The Bathroom That Blogging Built

This weekend marked the completion of the final decorative touches to our master bathroom and I couldn't be happier with the finished results. What excites me even more though is that this is the first room that I feel like I can really cross off my list and declare "done" in the new house (as much as any room I ever design can be deemed complete as I'm always tweaking things). It's also the first room that I can really say is exactly as I had hoped it would be as the majority of my house is still incomplete. In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd give you a virtual tour of the room, from top to bottom.

When I last updated you on my master bathroom, I was debating which light fixture to switch out the small, completely inadequate, ceiling light with. Well, after months of contemplating my options, I decided to go with: Neither! Ultimately, I felt that if I was actually that torn about which light to pick, I should just hold out until I found one that was exactly what I was looking for. And I'm so glad I waited.

A few weeks ago I spied this fixture over at Aesthetic Oiseau and knew instantly that it would be a perfect fit for my master bath. As a major bonus, it was also well under what I had budgeted for a light fixture (I bought the smallest version, the three-light fixture). And, while my ceilings wouldn't allow me much room for hanging, I do think the hanging pendant brings a coziness to the space that a flushmount simply couldn't have.

With all the hard tile (and all the white and gray!) in the bathroom, I wanted to bring in some softness and pattern in the form of fabric. Obviously, in a bathroom draperies aren't particularly practical, so after reading about Jenny's gorgeous pelmet boxes over at Little Green Notebook a few months ago, I decided to try making my own pelmet box to fit around our large, very bare window over the bathtub.

Because the bathroom will obviously see a lot of moisture over the years, I decided that constructing my pelmet box out of foam core was probably not the best move (I could just image it starting to droop after a few months of showering!). So I decided to tear apart the plywood box that one of our mirrors was shipped in and reuse the plywood as the frame for the pelmet box. It took Dave and I several hours (and several attempts) before we got a product that I was happy with, but overall the project was fairly simple. We hung the pelmet with two L-brackets,which we hung just a few inches from the top on either side so they're now completely invisible.

The fabric is Windsor Smith's Archipelago fabric in Haze. Normally this fabric is to-the-trade-only, but I managed to score it (at a pretty decent discount) from Avid-Home (which I heard about via Paloma over at La Dolce Vita). I love the fabric so much that I'm thinking about using the mist colorway for draperies in the master bedroom.

Beth has touted the virtues of this trellis foot stool (from, of all places, JCPenney's) several times on her blog Chinoiserie Chic. And, once it went on sale, I decided to pick up my own for the vanity in our bathroom, intending to recover the seat in the same Windsor Smith fabric as the pelmet box. When the stool arrived, I was pleasantly surprised by its sturdiness, but wished the base were in a bronze instead of a brushed gold (which is actually quite nice, I just didn't want to introduce another metal into the room). So I decided to pick up some spray-paint at Lowe's and give it a quick coating of bronze paint. I did a light coat to allow for some of the gold to come through, which I think gives the metal a more authentic, bronze look.

And finally, I decided to cover the majority of the open floor with a rug because (1) those tiles are dangerously slippery in the morning, (2) I love the look of a real rug and not just a bathmat in a bathroom, and (3) our pristine white grout is a major b*tch to keep clean. I chose the steel zig zag rug from Madeline Weinrib because I wanted to stick to the same neutral color palette, but go with a bold pattern that would really make a statement. As a bonus, the fact that the rug is a cotton flatweave should help it stand up to the dampness.

So many thanks to all the bloggers mentioned who inspired specific aspects of this design as well as to all the other bloggers who have inspired me daily and helped me to better define my own sense of style. It's a great feeling to finally have an entire room more or less complete (even if it is just a bathroom). Next on my list: finishing up the living room.