Master bathroom renovation reveal

Wow, was it really two years ago that I excitedly announced that we were FINALLY renovating our master bathroom? Yep, it really was! Looking back at my first blog post about the project, it’s interesting to see what we had envisioned for the room, and how it actually turned out. If you can remember that far back, this bathroom from Sarah 101 was my inspiration:

Things I love about this bathroom…. the tiles, the niche in the wall, the colour scheme, the overall watery look & feel.

So that was the starting point. We literally tore out everything right down to the studs, except the ceiling.

Hubby moved & added electrical for the two chandeliers and the vanity sconces and repositioned all the plumbing for the new layout.

Before the reveal, I must send a HUGE thank you once again to Brizo for providing the faucets. They gave me free rein to choose whatever faucets I wanted, and it was an easy choice: the beautiful Virage. The shape reminds me of a curling wave.

FYI, body jets are a must!

And another huge thank you to PARA Paints. I was on the PARA Paints Blog Crew when we started the makeover, so PARA provided all the paint. I chose P5207-34 Tribeca Square for the ceiling, P5206-24 Peaks & Valleys for the walls, and PF17 JoJo Whitewash for the trim. Thank you PARA!

I couldn't find quite the right grey for the vanity in my PARA deck, so I chose a grey from another company and had it colour-matched to PARA’s ULTRA Cabinet and Furniture paint. Hubby and I designed the vanity, and he built it (which added a few months to the timeline!) The countertop is Super White Quartzite, which turned out to be a much softer stone than we expected. If you’re considering using Super White Quartzite, reading this discussion is a must.

Blue candles, glass fishing floats, and beautiful pottery made by an artist in Cape Breton are the perfect coastal accents.

The chandeliers and sconces have crystals that look like water drops.

The white shower tiles have a wave-like motif, and the small blue glossy mosaic tiles look like glistening water.

I am so in love with the big gorgeous painting that Andrada Anghel created for me. You can read more about it here.

And how did the room turn out? Pretty fantabulous if I do say so myself! Here are the before & after shots of each corner of the room. The icky brass shower is gone…

…, replaced with a wall-hung toilet tucked into the corner that’s hardly noticeable when you walk into the room.

Bye-bye bidet…

…hello custom-made vanity!

We did update the original vanity about eight years ago – here’s how it looked originally…

…and now replaced with my dream shower, complete with body jets and NO sill to stub my toes on! :-)

The new tub is in the same spot as the old tub…

…but this one doesn’t take up 1/4 of the entire room. And the controls are right on the tub, not on the wall 10 feet away!

View from the doorway.

I even found a TP holder and a towel bar with crystals that match the chandeliers!I’m just waiting for the roman blind to be made and installed, and then we can call this room 100% finished!

In the end, our bathroom really doesn’t look anything at all like the inspiration bathroom. But isn’t that what inspiration is all about – taking something that you love and putting your own spin on it.

So now that the master bathroom reno is done, what’s next on the agenda? Why, another bathroom, of course! Actually, we’re renovating the entire basement, including the addition of a new bathroom. Fun times! ;-)

Sharing with Inspire Me Monday

If you’d like to read about the entire reno process, here are all the blog posts…

Woot! It’s master bathroom makeover time!
Rub-a-dub-dub, we bought a new tub!
Bathrooms on the brain
When is white not white?
Fit to be tiled
Bathroom tiles: The final verdict
A bump in the bathroom makeover road
My dream has a beautiful Brizo twist!
The final tile verdict
This or That: Shower bench
This or That: Bathroom vanity lighting
This or That x 6: Floor tile layout
This or That: Horizontal vs vertical
This or That: Mirror mirror on the wall
This or That: Vanity backsplash
The bathroom renovation roundup
Bump in the bathroom reno road
The shower tile dilemma solved!
Master bathroom reno progress
Kelly’s Seashore: Commissioned painting by Andrada Anghel

The Brizo Talo: Art for the kitchen

I may have mentioned once or twice {or 58 times} that I’m a big fan of Brizo. They design some of the most beautiful kitchen and bathroom faucets…

  

Brizo has also been very open end eager to work with design bloggers. As I very excitedly told you in this blog post, Brizo has very generously provided all of the faucets for our master bathroom makeover {progress update coming soon!}

And a few years ago, Brizo offered me any faucet of my choice to use and review. It was a hard decision to make, but in the end it came down to three requirements – gooseneck style, single-lever pull-down, and the Venetian Bronze finish. The Talo was the perfect choice :-) From Brizo’s web site:

Classic. Fresh.

