The bathroom sink

Everything I want: clear glass, curvy, only 21" wide, with an overflow and towel bar!

(ignore the mirror and faucet - my mirror is this one, and my faucet will match the shower trim)

April showers ...

I need to choose plumbing and trim for my bathroom. The first part's easy: I know I want shiny chrome. It's classic modern, it's surprisingly much cheaper than newer finishes like brushed nickel, and they all show water spots equally. 

Basically there are two configuration options: 

1. I can have a thermostatic valve (controls hotness/coldness) all by its lonesome, and then separate volume controls for each waterspout (overhead shower, handshower, tub), or
2. I can have one valve that does it all, with two concentric spinners (sort of like focus and aperature on a manual camera). One dial will set the temperature. The other dial will choose where the water comes from (tub only, overhead only, overhead + handshower, or handshower only), and sort-of control the volume (e.g. if you turn it only partway to the option, you get less water).  

(Quick vocabulary lesson: the valve is behind the wall, and looks like a utilitarian brass thing. The trim is the pretty lever and backing plate you actually see and touch. You choose a manufacturer and get their proprietary valve, and then you can choose from a wardrobe of trims for that valve.)

The plumbing store originally sold me on Option # 1 - lots of valves.  On the upside, you get  more control, I suppose (plus the possibility of locating the tub's volume control where it can easily be turned with one toe.) On the downside, the wallspace will be cluttered with bath hardware; it's not so big a tub, or a bathroom, to begin with. And more valves = gobs more money. The first two sets I priced (a Jaclo and a Hansgrohe) were astronomical. Then I found a few Kohler sets I loved for a reasonable price. 

This one's called "Stillness" -

And this one's called "Stance" -

And these two variations are "Purist" -

Either of these could be the tub faucet:

Then I read further on the internet, and discovered Option # 2 - the Hansgrohe "Thermobalance III" valve that does it all. 

I'm thinking either the "Metris" trim -

 

or the "Talis" style -

The tub faucet would be this one:

The Hansgrohe handshower (which I'd probably choose even if I otherwise went for Kohler, because it's nicer) will be mounted on a bar to keep the hose neater -

And for the overhead shower - with either system - I'm thinking of the well-reviewed, cool, and cheap American Standard (Hansgrohe has one just like it for 5x the price) -

Opinions, anyone? I like the Hansgrohe concept, but I think I like the Kohler trims better.

Ordering cabinets!

Here's the final kitchen layout -

Doors and tile here, handles and knobs here. The fridge, dishwasher, and long drawers will get handles; everything else gets knobs.

I really love the way it turned out - particularly the false double doors on the fridge (my contractor's idea). He's also doing something fancy with the crown molding that I don't quite understand.

OMG, OMG ...

My 70%-off Liebherr fridge has two new friends!

Namely a Thermador range

and a Miele dishwasher

(note the cute silverware tray at the top)

And no, I haven't won the lottery. I just got very lucky at Karl's Appliance "backroom bargains" (now that I've safely got mine, I don't mind sharing the tip) - each of them is open-box, never installed or assembled, hugely discounted, with the full manufacturer's warranty. The Thermador has an infinitesimal scratch on it (a picture's worth a thousand words, but a scratch, apparently, is worth more than a thousand dollars). I can't even find the scratch on the Miele (maybe someone just changed their mind about it).

But every fairy tale has its wicked witch, and mine is Where To Put The Microwave. My kitchen design (as you may recall) provided for a microwave over the stove. But since the Thermador burns hot enough to smelt iron (almost), the manual explicitly forbids putting a microwave over it and strongly recommends a hood so that the cabinets don't catch fire. (I therefore bought a hood -

- the least obtrusive, least pretentious one I could find, since there's little point having a big metal "chimney" extend up to what everyone knows is the upstairs neighbor's flat.)

Not that I was thrilled with the microwave-over-the-stove idea anyway - I'm only 5'0", and I foresaw a baptism in hot soup some unlucky day. But where else to put it? Not on my very-limited counterspace, where it would look like an afterthought. Not in a top cabinet (because it would mean making the top cabinets deeper, and losing many of the shelves I can reach). Not a micro-drawer (because it would swallow half my drawer space). The best I can think of so far is a small microwave that hangs over the countertop, to the right of the sink.

