I Design, You Decide: The Mountain Fixer Powder Bath

I do believe this is our second to last bathroom to design in this house (stay tuned for the upstairs guest bath still to come). Remember when I was designing nine bathrooms at the same time? Talk about an education in bathroom design, crash course edition. It feels like I had to write a well-informed senior thesis, but I missed all the lectures during the semester and had to figure it out all on my own. All of which I can’t wait to tell you about (and yes, book #2 is happening, folks and it’s not just about bathrooms).

The powder bath is small, typically off the first floor and mostly for guests, but you still want to have a good experience. Previously it was a full bath, like so:

But since another full bath is right behind it, we decided to make it smaller and make that bathroom bigger.

Here you can see what we thought we were going to do with the powder bath (i.e. it would be a traditional guest bath) next to where we landed, which is much more compact but perfect for guests to pop in and out of.

For the fixtures, faucets and accessories of this bathroom, we partnered with Kohler again. The exciting part about this specific product was we got to pull from their new Components line which is pretty darn beautiful (and super customizable so you can get EXACTLY what you want).

Components Tube Spout | Components Industrial Handles | Components Towel Arm | Corbelle Toilet | Components Toilet Paper Holder

Here’s how this line works: First, you pick your spout from three different profiles (we went with the Tube, but there’s also a “Ribbon” and “Row”…all of which are really stunning, simple and modern), then you pair it with either a rocker handle or the more industrial round handle trim we opted for. It currently comes in two finishes (polished chrome and matte black), but they’re releasing titanium and brushed nickel next year. The matte black is the perfect finish and man, the shape is so beautiful and clean.

We used the same toilet here (Corbelle) that we did in the kids’ bathroom but paired it with a matte black handle to tie in with the Components faucet and accessories. A few highlights about this toilet that are pretty darn cool (or at least, make my life a little easier): Kohler offers its ContinuousClean feature, which together with their CleanCoat technology and Revolution360 swirl flush, fights germs and features their “cleanest flush yet.” I broke down more info on this technology in the kids’ bath post (see that here), but as a refresher, it keeps things clean by dispensing a constant dosage of a cleaning tablet, which means less scrubbing on your own.

After the faucet and accessories line was chosen, I fell right in love with this mosaic tile from Clé (it’s not available just yet, but it’s coming soon).

We started creating the mood board and threw all the products together and it’s looking pretty fun, but certainly a little busier than the rest of the house is coming along.

Components Tube Spout | Components Industrial Handles | Tile | Pendant | Mirror | Components Towel Arm | Corbelle Toilet | Components Toilet Paper Holder | Vanity Marble

At first, we had a 36-inch vanity (Tresham, from Kohler) on that wall but once we finalized the floor plan of the house, we realized it could (and should be) much bigger and while we could have ordered a 60-inch vanity, a custom built-in wall-to-wall vanity got us super excited. It will be custom made from Bedrosians stone. We loved the idea of floating it, but wanted to add some storage or at least somewhere to put toilet paper in a cute wood basket.

The Allied Maker pendants are pretty amazing as the light shines down into the glass that hangs from a leather strap. The flooring will be the same wood as the living room which is still TBD, but we wanted to put in something to reference the warmth they will bring to the space in the rendering (otherwise everything might feel too cold without it).

But as we were staring at these renderings, we realized that this bathroom isn’t feeling like the rest of the house as much. It goes somehow more “boutique contemporary hotel” than “modern mountain.”

The tile in person has a rustic vibe, but it is busier and might just be jarring in this application. At the same time, it’s a powder room and if you are going to take a risk, this is where you do it, right? If we used a wallpaper instead of the tile, it would likely be just as graphic, so…

But then I fell in love with this tile, also from Clé. It’s a terra-cotta tile with the most BEAUTIFUL hand-glazed blue finish. It is matte, but has a lot of movement and that color is my color.

This board came together rather quickly which is always a good sign.

Components Tube Spout | Components Industrial Handles | Tile | Pendant | Components Towel Arm | Corbelle Toilet | Components Toilet Paper Holder | Vanity Marble

I love how the Components line pops off the tile more since it’s solid on solid. I’m really into how this room is simpler, more understated and works with the rest of the house so well.

But a true I Design, You Decide couldn’t be just a switch of a tile, so we tweaked the vanity (not having it go to the floor) which the design team prefers, while I’m on the fence. I like both, honestly, but I do like that this one feels less heavy (against a darker backdrop of that tile, it’s nice to have an airiness). I think I might prefer the smaller scale of the pendants here, and the wood certainly adds some warmth, plus the scale and shape of the pill-shaped mirror (which would have to be custom made) just works so well in here to soften the harder marble lines. I’m a massive fan of mixing round with square and have in every room. For instance, a square pendant with a rectangle mirror would just feel too harsh and modern with the rectangle brick and the vanity. It’s important to find a balance in shapes so nothing is too angular (or too flowy if, say, everything had a round profile).

This vote is a little different because we all prefer the simpler blue tile version and we REALLY hope you do, too, but I didn’t want it to feel like a cop-out or a forced choice either. We really tried to create two versions that look great and are inspiring, we just all saw the second version and said “yup, that’s good.”

Generally, you guys have voted for some riskier options (hello green quartzite in kids bath), but I also know how much you guys want this house to be cohesive and make sense (hint, hint). So we’ll still put it up for a vote and just cross our fingers. 🙂

[SBEH_POLLS poll_id=”167318″][SBEH_GIVEAWAY_ENTRY id=”167318″]