Gray Matter

My little family has been living in our 2-story brick home for almost a year now (our first home!) My husband and I dreamed of buying a home for many years, but the timing was never right, especially once we made a temporary move across country. One thing that never changed was our desire to paint and improve every rental we lived in (yes, every one, I'm counting at least 5…) until we finally had the opportunity to return home and buy that piece of property we had wanted for so long. So, although we have been working tirelessly on painting, scraping, building, cleaning, and updating fixtures, hardware, etc for the past year, getting our feet wet per-se, our master bathroom felt like our first major project as homeowners. Nevermind the fact that I thought we’d be embarking on this project the month after we moved in (I’ve never been one to wait patiently for something).

But, it was worth the wait. Here’s a couple of before shots (on move-in day, so pardon the bad lighting!):

And now, the after.

We settled on a gray and white color palette, with temple gray marble tiles in the shower and tub surround, porcelain roto-print tile for the floor, and white ceramic subway tile on the walls with oil rubbed bronze accents. The vanity is a white base with gray and beige granite top from Home Decorator's Collection. While we’re not afraid to tackle big projects ourselves, this time we decided to go with a contractor for the tile work because the job involved a complete gut and reframing a whirlpool tub, and we knew if we attempted to do it all we’d kill ourselves trying to do the work outside of our 9 to 5 jobs (not to mention we’d be without our bathroom for weeks, possibly months!) So while it cost us a bit more, it was the right move. And we saved a chunk of change by doing all the demo and reinstalling toilet, vanity sinks and faucets ourselves. We're so happy with the results. I love feeling like I'm in a fancy hotel bathroom (though honestly, I never stay in hotels with marble showers. yay!) Does this make anyone else want to take a shower? Or is it just me?