Master Bedroom, Closet & Bathroom

I am pretty sure I spent more time measuring this room than any other in our house! The reason? I really wanted a king-sized bed and this room is quite small compared to a new-build master bedrooms. The obvious wall for the bed was under the small windows, but because we made the room a bit smaller to have a walk-thru closet, the only spot for the bed became the wall which was shared with the closet.

In the end, it IS large enough to walk around the bed, and I'm thankful for all the measuring I did :)


The bed faces the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the house, and we get some great morning sun; we love how it turned out! Our bedroom wasn't quite done (and still isn't!) when Kristen of K. Holly snapped some shots in here, but I still love how it looks in her photos.

We've since added some Thedor prints above our bed, and a couple of orange polka-dot shams to break up on the all-white sheet look I had going on here. Here's an updated photo on the Facebook page to share the slightly updated (and more colorful) look.  I know this room will continue evolving as time goes on - I'm actually still looking for something to put above the orange bookcase on the wall between the small windows and the floor-to-ceiling windows. There's a photo of it here as it is now, and I want to add a long frame (which I already have from my old office) with some art in it. Art is yet to be found!


We LOVE this simple bed from West Elm. While shopping for a bed, we did search and search for a vintage one, but king-sized beds in the 50's and 60's were quite few and far between in Michigan. I couldn't find anything I LOVED, so instead, after much debate, I ordered this one from West Elm. The wood color is perfect and I really love that we have a headboard and footboard; this room with minimal furniture seems more finished to me.


Past the bed, is the walkway thru the closet and into the bathroom. Originally, there was just a standard closet here with large, mirrored doors and no access to the bathroom. Our closet is about 6' wide - large enough for us to both have our own side. I took the side with the long portion so my dresses would have a spot. Ideally, we'd have built in drawers in the cubbies, but for now, the ones I picked up at Target work just fine.

Greg's side is almost the same, except instead of the long portion for dresses, we found a little white dresser for all his t-shirts and boxer shorts. We couldn't make the wall organizer any longer because the pocket door is hidden in that wall!


Another small-for-2014 room is the master bathroom. It's about 6.6' wide, but perfect for a double vanity, toilet and double shower. The vanity is exactly the same as the one in the hall bath - they both have faux drawers up top, and the second drawer down is cut to fit around the plumbing, and then the third drawer provides the most storage space.

You might notice we don't have a linen closet in our bathroom - there really wasn't any more room - so our towels are in the guest bath and we just grab one before showering. It isn't a huge deal and keeps everything in one spot when I put laundry away.


It's a little tight between the toilet and the door to access the shower, but we swing it in and it seems to be working fine for us so far. The shower is HUGE and we love it! We didn't have a specified size for this when we started, but we just made it as wide as the room (which was determined by how big we needed the bedroom & closet to be to function properly)

We are very happy with how this portion of the house turned out. We don't hang out in our bedroom very much, so having a smaller room was just fine for us!

Master Bedroom & Closet Resource List

• Bed | West Elm
• Linens | Hollywood Duvet & Shams via Jonathan Adler
• Light Fixtures | Rejuvenation
• Paint Color | Ralph Lauren's Impressionist (same as the laundry room)
• Closet Organizer | Custom by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen

Master Bath Resource List

• Cabinets | Custom by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen
• Countertops | Wilson Art
• Faucets | VIGO via Amazon
• Sinks | Kraus via Amazon
• Shower Heads | Danze, Amalfi via Amazon
• Shower & Bathsplash Tile | Daltile via Home Depot
• Floor Tile | (no idea brand name) via The Tile Shop
• Toilet | Ariel Platinum via Overstock
• Paint Color | Paint Color | Ralph Lauren's Impressionist (same as the laundry room)
• Light Fixtures | Stella Small Sconce via Rejuvenation

Making One Dated Bathroom into Two Modern Bathrooms

We currently live in a lovely little home that we absolutely adore! (And it's for sale. Are you in the market to buy the cutest house on the street?!) However, the one thing that doesn't work the best for us, is having one bathroom. With a toddler nearing the potty training stage (YAY!), plus two adults who prefer to pee in private, one bathroom isn't enough.

So, imagine our slight disappointment when the house we fell in love with only had one full bathroom. After checking out the house for the second time, we realized that the original laundry room and full bath had been combined into one awful laundry/bathroom.


Does anyone remember this sink island? Yes, indeed, the former owners took it upon themselves in the 90's to remodel this bathroom as a DIY project. They did a great job matching the original globe lights, but that's about it.

Sadly, we found the original bubble tile PAINTED OVER (ooh, the horror!), and we know the cabinets over the laundry area were original, but that's about all that was left. They even covered up an original laundry room door.... This awful remodel together with the lavender paint, acrylic tub and seashell accessories, and you've got a 1990's mess. Which we promptly ripped out with our friends Mark & Dee.


And then we said hello to the largest project (and possibly the most expensive) in the house....two new bathrooms.

Having a hallway bath that worked for guests and kids was important to us. And since it's the larger of the two bathrooms and primarily for Eames, it is where we put the tub. A freestanding tub wouldn't fit in the master bathroom with the walk-in shower we knew we'd use more, so we went with a 66" tub to accommodate me (who happens to be 64" tall). We also knew having a cast iron tub was important, as they literally last a lifetime with good care, and reglazing as necessary.

