Oh, the love hate relationship I have with our master bathroom. I dream of the day I can soak in our salvaged claw foot tub, surrounded by freshly painted wainscoting, basking in the glory of the beautiful Carrara marble and sparkling polished nickel fixtures. But sadly, those days are still months and roughly 142 "to do" list items away from being even close to a reality.
While Alex has been toiling away on restoring the drafty and disgusting window in the room, I've been no slouch on my own. Rather than sitting idly by in the bullpen waiting for a construction task, I've been immersed in the world of tile and fabric, a world both exhilarating and overwhelming all at the same time. A world where color, pattern, and inspiration abound, but seeds of buyers remorse and indecision creep up like the tendrils of ivy on our courtyard wall.
Truth be told, I've been hunting for a suitable tile (well, stone to be exact) option for this room for years, and though many potentially viable candidates have presented themselves along the way, I have never swayed from my desire for a Carrara marble hexagon tile. I've spent a fair amount of time poring over samples from various stores, and for a short time even debated a 1" vs. 2" mosaic, but I feel I've finally settled on a winner. Although larger format tiles would be more practical in a room of this size (from both an installation and grout maintenance perspective), I'm a purist at heart. I know our bathroom redo won't fool anyone into thinking it's an "original" bathroom in our 1880s victorian, but I'd like to pull in some elements that one might have found in a home of our age so it looks and feels more appropriate to the period. My desire for a somewhat historically accurate material selection helped me rule out the 2 inch hexagon.
Primarily I've been researching various online companies in addition to visiting local stone showrooms, and I've purchased an array of 1" honed Carrara marble samples to choose from. From my experience, I can highly recommend ordering samples from different companies because you get a better feel of the product's color and shading, variation and prominence of veining within a sheet, and the thickness of the tiles themselves. In most cases, samples run approximately $5-$10 each with free shipping. If you ask me, I think that's a very reasonable price when making such an expensive purchase, especially for a large room.
Ordering the samples has helped us to narrow down the company we'd like to use (I'll be sure to share the name once the order is placed and tiles arrive to our satisfaction), and I feel that's one big item we're able to mark complete on our design checklist.
If you've been following along, you may remember I've also been wrestling with fabric options. I have to send out a huge thank you to everyone who commented and suggested great resources for fabrics. I spent a lot of time researching these sites, as well as borrowing fabric swatches from local stores. The number one goal I've been shooting for is a fabric that will work well with our slightly off white trim and will pull in shades of gray and turquoise that will work well with our adjoining master bedroom color palette.
Last week I came home armed with a variety of swatches, and held them up against a tile sample and the trim color we'll be using in the space. Here's a glimpse into my list of final contenders:
While I liked the fabric below in the store, the background looked too creamy against the cool undertones of the tile. I also decided I wasn't crazy about the pattern, specifically the sand dollar looking blob that's part of the repeat. I'm rather certain that I'd pretty much stare at that item and that item alone once it was in a much larger setting.
A second choice that appealed to me in the store I also quickly ruled once I had it home. I'm not sure why, but I tend to be drawn to stripes both in my decorating and personal wardrobe, but I already have striped curtains in our bedroom, and these stripes are totally different than those stripes, so we'd just have competing stripes all over the place. While I loved the color and had entertained the idea of hanging the stripe horizontally rather than vertically, I ultimately felt it would have brought in just too many stripes, especially next to the vertical lines of the wainscoting.
The third fabric I laid out finally started to jive a bit better with the feel I'd like to achieve. It's fun, whimsical pattern appealed to me and I love the deep charcoal berries as well as the softer shade of gray in the leaves. While I can't say this is the one and only, it's definitely one of the front runners of the bunch and still has a chance with the selection committee.
Now that we've broken the ice with a genuine contender in our list, let's hope for a few more winners. This next fabric I really love as well in terms of its simplicity and more classic design, but the fabric is limited to colors of ivory and turquoise only. I think the gray would still work, but I'd feel better about it if it had a bit more color variation.
Okay. I'm going to be honest here and tell you that I'm totally obsessed with this next fabric! I love that it's not too masculine, not too feminine, and it's still a strong and simple pattern. I want to love it so much and feel I should drape it all over the bathroom, but back to my earlier point about color, I'm not sure if it's colorful enough for what I'm going for. So this lovely gem of a pattern may not work in our bathroom, but, hmm, I wonder if I can make it work in our living room? Maybe it's time for a little refresh in there. Wait, what am I saying?? Must. not. start. another. project.
This final fabric we're considering is what I'd call "imitation crewel." If you've not heard of crewel before it's when the design is intricately stitched into the fabric rather than printed onto the fabric, but it's quite expensive. This particular sample looks like the more expensive crewel fabric (Alex actually thought it was the real thing) and I love the colors! It has several shades of gray, the ("pop" is simply overused) of turquoise that I love, and it even offers a bit of an acid greenish yellow. This little fella is currently is sitting atop our fabric selection bathroom picks.
Seeing the fabrics in person, next to the future tile and trim color really help with the decision making process. From my experience I can tell you that choosing fabrics and tile can be overwhelming when you don't know where to start or which direction to head, but now that I'm narrowing in on my preferred look and design, I feel I have some really good options that could work quite nicely. While we're not to the point of clicking the order button just yet (my finger is nervously quivering above the mouse, I assure you), I'm thrilled to be to a point where I'm making some big time design decision progress in our project. It sure beats spending my time descending the basement stairs to pay a frustration-inducing visit to my dusty claw foot tub. One day my cast iron friend, one day.
Do you have an opinion on the fabrics shown above? Or do you have a go to tile or fabric resource that you'd like to share? I'd love to hear your two cents.
