The North End Loft: bathroom fixtures

I've been so excited to reveal our new master bathroom to you. I have lots of photos, so here we go!

(I'll be mentioning what's what, but this isn't a sponsored post.)

This is the little alcove leading to our master bathroom from our bedroom. We uncovered and refinished the original 104 year-old Douglas Fir floors in both rooms. All the walls were painted with Benjamin Moore's White Dove in eggshell, and the woodwork is the same color in semi-gloss.

Our bathroom is tiny, measuring just 5-1/2' x 11', and we kept the same plumbing footprint as the old bathroom.

We added a new and much needed linen cabinet where there is an unusually thick wall. Here in front of this cabinet is our little dressing area.

We chose simple but heavy polished chrome knobs from Schaub.

A new electrical outlet inside the linen closet conveniently recharges small appliances out of sight.

We added another smaller cabinet over the toilet for toiletries.

The new Memoirs toilet by Kohler suits our old home well. We chose the taller version, and for anyone over munchkin size we highly recommend a taller toilet.

We told our contractor we wanted a new walk-in shower big enough to dance in, and we got it! We love the way the frameless glass enclosure seems to disappear, making our bathroom appear larger. The new casement window is fiberglass, and the tile installer wrapped and sealed it carefully so it won't leak.

Our shower controls are Weymouth by Moen, and the handheld shower head is the Adler, also by Moen. We were able to play with the shower heads at our plumbing supply showroom to make sure we got the water pressure we wanted. All our fixtures are polished chrome.

I love the white porcelain inserts.

We meticulously designed every feature of our new shower. We chose shiny white subway tile with light gray grout for the walls, with an accent line of gray tile. The plumbing supplier recommended having a second hook for the handheld shower near the quartz-topped bench, and we've used it a lot.

The shower floor is hexagon-shaped marble tiles with darker gray grout. We had the marble sealed and upgraded all the grout to one that resists mold and fading.

The tile border around the shampoo niche matches the border around the window.

A pony wall separates the shower and vanity and was capped with the same quartz as the counter and shower bench. This little wall goes all the way through the floor and was anchored from the crawl space below to support the weight of the glass door that's hinged off it. The 32" mirror frame over the vanity was built on the wall and then the glass was cut to fit inside it.

We love how far the Moen Weymouth faucet reaches over the sink, making it easy to fit our hands under it. And we love our Kohler Ladena rectangular sink, too. When we wash our faces, the water stays in the sink now instead of splashing on the counter.

The faucet handles have the same porcelain inserts as the shower fixtures, and I thought these Pottery Barn accessories almost looked made to match. In this picture you can see a little more of the color variation and depth of the pietre gray quartz from India. I went back and forth between marble and quartz, and in the end I liked the spa-like look and warmth of the quartz in our all white bathroom.

I've been looking for a tall bright pink orchid in a pretty white pot for this corner, but I haven't found one yet. So I tucked these flowers into our toothbrush holder to spare you from seeing our toothbrushes!

We wanted our new vanity to last a long time, just like our old vanity did. This one is actually made up of three separate cabinets attached together and has dovetailed drawers with really sturdy slides and hinges. All the new cabinets in our bathroom have soft close doors and drawers, and I'm totally spoiled by them now! We were able to fit in a 48" long vanity with three drawers for each of us. Yay! And we love the taller 35" counter height, too.

Here's a close up of the original Douglas Fir floors we had refinished. We love the one hundred year old patina and imperfections. Wood floors aren't the most practical choice for a bathroom, but we're fairly careful and don't slop a lot of water around. We'd never do this with kids! We held our breath when we took our first few showers because we didn't want to caulk our shower glass. (We were told the clear caulk would turn cloudy after a few years.) Luckily, our shower is huge and the glass is tight enough without caulk and doesn't leak at all, so we're now confident the wood floor will work out fine for us here. If we do ever need to replace it, though, we'll match the hexagon marble tile from the shower floor. The washable rug adds just the right amount of happy color for us and is from Target.

Our polished chrome light fixture is from our local Builder's Lighting. One of the reasons we chose it is because it holds three 100 watt bulbs, and we like a light bright bathroom. We matched the new molding above the mirror and the new cabinets with the old molding above the door.

We love the old five panel doors and bronze doornobs in our home. We added the brass lock from Restoration Hardware when we first moved here twenty-five years ago. I can never figure out how people can have bathrooms without locks on the doors - they're braver than I am!

We ordered our heavy polished chrome towel hooks from our local Builder's Lighting. We like the informal look of these hooks, and they allow us to hang more towels in our limited space than towel bars would.

We copied the wainscoting on the bathroom walls from the original wainscoting in our dining room. I'm still thinking about what to hang above the towels, but for now we're enjoying the clean spare look of our newly painted white walls.

So there you have it, our new little bathroom in all its splendor. Our aim was to design a timeless master bathroom that will work for our old cottage for another one hundred years. We're really happy with how it turned out, and I wish I could convey the joy we feel each time we walk into our shiny new bathroom.

I'm so glad you stopped by today for the big reveal. I hope you'll come again when I unveil the rest of our new master bedroom, too.

Have a great week!