Final Bathroom Design

My Inspiration Board!

After many hours spent poring over Houzz and Pinterest, shopping tile stores in Chelsea, and comparing samples, I've decided that the bathroom in our 1940s mid-century apartment is going to be a modern take on the classic subway tile bathrooms of the era. 

Here's the plan.


The floor will be a hex—but not in the traditional marble or black and white. Heath Ceramics handcrafts a half hex mix in up to three colors of the designer's choice. I chose shade, shade light and chamois, inspired by my "inspiration" bathroom, by architect Mark Reilly:

Remodelista 

The wall tile will be white beveled subway tile.

The shower tile will be a contrasting dark gray subway:

 

The tub will be a deep soaking tub—the Kohler "Tea for Two." It won't be a jetted tub. I had one in a previous home and though the idea excited me, it turned out I rarely used the jets. But I do want it deep, and this Kohler tub is one of the deepest available. 

We'll undermount it beneath a statuario marble deck and we'll surround the tub with the same gorgeous marble, similar to this:

Houzz

For the sink, the Kohler Kathryn caught my eye with it's clean classic lines and beautiful art deco legs:

Kohler

But it was just too costly. When you buy a console sink, you actually have to buy all the pieces shown, separately. The sink top is one item. The sink bowl is another item. The legs, another. The faucets, too, of course. Plus, you need to buy the drain, and the trap—and the trap is exposed, so it has to be a "pretty" one. When I added up all the parts to this sink, the price tag came to about $4k—ouch! 

Talking myself down from that ledge, I considered that, though lovely, it presented more problems than solutions. I would have to match the tub marble to the sink marble—and I'd be bound by whatever the Kohler marble looked like. 

And how would I match it? It's not like I'm going to cart a marble sink top around to all the marble fabricators in Queens. I can't chip off a sample to carry around. Besides, the Kohler marble might not be a marble that looks good large, like on the sides of my deep-soaking tub.

What I really wanted, I realized, was the Kathryn legs under a plain white porcelain basin. So I called the good folks at Kohler to see if I could use the Kathryn legs with any of their other porcelain basins. The rep that I spoke with hedged a bit. He said he "couldn't recommend" using the legs with a sink top not designed for the purpose. He repeated several times that I could order the legs and frame and have my contractor read the specs. 

After hearing a few repetitions of this advice, I realized it was a wink nod—he wanted me to understand that while he couldn't recommend it (and have Kohler be responsible if anything went wrong), speaking with my contractor, I could probably figure it out. 

In my mind I had already made the leap from marble console to porcelain console. And a quick web search turned up this beauty - The Mason Console Sink—from Signature Hardware for just $600.

It is 30" wide, where the Kohler is just 24", which means it is going to take up a few more valuable inches in my 5x9 bathroom that could be used for storage. However, I'm confident that for way less than the $3,400 I'll be saving on the sink, some clever storage solution will present itself when the time comes. And in the end, we do have an entire linen closet outside the bathroom for storage.

Buying the sink was honestly a leap of faith—I've never purchased from Signature Hardware before and there is no bricks and mortar showroom where I could view the sink ahead of time—but I ordered the Mason sink and it arrived amazingly quickly, about four days later.

On a personal note: This was my very first delivery to our new apartment—and can I say how much I love having a doorman and porters who received the shipment for me AND held it until I got home from work AND helped me up the elevator with it? 

For apartment dwellers in cities like New York, receiving packages while you're at work can be a roadblock to renovating. But our new home is in a "full service" building. This is my first brush with the convenience of having a doorman. I'm a convert.

My Inspiration Board!

After many hours spent poring over Houzz and Pinterest, shopping tile stores in Chelsea, and comparing samples, I've decided that the bathroom in our 1940s mid-century apartment is going to be a modern take on the classic subway tile bathrooms of the era. 

Here's the plan.


The floor will be a hex—but not in the traditional marble or black and white. Heath Ceramics handcrafts a half hex mix in up to three colors of the designer's choice. I chose shade, shade light and chamois, inspired by my "inspiration" bathroom, by architect Mark Reilly:

Remodelista 

The wall tile will be white beveled subway tile.

The shower tile will be a contrasting dark gray subway:

 

The tub will be a deep soaking tub—the Kohler "Tea for Two." It won't be a jetted tub. I had one in a previous home and though the idea excited me, it turned out I rarely used the jets. But I do want it deep, and this Kohler tub is one of the deepest available. 

We'll undermount it beneath a statuario marble deck and we'll surround the tub with the same gorgeous marble, similar to this:

Houzz

For the sink, the Kohler Kathryn caught my eye with it's clean classic lines and beautiful art deco legs:

Kohler

But it was just too costly. When you buy a console sink, you actually have to buy all the pieces shown, separately. The sink top is one item. The sink bowl is another item. The legs, another. The faucets, too, of course. Plus, you need to buy the drain, and the trap—and the trap is exposed, so it has to be a "pretty" one. When I added up all the parts to this sink, the price tag came to about $4k—ouch! 

Talking myself down from that ledge, I considered that, though lovely, it presented more problems than solutions. I would have to match the tub marble to the sink marble—and I'd be bound by whatever the Kohler marble looked like. 

And how would I match it? It's not like I'm going to cart a marble sink top around to all the marble fabricators in Queens. I can't chip off a sample to carry around. Besides, the Kohler marble might not be a marble that looks good large, like on the sides of my deep-soaking tub.

What I really wanted, I realized, was the Kathryn legs under a plain white porcelain basin. So I called the good folks at Kohler to see if I could use the Kathryn legs with any of their other porcelain basins. The rep that I spoke with hedged a bit. He said he "couldn't recommend" using the legs with a sink top not designed for the purpose. He repeated several times that I could order the legs and frame and have my contractor read the specs. 

After hearing a few repetitions of this advice, I realized it was a wink nod—he wanted me to understand that while he couldn't recommend it (and have Kohler be responsible if anything went wrong), speaking with my contractor, I could probably figure it out. 

In my mind I had already made the leap from marble console to porcelain console. And a quick web search turned up this beauty - The Mason Console Sink—from Signature Hardware for just $600.

It is 30" wide, where the Kohler is just 24", which means it is going to take up a few more valuable inches in my 5x9 bathroom that could be used for storage. However, I'm confident that for way less than the $3,400 I'll be saving on the sink, some clever storage solution will present itself when the time comes. And in the end, we do have an entire linen closet outside the bathroom for storage.

Buying the sink was honestly a leap of faith—I've never purchased from Signature Hardware before and there is no bricks and mortar showroom where I could view the sink ahead of time—but I ordered the Mason sink and it arrived amazingly quickly, about four days later.

On a personal note: This was my very first delivery to our new apartment—and can I say how much I love having a doorman and porters who received the shipment for me AND held it until I got home from work AND helped me up the elevator with it? 

For apartment dwellers in cities like New York, receiving packages while you're at work can be a roadblock to renovating. But our new home is in a "full service" building. This is my first brush with the convenience of having a doorman. I'm a convert.