It all started with a little stroll around Floor and Decor. While I was waiting for my order for Project Concrete Condo to be pulled, I couldn’t help but do a little meandering. (P.S. the contractors are killing it right now on that project, and I can’t wait to share the after pictures!) I stumbled across some beautiful penny tile that just totally struck me as the perfect choice for our master bathroom update. And then, as they always do, the ideas started snowballing.
For reference, our master bathroom is pretty much a beige box. The walls are a light creamy yellow, the floors and shower are large-scale beige tiles, the vanity is a medium wood tone with a light stone top. It’s just very blah. And to be honest, beige just doesn’t really work for us. There’s an oversized, unframed, mirror, a basic light fixture, and the satin finish on the faucets is chipping.
Basically, this space just doesn’t have a lot of personality. And it’s been about 10 years since most of this work was done, so a lot of the finishes are showing a good amount of wear.
So the basic plan? We’re calling it Modern Nautical. We share a great love of the ocean, and Ben especially loves to sail, so we felt like this was a perfect room to add a little touch of that. It can be tough to do a room with inspiration like this without things getting too “theme-y” (#firstworldproblems, obviously). I’m all about a beach house that embraces that vibe, but for our home in the middle of Atlanta, I think it’s better to veer away from anything too kitschy. We do already have a few touches of this style going with our boat cleat towel hooks and woven toilet paper holder, so this feels like a natural progression of those ideas:
Vanity Lights // Round Mirrors // Matte Black Faucets // Square Sink // Paint (at 50%) // Watercolor Print // Striped Towels // Glass Tile // Penny Tile // Handmade Sailboat // Anchor Cup // Seersucker Drape // Raindrop Drape // Wave Curtain // Light Kilim Rug // Woven Rug // Bright Stripes Rug
The blue penny tile is really the perfect choice for us- it’s dark (which helps a lot with all the black dog hair) but it still has a lot of movement and color variation. To contrast that and keep it simple, we want to add the white glass tiles, arranged vertically in the shower, as well as a very soft grey paint. There’s a small window in this room, but the shower niche area tends to feel pretty dark, so the white glass should really brighten it up and make that area feel more expansive.
The unframed mirror has got to go. We’d like to try and cut it down and turn it into a full-length mirror for the closet, but we’ve both been crushing on these round mirrors from Ikea for the fun shape and addition of the wood tone. We’d also love to makeover our existing vanity- it’s in good condition and is spacious, so there’s not a reason to replace it, it just needs a little Jenjamin mojo. We’d like to go with a charcoal color (similar to the finish on ) on the base, and replace the top with a butcher-block style. It’s likely we’ll do something fun and a little funky with the hardware, because why not?
Simple, clean rectangular sinks give it a modern touch, and I am obsessed with the idea of these black faucets. I love a touch of black in every room, and these feel so unique. I’m not a huge fan of the traditional faucet with separate handles, because I feel like they are more challenging to clean around the base. For even more modern feel, these gorgeous sconces are SO. GOOD. I love the brass tips, but the powder-coated white base can also be paired with wood accents at the bulbs, so basically it’s Sophie’s Choice on which finish we’ll go with.
For an additional dose of black, I think we’ll go with a black floating shelf behind the toilet, and add in some fun touches with the handmade sailboat and the oversized watercolor print I’ve been eyeing forever*.
*Forever= one year.
Verging on kitschy- but maybe I don’t care, is this sweet anchor cup from Urban Outfitters. We don’t really use a full suite of bath accessories, but a fun cup for toothbrushes, and a simple soap dispenser (probably in cobalt glass to match some existing items we’ll keep in the room) are all we really need. I love that it’s wall-mounted, so that’s one less thing on the countertop, and the brass touch ties in nicely to the sconces. The striped Turkish-style towels that we’ve been seeing a lot of lately could be pretty perfect for this new room. We’ve had our current plain towels for several years, and they’re not in amazing shape, so I’d be happy to replace them with these preppy/nautical ones.
Seersucker Drape // Raindrop Drape // Wave Curtain // Light Kilim Rug // Woven Rug // Bright Stripes Rug //
I’m still on the fence about the other textile-based accessories I’d like to go with, but I think those are so much easier to select toward the end of the project, once you’ve got all the other things in place and figured out. There are so many options for curtains and rugs, so I’m still open to ideas on that front. The shower is a glass door, but it would be nice to potentially add a drape covering the doorway to Ben’s closet since we removed that door to make more room. The rest of the room is pretty simple, so this is a nice place to add a touch of pattern and maybe even go bold. I’d also like to have a more fun rug in here, maybe something pretty colorful, and possibly something light to bring a little contrast to the darker floor. Those will probably be the last two things we add, after I’ve looked at way too many options, and then go back to something I saw first.
Via: Grafted Hardware // PopSugar // Dogberry Collections
A last, awesome, touch will be the addition of a barn door. The current door into the bathroom swings toward the vanity area, so if one of us is at the vanity, they have to move to let the other in. It would have been great if they had built this space with a pocket door, but- alas. It just makes sense for us to put a sliding door on the bedroom side and maximize space here. We’ll do a matching one at my closet (because the door to the room and the door to the closet slam into each other all the time, another questionable construction choice..) and it will create a great sense of balance in that room. We’d love to DIY a modern style with a graphic look and simple frame, so we can’t wait to tackle those!
We’re obviously going to stick to a budget, and this will probably be a slow-and-steady project, doing small things along the way. For the items we’re pretty set on, we’ve got an idea of costs we’re looking at, so I’m going to go ahead and put it out there that we can do all of this for under $1800. (Eeeek! That’s a terrifying thing to type, now I can be held accountable for my actions). We may not complete this one in a timely fashion, but we sure can’t wait to start!
[…] tackling here at J(M)V Style. A little while back we mentioned we had been thinking about our Modern Nautical Master Bathroom. And then… nothing happened. We were excited about the idea of taking on this project, but we […]