Outfit Of The Yesterday: Tan Lace, Satin Blue, Leather Burgundy & Rose Gold

♫: Hey Mami – Sylvan Esso

As I mentioned in this post from last week, we are re-focused and hustling again with the home remodel (finally!). Our goal this summer is to finish the two bathrooms that need finishing–a small main floor bathroom and our large upstairs master bath.

It’s been a slightly pest-y process, to say the least. I am sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but the main floor bathroom is small and has a bathtub/shower combo that sits on the back wall and takes up roughly 1/3 of the square footage. It also has a diagonal wall that can’t be moved or demolished no matter how many colorful curse words I hurl at it. And of course–while most of the ceilings in this house are high, the ceilings in the main floor bath are low–really low. And lastly, since the bathroom is built solely off interior walls, there are no windows to provide any outside light. Nor will there ever be any windows to provide any outside light. It’s a closet turned bathroom, if you will.

I originally thought I wanted to do something fun, quirky, and unique in that bathroom since it’s a main floor bathroom and presumably the one people would see and use most when at our house. Yet none of the ideas I came up with quite seemed right to me. And I came up with dozens. And dozens. Maybe 36 different ideas, and not a single one ever seemed to ring the, ‘That’s what you should do, you total not-genius!” bell.

I realized a few weeks ago, after doing an extensive Pinterest search for ‘small closet bathrooms’, what the problem was: the shower/bath combo. I assumed that we had to leave the one in our bathroom alone, leave 1/3 of the square footage closed off with a cutesy shower curtain and that was that. After all, the shower/bath was in fine working order. It isn’t new, but it doesn’t really need replacing. And it also isn’t like we are going to personally use it–we are going to put the cool shower/psuedo-carwash/bathtub up in the master bath, where it would be most loved and the most well-used.

But when you have a main floor bathroom as small as the one we’re working with, closing off so much square footage with a fabric blockage was exactly the problem–especially since our shower/tub sits on the back wall and is literally the first thing you see when walking through the door of the bathroom. And because of our low ceilings, the shower curtain also closes off half our lighting. It wouldn’t matter what we did for a mirror/vanity/lighting/decor because the clunky bathtub would still be the big awkwardly shower-curtained elephant in the room.

Essentially, husband and I realized all of the small bathrooms we loved had the exact same thing in common: open (glass-enclosed) showers and tubs. They weren’t sectioned off or hidden with a shower curtain–they were pretty, nice, and a cohesive piece of the room. Some of them were even the main focus of the room. And after thinking about it some more, it just makes sense–we want our guests to have a comfortable stay if they stay with us, and since we do have lots of family and friends that swing through this area a nice, sleek, chic and gorgeous guest bathroom would definitely get used.

So voila. We cracked the code. Or as I asked my mom, “What did people do before Pinterest?” (her answer, dryly: “They went to Home Depot or Ace Hardware and didn’t put projects on hold for several years simply because they couldn’t find the perfect drawer knob?”) (Touché, sensible funny lady that somehow birthed me, touché.)

Here are a few photos of what we are planning to do:

This is our top choice and likely the bathroom we are going to try to replicate–I love the marble floor and how the same marble continues into the shower, and the glossy surfaces of the cabinet and tile let the textured surface on the back of the shower pop. This bathroom (like ours) also seems to have no window or outside light source. Since the lighting is yellowy in this photo (probably due to lack of outdoor lighting which tends to cast cooler/blue tones and balance yellow tones from artificial light), we’re going to make sure the tile we use is more of a cool dark gray, a little more like this (I did a hasty color correction in Photoshop, yo guys hopefully get the idea):

We are also going to change a few of the details (different sconce and accessories) but overall both husband and I love this, so it’s officially at the top of our list. It also looks freakishly easy to clean. Since Miss Arthritic Fingers (me!) does all the cleaning–hallelujah.

This bathroom is a little on the simple/basic side (I want our bathroom to have some personality!), but I absolutely love the shelving built into the walls. It’s a smart and unique way to help keep a small bathroom streamlined and less clunky/cluttered.

I will always love a bit of funky wallpaper. (Husband says NOPE.)

A small, simple bathroom that’s a little boring (but would be easy to accent with bright colors be it towels or artwork on the right-hand wall).

And another small & simple bathroom that would be easy to accessorize and change with colorful accessories.

And last, but not least–I’m throwing this in here because I can’t have it (even if I have tried desperately to convince my husband that capiz shell stripes would totally reflect and help light up the room). It is still awesome, even if it’s not truly meant to be.

We’re heading out tomorrow night to pick out tile and we will hopefully start swinging hammers by the end of the week. I’m excited! And will try to post some of the updates both here & on instagram as we go so stay tuned.

Outfit time!