Above are the images of the "in process stages". The image on the left is from the hallway. On the left, you can see the plumbing for the 6' double vanity. It will be quite narrow at 16" because I didn't want it to take up too much space, and I did not want it to go in from of the glass block window. There will also be a floor-to-ceiling linen closet on your immediate left.

This was the former laundry room and when we started taking down drywall, we found an old exterior doorway. Since this room didn't have a window, we decided to make it into a large, glass block window. This solved the problem on the exterior, since our brick wraps around the entire house, and on the outside, you can totally tell this was a door. Now it looks like this glass block window has always been there (and mimics the one in the garage - we even found a pretty close match to the original 1950's block used in there!).

The second image is of our new tub and subway tile surround. The original plan was to use hexagon tile in here, however, the tile guy said it would look a little busy in the corners will all the cuts they would have to make. I took his advice and decided on glossy white subway tile instead. We also opted to tile the ceiling in the tub - makes it easier to clean and looks quite seamless.

The third image shows the little toilet nook to the left of door from the hallway. The tile floor in here is a dark gray and is 12x24. It actually looks a lot like our wood floors, but is a traditional ceramic tile. We love how it looks so far!



Thankfully, having a day spa as a bathroom was not important to us (although, if we had more room, I would have added a freestanding tub for sure...). What was important to us was enough room to both be brushing out teeth at the same time (since our current bathroom lacks this...) This room is functional, compact and will be quite lovely when it's done.

We knew we wanted a double shower, and we also didn't want to construct any extra walls in here. The easy answer was to put the shower at the back of the room. It's not a standard size, just whatever size the room happened to be, which was determined by the vanity and how much room we needed for the toilet. I believe this room is 72" wide.

The first image on the left is the photo from our bedroom walk-thru closet. Our double vanity/mirror/lights will go here and will be an exact duplicate of the one in Eames' bathroom - same faucets, same lights, same sinks. The second image is of the subway tiled double shower, and the third image is when they finished the floor and the threshold.

Since we couldn't use the hexagon in Eames' bathroom, we decided to put it on the floor in our shower. We originally planned to use the same tile that is on the actual floor, but the tile guy warned us it was too large and he'd have to make so many cuts to have it drain properly. We listened to him and ended up with an adorable floor in here - it's my favorite! We also mixed it up a teensy bit and put matte tiles (instead of glossy like in the other bathroom) in here. I'm excited to start brushing my teeth in here!

As for paint colors, we haven't quite decided, although I'm still pretty sure it will look a lot like this inspiration board I put together in January! A light aqua color keeps catching my eye, and we used Behr's Valley Mist in our current house and I pretty much love it, so am thinking it may be exactly the same. 
There ya have it - two simple bathrooms in progress! Above is the actual sink, faucet, light, toilet, tiles and possibly even paint colors. Will keep you posted as things progress!

Master Bathroom Inspiration | Gray, White, Wood, Aqua & Orange

A master bathroom seems like a luxury to us, as we've been sharing an itty-bitty bathroom for years, and we cannot wait to have our own. And while it won't be large by any means, it will be kid/guest-free! The bathroom will be connected to our bedroom, and there will also be a walk-in closet when you walk in. You can see the layout here, if you've forgotten.

So, here's the inspiration I am working from...We have decided to have our builder make a floating vanity in the space because I want it narrow (18" only, to leave room for walking between the toilet and the shower. With a 66" wide room, the smaller the better. The above left image is what we're going for - although darker wood, and smaller pulls. We are also doing double sinks instead of just one long one, and the faucets are wall mounted (like the photo on the right).

And while we're talking about that photo on the right, I am really enjoying the undercounter lighting, sort of light a night light for all those early morning wake-up calls!

Now, on to the details...Because our bedroom will be navy blue, I'd really like to brighten it up in there with a pretty light aqua color. The floors are a dark gray tile, with a white subway surround with gray grout. The dark gray tile will also be the shower floor, which will be built into the alcove at the back of the room. Again, check out the layout if you forget what I'm talking about! We haven't picked out showers heads yet, but they will be simple in style and chrome in color since the sink faucets & lights are chrome. We plan on having a sliding glass door for the shower, and today I thought it should certainly be frosted for a wee bit of privacy.

The toilet is picked out, as are the sinks and accessories (mirrors, lights, faucets, tissue holder, and towel hooks). And actually, some of these we currently have in our bathroom now, and because I loved them so much, I'll be getting them for the new house too.

I'm a HUGE fan of white sheets & fluffy white towels, but I plan on mixing in some orange graphic hand towels into the mix. And maybe I'll go wild with a fun rug in front of the sinks as well. We are trying to be minimalists when it comes to decorative items, so keeping everything clean & simple is the goal here. I'm even requesting an electrical outlet be put in our vanity, so I can keep my Sonic toothbrush out of sight.

The kid/guest bath is very similar - we will actually have all the same finishes.... Same tile floor, slightly different shower surround, instead of a walk-in shower, we're doing a large white alcove tub, same toilet/faucets/sinks/mirrors/etc. I do need to come up with a jazzy wall color for that room!