Toilets, and Showers, and Valves...Oh My!

I've always thought how wonderful it would be to design your own house, from the ground up...selecting the perfect layout to fit your needs and hand selecting every last detail and feature of the house.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had these thoughts.  I'm beginning to reconsider that luxury.  One bedroom and bathroom is overwhelming enough!  Overwhelming might actually be an understatement.  Any time I'm given more than two choices, my head starts spinning.

Where do you start?!  My best advice would be to start looking in magazines, online, and any available marketing material to get an idea of different options out there.  I'm glad we decided to visit the local plumbing supply store and local hardware store to just browse and get some ideas before setting up an appointment.  I was focusing more on the pictures of the fixtures in a bathroom layout to get a sense of style and color options and tying the whole look together.  Our impromptu visits gave us the opportunity to look around freely and decline any offered help so that we didn't get caught in a pressuring sales pitch before we knew what we wanted.  It also helped to be able to stand in our future bathroom and measure off ideal locations and sizes of the shower, vanity/sink, etc. which gave us a more realistic feel for how much space we had available.

We went into the weekend with a to-do list of selecting our bathroom fixtures and had a pretty good idea of what we wanted for a look.  We were going for a contemporary rustic feel.  Is that an oxymoron?!  Ha I'm still debating this one.  Maybe this isn't the best choice of words,...we're thinking of earthy/neutral tones but with modern fixtures (i.e. think simple and sleek).  Still confused?  You may not be the only one.  We started our appointment off being asked a simple question "do you like high pressure water heads or rainfall shower heads?".  Nick and I answered in unison but with different responses!  Ha this is going to be fun! ;)  We hadn't thought about these types of details.  But in the end, we had a productive weekend and selected our shower base, valve, and tile; sink faucet; toilet; vanity with sink and top; and tile flooring.  I was surprised how many items in a bathroom are supposed to match...from the sink faucet,  to the shower controls, to the vanity hardware, shower door, and toilet lever!  And as with anything, each brand has a slightly different idea of what "brushed nickel" or "oil rubbed bronze" looks like and not all color options are available for each fixture.  That would just be too easy.

Meanwhile, we also had a budget to keep in mind.  So the "Tom Brady" toilet (not only the all-star of toilets with a heated seat and other excessive luxuries for a very un-luxurious part of life, but it was also installed throughout the iconic sports figure's new house) didn't exactly make the cut.  I told a puppy-dog-faced husband that we could get that toilet when he brings home a "Tom Brady" paycheck. ;)