When we moved to Maryland, we quickly realized that our dreams of moving into a newly built or renovated home wasn’t going to happen. Instead, we chose the neighborhood we wanted and grabbed the first decent option we came across with dreams of renovating a little bit at a time. We had a long list of what we wanted to tackle, but a restricted budget. The bathrooms would have to wait.
Fast-forward a couple years, a friend of ours connected us with an incredible contractor, and our bathroom transformations began! I’m not even sure when or how we fell in love with matte black fixtures, but we were ALL about it. So much so, we went straight up black and white in both bathrooms. We still were on a pretty tight budget, so our goal was to be as cost-effective as possible, while also knowing that the entire thing had to come out.
The before picture doesn’t even do the “before” justice. In this picture, you can’t see the cracked sink bowl, the worn tile, and all the mold in the grout and fixtures. I cleaned the heck out of this bathroom constantly, but it never actually felt clean. The crazy part is that the previous owners took really good care of their home, and this was the better bathroom option we had! The master bath needed even more work… Bathrooms just take such a beating!
One place where I had to choose practical over beauty was the shower head. I needed to be able to remove the shower head for two reasons… 1. To rinse off my kids easily after baths and 2. to help with cleaning the shower. I don’t love the look of the rope, but man, it’s SO helpful!! As far as matte black, removable shower heads go… There was basically one, linked here. The handle, etc is linked here.
For the wall color, we used Benjamin Moore’s Marilyn’s Dress, and it’s their new matte bathroom paint. Matte on the wall is risky, but our contractor did an amazing job! To continue with the matte theme, we also went with a matte white subway tile in the shower. Taking the tile all the way up to the ceiling made the space feel a little bigger. We wanted to do the dark grey grout, but this bathroom is small and doesn’t have a window, so we went with light grey to keep it light and bright. The light grey grout also tied together well with the light grey floor tiles.
The vanity is from Home Depot, the Kohler Rubicon, and we love it! It has so much more storage than the old vanity, and it comes with some cool inserts that help with organization. It’s also at the counter height which is awesome for adults. It’s a little too high for the kids, but we use stools, and they’ll grow into it.
I’m so in love with the matte black faucet, and it was one of the most affordable options I could find! I used these black pulls and this curtain rod, both in matte black as well. The towel rod and toilet paper holder are both from the Moen Align collection at Home Depot.
The little “Splish Splash” wire words are from House of Owls on Etsy and are SO cute! The kids couldn’t resist messing with them, so we eventually took them down. I’m planning on getting them up again when the kids get older! We played it pretty safe with all the permanent features of the bathroom, so we’ve had fun adding decor pieces like this to make it more fun.
Last, but not least, we chose these shelves for above the toilet. We were close to choosing thick, wood floating shelves…. And honestly, sometimes I still wish we had them…. but we went full on modern with these beautiful overlapping ones. They are iron floating shelves from CB2 and are often on sale which is a huge win.
They come in a larger size as well, and they’re so much fun to decorate. The signs we have on the shelves were custom from Method Quality Goods. The candle, frame, and bottle vase were all Homegoods finds. The little match striker is from Henro Company. Below is a pic of how we changed it up a bit during the holidays!
We had a lot of fun designing this bathroom, and we couldn’t be happier! Even the kids are excited… The first time we took baths in the new bathtub, my middle was so enthusiastic about the “blue water”… He was so used to the tan look that came with the tan bathroom haha. Another project in the books!