Focus On: Master Bathroom

The master bathroom just might be my favorite room in the house. From the beginning I had a vision of it looking like a spa, with lots of cool blue and green tones, so that was where the majority of the inspiration came from. However, with a 20x40 townhouse it was impossible to create a huge, spacious dream bathroom so we had to be practical. Once the overall layout of the house was decided, we moved the master bathroom back towards the rear of the house about 6 feet. The area before was a small, unusable storage room.

We had our guest bathroom downstairs with much more space so we decided to opt for a tub down there and simple a spacious, kick ass shower upstairs.

Here is the master bathroom framed out. Where the salmon paint residue is was the site of the old bathroom. :

We knew the master bedroom would have a door out to the balcony of the sunroom, so we used the existing window opening (with some new framing) to create a window for the master bath

Fast forward a few months with pluming, framing and sheetrock complete, we began creating the shower pan which runs the entire width of the bathroom

Cement board was put up where the tile border would be

Tile selection proved to be quite an arduous process. I knew I wanted tiny 1x1 glass tiles in the shower but the cost of most tile like that (around $25 per square foot) made things cost prohibitive. But after months and months of searching for the right (and reasonably priced) tile to base the bathroom around, success was found at Walker Zanger, with their Spa Glass series which ran around $13 per square foot. We choose the pool blend of green and blues. Finding complimentary floor tiles also proved difficult, until we stumbled upon the "Thossoss White and Ming Green" mosaic tile from SMC Stone in Greenpoint. We also got 4x4 ming green tiles to create a boarder around the floor. We chose Ralph Lauren's "Baltic Green" paint from their Vintage Masters Collection for the walls.

Here is the color/tile palette

The glass tile came in 12 x 12 sheets that needed to be aligned extremely carefully on the walls. Sheets were put up, removed, and reinstalled again and again until every little 1 inch glass tile lined up as perfectly as possible. Tim stands off to the side admiring his handiwork…

We also tiled the entire floor of the shower pan and a bench on one side of the shower. We made sure the pan had a slight pitch to it towards the drain

For the floor we did a ring of 4 x 4 ming green tiles towards the outside border and put a ring of the 1 x 2 white tiles from the mosaic around that to break up the space to the 4 x 4 backsplash tile border. The toilet is a Kohler Serif Comfort Height elongated with awesome top lift-know flush actuator. I know I'm about to sing the praises of a toilet seat, but this one is crazy well designed! It has a "QuietClose" function where the lid slowly and gently closes even if you try to slam it. And believe me I tried! It also has a quick release so you can simply take the seat off, clean around the connectors (which always get grungy) and clip back on the seat super easily!

For the final detailing on the shower pan we used white/gray marble pieces from Home Depot cut to size and 1 x 4 pieces of the 4x4 ming green tile for accenting between the bench and the wall and in the threshold. Figuring out tile transitions that made sense was a bit of a challenge, but we managed to come up with some pretty creative solutions. The empty space on the bottom right is for the glass divider, installed later. Oh and cats love benches.

The sink is a Hastings Zero 100 sink with aluminum and glass stand with shelf. The faucet is our pride and joy—a HansaCanyon temperature sensitive LED faucet. Frivolous? Yes. Awesome? You bet your ass it is.

Bonus photo! Faucet in the dark, in action!

Another bonus—kitty drinking out of color changing faucet video!

For the shower enclosure we opted to not really close much in. The bathroom was fairly small and we didn't want to close off the space of hide our nice tile so we put a ¾ inch thick piece of safety glass along the shower pan and left the other side open. In the window we put a glass unit of frost laminate and acid etched glass. Cause we wanted to let light in but didn't want the backyard neighbors to see us showering…

Also seen in this photo, on top left is the aluminum and laminated glass shelf from Ikea to store bath products up and out of the way—keeps all our décor lines clean. On the right is our awesome shower tower…more on that later…

More cool LED faucet, this time with 8 inch ming green tile backsplash

And what's a great bathroom without a fantastic mirror? Seen here, the Artemide REZEK mirror wall

For storage, two Ikea Baren aluminum and glass wall cabinets hung next to each other and a Lagio small chest of drawers from TopdeQ. Can you spot the tiny rubber ducks? No bathroom is complete without them.

But by far the best part of the bathroom is the shower tower. To be precise it's a Hansgrohe Starck X shower wall. Hansgrohe and/or Starck should be paying me a percentage for how much I hype this thing up. Everyone who has ever spent the night at my place has been awed by its extreme shower awesomeness. And believe me; I don't give out that title lightly. We wanted a spa-like bathroom complete with lots of jets of water, but the installation of separate jets throughout the shower seems time consuming and costly. We opted for it all in one unit, the rain head, the six jets and the wand, all in a sleek aluminum packaging with storage for bath-related goodies on either side. This shower is the best thing ever.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Wow! It looks "like something out of a magazine". I love the colors and textures of the tiles you chose. They really "pop", and it's very relaxing!

[Tijmen Stam/IIVQ]

Wow, so nice! I especially like the small bathroom tiles, how is it possible that in one of the intermediate hotos you see all the 12x12 tiles being crooked and showing the lines, and in the end they're all perfectly aligned.

[dana]

thanks Jennifer--that is exactly what I was going for.

thanks Trijmen--I think what you are seeing is the lines left between each 12 x 12 tile when they are fastened to the wall. Later, when the tiles are solidified on the wall, the whole thing is grouted over and cleaned off so the grout lines between the 1 x 1 tiles even out with the lines between the 12 x 12 sheets. Make sense? And while the overall effect is extremely even, there are some imperfections--they might just be noticiable to me though!

[Carol Costa]

I'm going to have Ming Green (12 x 12") pieces installed on the floor or my bathroom and on all sides and floor of my shower. Can you help me understand what I'm up against regarding installation?

I'm told to have my installor use Latapoxy 300 Adhesive, a very strong epoxy thin set.

Any suggestions on how to do a successful installation? I understand also that we need to seal the marble before installation (with an Impregnator) and also after installation.

Right?

Carol