Our Home: The Boys’ Bath

This is the part of the blog where I look like an idiot because I say, “This room is my favorite!”… but I’ve already said that about at least two other rooms… Oh, well. THIS ROOM IS MY FAVORITE. Welcome to the tour of our boys’ shared bathroom! It’s a jack-and-jill bath, joined on either end by our sons’ rooms (Truman and Deacon share a room, while Coen – my best sleeper – has a room to himself). As you can see, what we were starting with was truly not bad.

Not great, but definitely not bad. It was clean, relatively neutral, and most of it functioned well. As we were in the midst of renovating the rest of the house all at once before we moved in (and it felt like we were hemorrhaging money), we decided to leave the boys bath as-is, and come back to it a year or two later.

Fast forward a year later, and it was TIME. The tub stopped working properly, paint was peeling, floor tiles were breaking… Plus, I had a clear vision in my head of what I wanted the space to look like.

Yes, this is a little boys shared bathroom, but I wanted to design a space that screamed neither “little” nor “boy”. We truly don’t know how long we’ll be in this house, so resale was a small factor here. How could I create a space that was fun, a little daring, yet true to our family’s aesthetic and the rest of the house – those were the goals for this room.

Let’s start with lighting. These sconces are from Lucent Lightshop and I. love. them. Going back in time, I would have raised them about 3-4 inches, but it’s clearly no big deal. I’ve used Lucent several times in the past, and I am always floored by their creative designs, excellent craftsmanship, and killer price points.

I love how you can sneak a peak at another favorite part of the house – that hallway. See those cupboards? There are a ton of them lining that long space, and we left the original moulding and hardware because I loved them so much.

The showstopper piece in this bathroom has to be the floating white oak vanity, amiright? That beauty was dreamed up in my head, and created to perfection by our contractor. “Custom” always sounds so fancy (maybe a little uppity?), but in my experience, having a vanity (or even kitchen cabinets) made often is the same price if not less expensive than buying something pre-fab. Not always, but often – so be sure to ask your contractor!

I LOVE TILE AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT. Might be why bathrooms are my favorite rooms to design (I think). The floor tile is a cement from Riad Tile (local Dallas company that I adore). I love that it’s a relatively well-known pattern, but in an unexpected color (I sure do love me some dark green).

Similarly on the shower tile, we chose an inexpensive and basic white subway, but had it laid in a basketweave pattern which adds something special and a little cheeky to the space. And because I always want to know this when I see bathroom renovations: the grout is Frost by Mapei.

Oh, and you see that black edging along the side of the shower tile? That’s called Schluter (SHLOO-ter…what a great word), and it is a great option for several scenarios, like if your tile doesn’t come with a bullnose or edge piece. Ours did, but with the basketweave pattern, it would have meant a lot of awkward cuts and interrupted the pattern pretty obnoxiously, so Schluter to the rescue. It comes in all kinds of finishes, but matte black to match the plumbing felt right.

When we had this room photographed a while back, the boys were mostly just using this room to bathe. But they’ve all seemed to have grown a TON in the last few months and bathing altogether is no longer feasible (plus, we’re playing outside a lot and they get gross, so baths often are not the right call). So since then we’ve installed a shower curtain (we went with this one from Target and I love it).

I love it. A lot. And so do the boys (and they’re opinionated little monsters). What questions do you have? I feel like bathrooms have so many different elements and can lead to a lot of options (and therefore questions), so truly: ask away!

xo,

sarah