Remodeling the Master Bathroom

I am absolutely thrilled. It seems as though I have convinced by parents to remodel/update their master bathroom. It's about time! For almost fourteen years now that bathroom floor has been covered in wall-to-wall sea foam green carpeting. (Yes, carpeting in a bathroom! Yuck.) The cabinets are cheap, white particle board and with a plastic laminate, and the light fixtures are outdated. The shower is nothing impressive at all, a beige, one-piece, fiberglass or plastic shell that is forever grimy with hard water deposits, even though we have a water softener, and we have to squeegee the water off the walls after every shower. It's time for Dad and me (no, not Mom, she apparently does not care) to get to work on replacing the junk with quality stuff that also looks a million times better!

The great thing about my parents' master bathroom is that it is HUGE. My mom has actually always complained about that, for some reason. "Wasted space." The bedroom is "too big," and the master bath is bigger than her dining room was in the Bowman Woods, and in fact, we have no dining room in this house. She would prefer a small bedroom and tiny bathroom if it meant keeping a big dining room, or any size dining room. She thinks it is totally unnecessary for a bathroom to be so big, but on the contrary, most home buyers complain that the master bathroom is not big enough. Double sinks area  must, in this day in age, and my mom's much-maligned bathroom has it all. It surprises me, given the horrible taste of the woman who designed this house, that I have a lot to work with. The biggest problem is the aesthetics . All I have to do is remodel and it will soon feel like a luxury suite--actually, a luxury cave.

You see, my mom has always loved natural stone and has always dreamed of living in a cave--a slightly strange preoccupation, you might think, except when you consider that cave floors are rock and dirt, and windows would have not glass to keep clean. As Mom loves to say, the sun and wind are great housekeepers. (She, on the other hand, is not).

My idea is to recreate the cozy, rock-solid feel of a cave by installing Brazilian black slate flooring: 12 x 24 inch tiles laid in a staggered pattern, the way brick walls are, for visual interest. In addition, the shower walls will be covered in natural limestone. My inspiration comes from --please do not make fun of it unless you try it; Damon is known to be as addicting as sugar and crack cocaine are said to be--a TV show set in the South, with scenes filmed in an actual mansion in Virginia, called....drum rolls....The Vampire Diaries. (Yes, it is true: I have watched all four seasons.) Damon Salvatore's bathroom has black slate floors and a stone shower wall stacked all the way up to the ceiling. It is my idea of the perfect bathroom (with or without Damon in it). As for the walls, I will be painting them a warm gray because it seems to be the only paint color that goes well with oak woodwork. Speaking of oak woodwork, that reminds me, I will have the cheap cabinets in their bathroom replaced with high-quality quarter sawn oak because it looks fantastic with the slate floors.

As for the sinks, I have not yet made up my mind. As it is, the stone going up the shower walls will be expensive enough at $15 per square foot. I had originally thought of doing vessel sinks, like an onyx sink bowl, but they start at around $500 to $800 each! How terribly unfortunate. Oh well, maybe I can convince them it will be worth the money because my mom loves onyx so much. After all, our fireplace is faced in honey onyx.

Stay tuned, and I'll let you know what sinks I've decided on. Never mind that Dad says he absolutely will not replace the existing sinks. I will convince him. He has agreed to replace the floor and paint the walls. After that, he will see how awful the fake-wood, white cabinets look, and if he replaces those, he is sure to notice how scratched and rusty the white porcelian sinks are. The faucets are drippy and coated with lime, rust and I don't want to know what else. Once Dad notices and replaces the sinks, the ugly shower stall will surely start to bother him. How out of place it will look! First the floor and newly painted walls, then the cabinets, then the rest of the room. After all, nations have been annexed and conquered more gradually and unstoppably than that.

Before I go, I will share with you a few of the images that have inspired me. Feel free to cast your vote here: yes, Tim and Carol, you should, by all means, update your bathroom!

Here is just one example of an onyx sink bowl:


Pretty impressive, right? It is almost transparent.

Another option is a sink bowl made of stone:


This is neat, but I feel as though it might be a little too weird.

Here is an example of black slate flooring next to oak woodwork:



Here is a photo of Damon Salvatore's bathroom from The Vampire Diaries:


No. I did not include Damon. You will have to tune in to "The Vampire Diaries" to see for yourself. You could google Ian Somerhelder, the actor who plays Damon, but it really would not be the same.