' iconic painting "Drugs" from the Art Institute of Chicago. It's a 196Os piece, but the subject is a classsic late-1930s facade in curved black Vitrolite & bent glass, and I bet the AIC has it in reproduction. I hope this suggests the two different approaches you can take as you finish your room. Be sure to post some pics when you get your room the way you want. Regards, Magnaverde.

We have a 1907 arts and crafts style house and have recently redone a 70's bathroom. Throughout the house are dark beams and moldings, etc. In the bathroom we put white subway tile (cream grout) in the bath/shower area and white octagonal tile (slate gray grout) on the floor. We got craftsman style moldings to put around the ceiling area and a narrow shelf-type molding around the top of the wainscotting. (The 'wainscotting' was actually previously stained cedar on the walls and ceiling.) I put primer over the stained cedar and painted the ceiling and all woodwork with Benjamin Moore 'white chocolate.' The walls are now painted Benj.M. 'powell buff.' We kept the built-in cabinetry and a large mirror that slides open to store towels and toiletries. I also did as much of the work as I could (which was mostly a little wall work and a lot of painting.) We purchased a new toilet, tub, sink and fixtures, a large and small light fixture, wood moldings, supplies, paint and the cost of two guys working for a few days to install tub, raise counter height several inches and put on a new countertop and install the tile. The total cost for everything was about $10,000. I love the new (old) look. If I could have anything different I would have liked either a clawfoot tub or pedestal sink or both. But what we did actually looks very nice and we are very pleased.

In the master I'm going to have a mosaic I will have done of some scene in Oregon, in DD's bath I have framed vintage ads, one for Ivory soap and one for Kohler, waiting for her. (sorry no pics--although I will tell you that if you use a vintage print ad and you have any natural light, make *sure* to use UV-protective glass, because daylight will fade it *fast*). In our public bath we have a Hiroshige of a harbor waiting for us to redo the room--it was my mother's and I have kept the very mid-century (not my style mid-century, but hers) matting and framing out of honor to her. (It also happens to go with our color choices in there.) robyn, love that second piece, even if it is "in there" :)