Floral.

blossoming innovation

Inspired by the bluebell flower's distinctive silhouette, Talo is Brizo's first traditional pull-down faucet. This unique form is married to a wealth of advanced features, including a 2-Button, 4-Function spray wand, MagneDock Technology®, and Brizo's exclusive SmartTouch Technology®, which allows water activation with just a light touch.

 

Can you see the inspiration from the bluebell?

  Image via all hd wallpapers

My Talo faucet doesn’t have the SmartTouch technology, but when you’re replacing a 1975 Pinto with a brand new free Ferrari, it’s no biggie if it doesn’t have every bell and whistle!

The lines and finish of the faucet and matching soap dispenser are beautiful – like pieces of art for the kitchen.

The soap dispenser is the biggest & heaviest soap dispenser I’ve ever seen!! It looks like a mini-faucet :-)

The Venetian Bronze finish has strands of copper throughout the metal.

My favourite feature of the Talo faucet is that if I select the sprayer option, it stays on the sprayer option after I turn it off. So next time I turn it on, I get the sprayer. Our old faucet always reverted back to the regular flow after I turned it off, which was annoying because I like to use the sprayer the majority of the time.

The water flow is a lot more powerful than it was with the old faucet. In fact, our two previous kitchen faucets had pretty weak water flow. I had just assumed it was because the water had a long way to go from the water tank to the faucet.

The MagneLock Technology keeps the pull-down spout firmly in place. When the spout is about here:

It literally gets sucked right back into place.

We’ve been using our Talo faucet day in and day out for three years now, and it’s standing up beautifully to the daily wear and tear. No leaks, no drips, not even a scratch! I can’t wait to get the Virage faucets installed in our master bathroom – I know I’m going to love them as much as I love my Talo faucet :-)

Ummmm… is it weird to be in love with a faucet!?

Welcome to 2013!

So the Mayans were wrong and the world didn’t end on December 21, 2012 :-) Now that we’ve made it to 2013, what are we going to do with the year?

Painting
After taking the foil painting workshop with Susan Bailie from Art Walls in November, I couldn’t wait to try more paintings. I bought all the supplies a week after the workshop, and finally got around to putting them to good use over the holidays. Susan is doing another workshop this month – if you’re in Ottawa and want to learn how to create the coolest paintings, check it out on her Art Walls Facebook page.

Fostering more dogs for Catahoula Rescue Ontario
Being a small part of saving sweet dogs who might not otherwise have a chance at a new and better life is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Not only have I had the chance to enjoy some super-amazing dogs, I’ve also met and become friends with some super-amazing people who work so hard to help dogs in need. It won’t make me rich or famous, but I’d much rather have a life filled with doggie snuggles & kisses than fame & fortune :-)

You gotta accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative
Towards the end of 2012, I decided to try and focus on only positive status updates on my Facebook page. It was just a little thing, but it felt good to not whine and complain about the idiot in the SUV who cut me off on my way to work (who, me whine? Never!) So going a step farther and taking inspiration from Shelley at House of Smiths, I’ve decided that my Word of the Year for 2013 is POSITIVITY. From Urban Dictionary:
pos-i-tiv-i-ty noun

1. Positivity is staying positive even when you find a really good reason to be negative.

2. An outlook on life that involves seeing and focusing on the good aspects of a situation, no matter what the circumstances.

I’m letting go of the stuff that brings me down, and focusing on the stuff that lifts me up and makes me happy. Life is too short to waste time on people and things that aren’t worth wasting time on.

Around the house
Finish the master bathroom renovation. I haven’t posted about the bathroom reno lately because not much has been happening. The room is down to the studs now, and hubby is slowly (very slowly!) working on boring things like electrical and plumbing. I’m lLooking forward to getting started on the pretty stuff, like installing our beautiful Virage faucets from Brizo…

This is how the bathroom looks now – it’s not pretty! But it does have a little crystal chandelier ;-)

Photography
Hubby gave me a Groupon for a photography class for Christmas. I love photography, but most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing – I just click the button and hope for the best! With al the money invested in my camera and lenses, I really want to learn how to use them properly. Stuff like ISO and Aperture are a total mystery to me.

So that’s a little rundown of things I’ll be up to in 2013. What are your plans for the year?