Friday, April 13, 2012

bathrooms: traditional or modern ?

In the first round of renovations of the old girl, we only had one bathroom with the toilet in the bathroom.
We opted for a fairly traditional bathroom - that seemed to be what everyone was doing back in the 90's - clawfoot bath, with white bath interior and dark heritage green exterior. Brass taps and fittings. And a tiled floor in that heritage pattern of little hexagons. I loved it at the time, but after 15 years (!) it was time for a change.

We were going from our one bathroom/toilet to one ensuite, one main bathroom, one powder room - all upstairs, and one toilet with shower downstairs. Seems ridiculous for three people doesn't it? We had an eye on resale as eventually (though hopefully not any time soon) we will move on from this house and I imagine a bigger family than ours would buy the house.

I decided to have all the bathrooms the same - mainly because I found choosing tiles and fittings for the bathrooms somehow the hardest thing of all to do, and I couldn't bring myself to do it three or four times. We wanted to have more of a clean look, and while I don't think what we chose is "modern" it is a lot more contemporary and hopefully won't date so quickly. A clawfoot bath has remained in the main bathroom upstairs, and we took some care in choosing the taps and fittings in that bathroom - it is the bathroom that the boy of the house uses, so we wanted mixer taps that didn't look too modern.

I made all these choices before I discovered this world of blogging - I wonder if my choices would have been different with all the wonderful inspiration that is on the web....

 ensuite vanity
 ensuite vanity
 ensuite
 we didn't have enough room to put a sink in the 
powder room without it being too cramped, so used a 
stretch of hall for a basin and storage underneath.
 a little bit of mondocherry loveliness
 main bathroom
 basin in main bathroom
basin in main bathroom


Our final choices were:
Dorf Tempus taps for ensuite and powder room vanity
Brodware Neu England mixer taps for main bathroom
Corian benchtops for all bathrooms and laundry in Sagebrush
Doors 2Pac in Resene Tea

7 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you posted this. We only have one bathroom and it is done in that traditional style but done poorly. It is on the to-do list. I really like what you did - it's modern but not so modern if you know what I mean. Lovely. xx

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  2. Love your bathrooms and all your selections. You did great!!!

    B

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  3. I know that I have so much more inspiration since I started blogging but I think your bathroom looks lovely, and is a beautiful mix of traditional and contemporary. I love those taps - I'm just waiting for a client that wants a traditional bathroom so I can use them! x

    Anna (My Design Ethos)

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    1. Thanks Anna! I know what you mean about the taps. I still love them x

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  4. may i ask what are your tiles called and where from? i am currently choosing my bathroom and ensuite tiles and i know i want a grey sort of colour for the floor and white for the walls. are yours gloss or mat? any help would be appreciated!
    cheers Joh

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  5. Hi Joh. I'm sorry about the lengthy delay in my reply. The floor tiles are Matt and the ones in the shower are More of a gloss finish. I got these bathroom tiles from The Tile Mob in Mitchelton. I can't remember what they were called but will have a look if I can still find a record of buying them. The Tile Mob had a good selection and the staff were very helpful. Another great place was River City Tiles in Stones Corner. Hope this helps.

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