My contractor and I are tearing our hair out over this. Clever solutions welcome. Kitchen plan here.

Decisions, decisions!

We should have permits to start work very soon (would've been yesterday, but we just discovered that my building is in a district recently calendared by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which adds another level of red tape). My cabinets are being ordered, my bathtub is already on its way.

And today I settled the last few major details. (I went to Hardware Designs in Fairfield, NJ near Route 46 - about which I cannot say enough; it was like walking into the three-dimensional reality of all my internet searches. They have everything,  go there if you can.) I saw my toilet in person and liked it. I picked cabinet hardware:

And I found the perfect bathroom floor.  It's called "Alba Chiaro" (and may also be called "Persian Green" - depending where you buy it) -

Getting a handle ...

I've decided that the curlicue cabinet handles just won't do. The appliance-sized handle is lovely, but the drawer pulls are stupidly designed, without enough space for your fingers.

Here are the finalists for kitchen cabinet pulls (click to make bigger):

1. Alno "Fiore" - pull and knob

2. Siro "Nuevo Classico" - two pull variations and a knob:



3. RKI pulls and knobs:

 

Cup pulls (for the small drawers) are an option in all of these patterns. 

What do you think?

Oh woe!

Remember the gorgeous Cuban tile from a few posts back? Well, the boxes we packed up in the Miami post office arrived, and we opened them to check the tile.

14 out of 40 are unbroken. Waaah.

Fortunately, they were insured through the USPS, so I should be able to get my money back eventually after filling out many forms. (The Post Office has thought of everything; there are special rules for insuring Airline Tickets, Gift Cards, and Adult Fowl -

Adult fowl: If the number of birds per parcel follows the container manufacturer limits and each bird weighs more than 6 ounces, eligible birds are mailable via Express Mail in biologically secure containers approved by the manager of Mailing Standards. Under the applicable standards, indemnity claims may only be paid for loss, damage, or rifling (not for death of the birds in transit if there is no visible damage to the mailing container). Eligible Adult Fowl include:

o Adult turkeys

o Guinea fowl

o Doves

o Pigeons

o Pheasants

o Partridges

o Quail

o Ducks

o Geese

o Swans

So, do you know anyone who will be driving up from Miami anytime over the next couple of months, to bring me more tile? I no longer trust any shipping method (even the box we checked in our luggage on the plane had a couple of broken tiles). They're smaller than a breadbox but they're 100+ pounds. I think they'd be happiest traveling by car.

Board approval at last!! And I bought the bathtub!

Late yesterday afternoon, the architect's assistant emailed me to say that the Board had finally signed off on my Schedule B permit application - which the architect will file and get approved at DOB on Tuesday or Wednesday - which means that work can begin early next week! By early June it should be done.

Fortunately Sanijet is in Texas, which closes later than we do; at 6 pm I ordered my bathtub.

I bought more tile!

I went to Miami Beach for the weekend (because I'll be in Buffalo for most of the next month, and I'm so sick of the cold). While I was there, I went to Cuban Tropical Tile and bought encaustic tile for the little hallway outside my bathroom.

The hallway is 32" x 76", and five doorways open into it, from the bathroom, the bedroom, the dining balcony, the linen closet, and the clothes closet. You can see it in the distance from the living room, and I want it to catch the eye with a little glimpse of something special. It's the one place where the original wood floor cannot be saved, so since I have to replace it anyway, I'm replacing it with tile.

This is the tile I bought:

The picture shows four 8x8 tiles. Here's (roughly) what they'll look like in my hall:

Buying them was a real adventure. We navigated our way out to a little concrete building in the industrial outskirts of Miami - next door to a junkyard. The "showroom" was a little office carved out of the dusty warehouse. Once I picked out my tile, the guy brought out boxes and opened them, and allowed me to go through them tile by tile to pick out 40 perfect tiles. Because they ordinarily only ship by freight carrier (which is incredibly expensive - about 3x the cost of the tiles themselves for such a small order) we decided to carry some home in our luggage, and send the rest via USPS. (The tile guy believed - in error, as it turned out - that the boxes of tile would fit in the USPS $10.75 flat rate boxes, which would have been a real bargain, but alas, they were 1/4 inch too big). Hopefully they'll get here intact next week.

