Me? Indecisive? Never!

I had a sudden realisation this week that even though we've progressed with our downstairs renovation as far as kind of getting some walls up (see here), I need to start thinking more seriously about the eventual design of the rooms before we go much further, or it will be too late.

 
As in... if I want little storage niches for toiletries in the bathroom, they have to be built into the frame! If I want any extra little walls (like one to hide the side of the fridge), it needs to be built into the frame! If I want bulkheads in the ceiling anywhere, they should be built into the frame!

So I had to start thinking seriously about what I want the rooms to look like in the end, most specifically the bathroom (and next on my list is the kitchen). Here's what the little bathroom plan looks like.

Because the plumbing for the various bits and pieces has already been concreted into the slab, I don't have the ability to move any major items around without serious hassle, so the bath definitely has to go along the left wall, with the vanity and then the toilet along the right.



But there are a whole heap of other design-ey issues that need to be sorted out before we do the rest of the plumbing, like what kind of vanity cabinet I will get (and therefore where the taps need to go). I'll get to those shortly. The layout of the bathroom will actually feel a lot like this one below, if you pretend that door at the end doesn't exist, and that the entrance of the room is actually right up near the vanity cabinet.

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What's concerning me most today is the bath area. I would like to make a bit of a feature of the big wall above the bath. I've got a couple of options on my shortlist at the moment, one of which is tiling it in a small subway-ish tile, a lot like this:

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Or like this, but with less green and no marble. I'm thinking only the long wall would be in the subway tile, the other walls at either end of the bath would be in a plainer, different tile. Probably the same one that we've used in the upstairs bathroom on the floor and walls.

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I could even flip the tile and have it run vertically like this!

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My second option is much more wacky. I love it, and I think it would look fabulous, but I have to keep reminding myself that we probably won't even use this bathroom ourselves since we're aiming to sub-let the downstairs area (when it's finally built). So I guess I need to reign in the outlandishness a bit. Therefore, I am yet again indecisive. What a surprise!

My idea involves a bit of this...

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Black and white stripes! Not painted ones though... tiled ones!

Sort of like this.

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Or this.

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Although I think neither of those inspiration images actually have the stripes done in tiles (more like paint or wallpaper), you get the idea, right? Wouldn't it be super cool, just on that one wall above the bath? It probably wouldn't have to be too expensive either, since I might be able to find ordinary wall or floor tiles in the right sizes that are priced by the square metre rather than per sheet like feature tiles usually are.

And as an added bonus, it would reference my black pinstripe tile wall in the upstairs bathroom, which would tie the upstairs bathroom in with the downstairs a bit.

Then there's the other dilemma.

Most modern Australian bathrooms have frameless glass shower screens. Shower curtains are not particularly cool anymore. So whenever I've thought about this little downstairs bathroom (which clearly hasn't been enough), I've always thought we'd put in a fixed panel of glass about 1-metre wide or so to run from the top of the bath to the ceiling, on the end that has the shower rose. That way we protect the rest of the bathroom from being covered in water, but still leave the rest of the length of the bath open for access getting in and out.

Like this, but running all the way to the ceiling.

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Although the little bathroom plan shows the shower head coming off the back wall of the bathroom, I'd be inclined to switch it and have it on your left as you enter the room, so it's not the first thing you see. What makes that idea even better is that whenever the bathroom door is open, it would butt up against the glass. If the glass was up the other end, the entire bath area would be shut off from the rest of the room whenever the door was open.

But when are things ever simple when I'm involved?

That's right, never. Because it occurred to me that having a pane of glass basically dividing the room in half the minute you walk in could be not so nice, and make the small room feel smaller.

So... I introduce my next point of indecision. Glass shower screen or shower curtain?

There are so many beautiful bathrooms out there with shower curtains, and shower curtains themselves can be so pretty these days (if you don't buy them from Crazy Clarks like I did - see the bathroom section of our original house tour for that vision in pink and yellow). It seems like a shame to close the room in with an extra division, even if it is see-through (and pay a fortune to do it... glass is expensive!), when you can have it completely open just by drawing the shower curtain to one side.

Like this...

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Or like this!

Plus, a shower curtain would be a lovely way to add some colour and personality that can easily (and fairly cheaply) be changed. Love this one.

But since I'm not the one going to be using this bathroom, I don't want to make a decision because I think it would be lovely but that others won't like. Plus, I have a logical argument too! I worry that having a panel of glass directly behind you when you're trying to get ready in the mirror in the morning would make the bathroom feel much more constricted than if that were empty space and there was a shower curtain instead.

I think there might be a clincher, though, and that's the door. When the bathroom door is open, it will form a barrier along the bath anyway! And chances are, unless someone's sitting on the toilet or having a shower, that door will be open. So the glass option would work nicely, I guess. It does make the room a lot more modern than our upstairs bathroom though...

Arghh. I can't make up my mind!

Help me! What should I do? Little subway tiles or funky vertical stripes? Glass or shower curtain?