Bathroom Remodel: Choosing tile for bathroom {Part 2}

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Andy and I are in the midst of bathroom remodel 101! Seriously, it’s a giant learning process. More on bathroom remodel Part 1 here. Things you’ve (or at least us) have never considered like, cabinet depth (18in, 22in, or 24in are the norms) or the fact that small floor tiles equals more grout equals less slippery surface as opposed to having large tiles with less grout or how freakin’ hard it is going to be to remove wire and mortar tile from your walls! Today I’m sharing the inspiration and how to choose tile and materials for your bathroom! (We’ve changed our minds oh about 87 times, ha!)

If you want the full story, you can read all 6 posts:

• Part 1 (The before and original plan)
• Part 3 (Demolition tips)
• Part 4 (Embracing change)
• Part 5 (Tiling tips)
• Part 6 (The big reveal!)

Let’s start with a little taste of demolition. Here’s the first chip away in the ol’ bathroom. Oh and that’s my 33 week prego belly.

Andy rented a Makita demolition hammer from Home Depot the other night. $50 bucks a day totally beats the $650 it would cost to buy this 27 lbs tile ripping out machine! Renting tools from Home Depot is super easy. They even gave us a few free ear plugs. That thing is l-o-u-d, I am super thankful for our earplugs! Andy just saw this pic, and said, “I look cool!” I died laughing… haha! I guess he does look pretty tough with a demolition hammer + a giant metal spade thing! He was pretty excited about this machine…

So, back to the bathroom plan… here’s the bathroom floor plan…

We’ve talked about all kinds of crazy things, like:

• Pushing the master closet wall back 6in. and adding a stand up shower in the vanity spot.
• Or even busting down the vanity and making a hallway through the master closet into the bathroom. Although, that eats up a lot of closet space.
• Adding a double vanity and cabinets is a no brainer.
• Knocking out the craft closet completely, and make the master closet bigger and add a stand up shower.
• We even talked about gutting this entire space and re-working the whole bathroom/ closet situation.

But, after much debate and tons of talking to Home Depot employees/contractors/ plumbers/ electricians, we are leaving the basic floor plan as is (until we change our minds again tomorrow night, ha!). The major changes in our bathroom will be:

• Adding 2 sinks and a long cabinet for more storage. We need more counter space, y’all!
• Getting rid of the current storage above the bathtub and vanity. (Lots of lovely pics here.)
• New tile, new tub, new fixtures, and new lights!
• We are still undecided about adding the stand up shower.

OK so, now for the fun part… here is the how and why we chose materials for the bathroom. (Here’s my Pinterest bathroom remodel inspiration board).

• Floors: Like I said above, we decided on small scale tile for the floors with the idea that more grout will make the bathroom floor less slippery. It’s also super reasonably priced and in stock at our local Home Depot. In stock means that we can run up there and buy more whenever we need to! We also wanted to stick with hexagons, since those are original to our bathroom. Meet our new Greecian White Hexagons:
• Walls and shower/ tub surround: The original bathroom has square tiles going half way up the walls all throughout the bathroom, minus the bath/ shower area where the tile goes all the way to the celling. Although white subway tiles are not the most unique material in the world, they are cost effective, pretty, and universal. No one will walk in our bathroom and think it’s hideous, ya know what I mean. So, after much debate, we are going with white subway tile to replace the existing wall tile. We need a lot of it! Oh and this is also in stock at Home Depot!

• Bathtub: This has been a big dilemma. Decision #1: Drop in or apron (click on the word to see pics of what I mean) Decision #2: Acrylic or cast iron. I could write a whole post on this topic, in fact I think I might do that! This was a huge decision for us both because of cost and looks, and in the end we are about 95% sure we are going to go with an acrylic drop in tub! Maybe this one in white? This is my inspiration for the shower/ tub area.

• Sinks: This is one big change we are making to our current bathroom. We will have 2 sinks… woot! woot! We decided on under mount sinks for sake of being easy to clean. After all, this is the bathroom that we will share with the bambino. We are thinking about  2 of these KOHLER Verticyl Rectangle for our bathroom.

• Fixtures: Andy is very adamant that we not have 2 separate handles on the shower or sink fixtures (like this). He wants a single hole faucet system. So, I think we finally agreed on this Delta Dryden shower handle and faucet. Phew. That was a tough one! We will get the matching fixtures for the sinks.

Are we nuts for starting a bathroom renovation 7 weeks before our kid is born? I’m kinda thinking so. Anyone else in the midst of bathroom chaos? Ever rented tools from Home Depot? Had to decide between a drop in bathtub or a tub with an apron? What did you do?