Fantasy sofa

If a totally spare $5000 wandered into my life (and it won't, quite the opposite) this is the sofa I would buy -

It's called "Ondo", made by Artifort, designed by Rene Holten.

I love how it floats - how it looks so comfortable for stretching out and reading - and how it's so ethereally blue.

Oh well. Other things are blue. The sky is blue, when it's not snowing or about to snow.

This sofa, at Macy's for a smidgen of the price, comes in a lovely blue and other colors too, in velvet or leather.

("Chloe" in velvet; "Claudia" in leather.)

I'm thinking (escapism really since I'm nowhere near furnishing) that the living room should have two sofas, or two loveseats, or a sofa and a loveseat. I need a comfy guest bed of some sort, but I'm thinking of a convertible ottoman (maybe from Castro Convertibles, which is back from the dead) rather than a big kludgy sleeper couch.

My Turkish rug has blue and orange and tan in it.

More cabinet hardware ...

Went to Gracious Home today and saw a few things I liked.

This one's really pretty in person, but it seems to sit too close to the door (awkward to get my fingers behind it) ...

This one's better in the hand ...

Cabinet hardware

I've gone and looked at lots more hardware. The limiting factor, for me, is that I need appliance pulls (the fridge and dishwasher are trim panel), and so many appliance pulls are really ugly. The cabinets and tile have turned French provincial, but I don't want anything too rustic - the pitted (sometimes rusty) cast-iron look is much nicer online than in person.

I'm smitten with something kind of fussy - it feels lovely my hand, and it seems vaguely handcrafted and organic while still smooth and finished. What do you think?

There are coordinating knobs but I'm not sure I like them -

I'd prefer something simpler and geometric (from the same company and in the same finish, of course), e.g.

The bathroom floor

The bathroom wall tile is pale peach iridescent -

And the look is modern (see the bathroom posts here and here). I've been agonizing over the floor - marble, glass, porcelain? cream, brown, green? - without finding anything that jumped out at me. Until today.

Meet the Grunions -

Or a Matisse-like flower -

They're encaustic cement tiles - called Cuban tiles in Florida, and Moroccan tiles on HGTV, though they were actually invented in medieval Europe. (We have them on the hearth in my mother's living room.) Instead of a traditional or cutesy-sailboat design, however, these are modern, designed by an architect named Jeff Shelton in Santa Barbara (lots more of his wonderful designs here). The tiles are 12x12, and they're custom made - you choose your own colors from a yummy palette (here and here).


The Grunions (above) are my favorite, of course - I'd do them in shades of green and salmon - but is this all getting too zoomorphic? Everything I like has little eyes - the birds in the kitchen, these sea monsters in the bathroom (though in real life grunions turn out to be squiggly little fish, seven inches long, with odd mating rituals). Also I'm a little worried that it might be too big a pattern for my tiny bathroom, which is why I was looking at the smaller Matisse-like pattern too. People do use Cuban tile in the bathroom - I've seen it in magazines and on websites - and it's probably no more slippery than anything else.

In a funny way, I'm looping back to the tile I fell in love with first for the bathroom floor (but couldn't have because it's $100/sq. ft.) - a serpentine pattern that links from tile to tile.

The kitchen comes together

So I've finally settled on tile! Hooray! (And I can't change my mind again, because I own it.)

I'm using hand painted Portuguese azulejos - birds and flowers. Here are some of them (click to make them bigger):

(I put sticky notes on them because I was counting how many of each bird I had, before I packed them away.)

The field tile will be butter yellow subway tiles - Florida Tile (made in the USA!) "mellow gold". There's also a cobalt color in that tile, which may come in handy for trim. Here's a picture of my tile and the field tile together (taken surreptitiously in a local tile store with my cameraphone):

The cabinet doors are this design  but in maple with a light honey stain

The granite looks like this (but much more beautiful in person):

For cabinet/appliance pulls, I'm thinking maybe these

Or else birdcage -

What do you think?