BrittanyMakes

It’s been a couple weeks since I updated you on our main bath progress. I didn’t bridge the gap between last two updates very well, so today I’m going to fill you in on how we got from no grout to the almost finished product. We still don’t have a mirror, or a shower door. I refuse to hang a shower curtain and cover up all that beautiful tile. So until we throw down on a frame-less shower door, we’ll continue using our garage bathroom until all is complete.

Here we were a few weeks ago, tile was up but not yet grouted.

I remember clearly, it was at this point I wasn’t convinced one way or the other to go with black or white grout on the walls. Our tile guy was really great with us, he mocked up two sample boards, one with white grout and the other with black. Initially I was leaning towards black grout for two reasons, it helped define the pattern and is the classic choice when you think of subway tile. We ended up choosing white grout for two completely different reasons, white hides any imperfections in the tile job, and although we inspected every element of these walls and the imperfections were slim to none, dark grout can make a beautiful tile job go bad REALLY fast. I felt that the risk of regretting the grout decision weighed heavier with black grout over white. The second reason I realized was the black grout would look a little busy in this small bathroom, and distract from the other elements in the space that should really be more in the spotlight, like the vanity and the floors.

White grout it was!

I think I just purred.

The tile wraps from the door frame around the shower and back to the opposite wall about two feet. I had our contractor install ship lap on the opposite wall, which wraps around the door as well. I’m really happy we did this, I love the look of ship lap!

Next, we installed the vanity! OH how I LOVE this vanity. This was my first go at customizing a piece of furniture, and since I like being honest, it was part headache and part a total dream. I would definitely do this again. But differently. So many lessons learned with this piece.

 

One of the headaches with the vanity was over the marble remnant. The cabinet builder we used works with a marble shop, literally right next door. All we needed for the vanity was a marble remnant measuring 20″x 40″, basically a really tiny left over piece. I went to the neighboring marble shop, picked out a slab that I loved (so far so good!), and requested a quote for fabrication as our contractor would install. I waited 4 days.. 7 days.. 10 days! 10 days before they sent me a quote. OK fine I understated our project is small, but you’d think the quote would come a lot faster, right? Maybe the business world has me jaded, that turning things around same day is too much to ask for? Whatever.. anyway, so we finally got the quote, 10 days later. Can you guess how much they quoted us?

$1500!!!!!!!!!!!

What the! Did you just fat finger an extra zero?! No, thank you. I’ll continue my search.

I was estimating like $400, maybe. So I went home, complained a little to our contractor and he offered to check out some places in his neighborhood. We also talked about a sad fact – if the homeowner (me, a woman, shopping for a remnant in the middle of the day looking like a rich stay-at-home wife-y) goes shopping they’re bound to get quoted double, maybe quadruple the price compared to if the contractor (a work-boot wearing sweaty dude) shopped for the remnant and mentions self install. The truth hurts. Our contractor was able to get the remnant you see above for $350, including fabrication! There’s still a lot of sex-ism out there. Whatever, I saved a ton of money having him shop for us!

 

Here she is! Remnant installed, gorgeous light fixtures installed, hardware installed. Although this mirror-less thing is seriously cramping my style.

SOURCES: // Matte back hex tile // Matte black wall mount faucet // brass wall sconces // brass knobs // white vessel sink // white subway tile // gold dipped light bulbs

Catch up on the remodel!

• Bathroom demo
• The bathroom design
• Tiling the walls
• Vanity progress