Master Bath Renovation: The Reveal
…with Before and After images, and I’m sharing more about our two main sponsors!
The “Why”
In September of 2020, six months into a global pandemic, lockdowns, a crazy presidential election, etc., as if the year couldn’t become any more difficult, I found a circle of fuzzy mold growing in our basement ceiling. As it turned out, our master shower had been leaking for who-knows-how-long. Clearly long enough to grow that much mold! We didn’t notice it because it was in a storage room we weren’t using much at the time.
We called ServPro to come out, open up the basement ceiling and clean out all the mold (and seal the area so that nothing has a chance to grow again if there’s ever any moisture there). Upon doing this, they discovered that it was our shower pan that had been leaking. My initial response? “Okay, so we’ll just replace the shower pan. That can’t be too expensive.”
I called a few bathroom remodelers, a few hardware stores, and my dad to get as much information as I could on how to replace a shower pan affordably. Unfortunately, they all had pretty much the same response, which was that it’s not just the shower pan that needs to be fixed. We’d have to completely remove the faulty shower pan, which meant likely removing or damaging the tile along the bottom of the shower (where it meets the pan), removing the shower glass in order to safely get all of that out, and replacing the damaged subfloor. All I could hear was the sound of money being flushed down the toilet.
At that time, we were already in the throes of the IVF process for baby number two, and if you’ve been through that or know someone who has, you know how expensive it is. We didn’t have money to fix our shower with an embryo transfer scheduled for the following month and all the bills coming in for All. Those. Injections.
So we decided to wait. We did have another bathroom with a shower, so we’d use that until we could save up for a shower replacement. Fast forward nearly nine months, and after meeting with some incredible brands to discuss trading their bathroom products for my photography and honest reviews shared on my Instagram account @nest.out.west, we were able to commence our master bathroom gut remodel!
So Why a Full Gut Remodel?
I refer to the story “When You Give a Mouse a Cookie” an awful lot, but that’s pretty much how these projects tend to unfold over here. It starts with just fixing the shower pan, but then after I learned that we’d also need to fix the wall tile and remove the glass, a little part of me got really excited. Our master bathroom was original to the home, which was built in 1999, and you could tell. My husband Jason and I knew that we’d eventually save up enough to make this the bathroom of our dreams, but it would take at least five years of saving.
The mold truly changed everything for us, and it shot that plan down—hard!
I reached out to some brands I had been following and loved—brands I’ve chosen time and time again for client projects. I told them about our situation and the fact that we truly couldn’t afford to fix this problem at the moment. I also explained that I am a trained photographer with a decent social media following, that I’ve always loved and recommended their products, and that I would happily exchange some hi-res photography and social sharing for discounts on their products.
To my surprise, a couple of those brands expressed that the feeling was mutual and that they’d like to gift products to us so that we could do a master bathroom makeover for the ages, not just a bare-minimum arts-and-crafts kind of fix. The renovation gods were on my side!
Determining a New Style Direction
Have you ever heard of design paralysis? It’s where you feel there are so many amazing options and looks out there that you can’t pick just one. With that, you only have one space, and you want it to be a perfect combination of all the styles and products you love without doing too much and it ends up looking like crap. Having such an incredible opportunity before me put me in a position where I struggled with design paralysis for about a month. How did I get past it? I used a little trick… something I do every time I sign a new client: Scan my Pinterest feed (particularly the board where I save bathroom inspiration), and identify recurring trends in the photos I had been saving.
When I did this, I realized that I gravitated toward sleek, modern bathrooms with earthy/organic, neutral-toned elements. I saw a lot of concrete floors and walls, lots of wood accents, marble, and brass hardware. Using all of this as a guide, I created a concept board in Canva (the free version is a great way for anyone to put all their ideas into one cute little presentation), and I really liked what I saw.
Our Paramount Sponsors
Two brands in particular were impressively quick to reply to my plea for help: Atlas Concorde USA (floor and wall tile), and Signature Hardware (pretty much everything else minus the shower enclosure and decor). I wanted to knock this project out of the park, so I took my time and honed in on the right products for this space (while paying close attention to which products would complement one another while maintaining a timeless, spa-like feel).
Atlas Concorde USA
Atlas Concorde USA won my affection once I saw its vast and beautiful array of porcelain and ceramic tiles made to look like actual marble, concrete, metal, wood, stone, and even fabric! They’re also committed to having a low carbon footprint, and to staying not on top of, but ahead of current trends. While part of me wanted to do the same tile I’ve seen in all the pretty bathroom remodels this past year (hint: it starts with a z, and few know how to pronounce it), I also wanted to do something unique that I hadn’t yet seen on Instagram or Pinterest. I knew I wanted a concrete-look tile after I spent an hour analyzing my own saved images on Instagram and Pinterest (something I do with every client of mine, too, by the way). I looked for recurring trends in all of the bathrooms I saved, and I noticed that the majority of them had some combination of wood and concrete. Therefore, I kept these two materials top of mind when designing our new master bath.
What’s really interesting about Atlas Concorde USA’s tile-making method is that their mosaics begin as a standard floor tile (developed by thoughtful design and research, of course). They use precise cutting techniques to create unique shapes and patterns. The pieces are then hand-placed on mesh and carefully assembled and packaged. The result is a premium product that is truly a work of art and often used in high-impact areas like backsplashes, kitchens and bathrooms. That’s how no two tiles are exactly alike, and that’s what led to the beautiful tone variety you see in the Bone Diamond mosaic (as well as the mosaics available in their other collections).
Below are links to the exact Atlas Concorde USA tiles I chose. Use their store locator to find a showroom near you so you can see their beautiful tile selection in person!
Floor tile: Cove 24” x 48” tile in “Breeze” (they’re big and beautiful!)
Wall tile: Boho “Bone” Diamond Mosaic (12 ⅛” x 10 ⅜”)
Signature Hardware
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would someday partner with a brand I valued as much as I did Signature Hardware. This is a company that for the past five or so years, I’ve been recommending to my clients when I helped them redesign their kitchen and bath spaces. Not only does Signature Hardware believe in quality, timeless materials and design, but they also keep just about everything on their website stocked here in the US, at their warehouse in Kentucky, so it ships to you quickly when you need it!
Partnering with them was an easy “YES PLEASE!” because of everything I just stated, and also because I feel that my design and decor aesthetic aligns perfectly with the Signature Hardware aesthetic. As such, below are all of the Signature Hardware items I selected for our bathroom remodel.
Freestanding Tub: Winifred Freestanding Resin Tub
Floor Mounted Tub Faucet: Edison Freestanding Tub Faucet with Hand Shower
Vanity: Bastian 72" Wood Double Vanity Cabinet—With this vanity, you can add on a countertop and sink combination or source those elsewhere if you’re not loving Signature Hardware’s selection. I had been eyeing a Carrara Marble stone already, so I was thrilled to see that it was an option to add on from their site! I chose white oval undermount sinks and 8” faucet holes.
Sink Faucets: Rotunda Widespread Faucet in Polished Brass
Towel Bars: Ceeley Collection Towel Bar, 24”, Brass
Robe Hooks: Ceeley Collection Robe Hook
Floor Registers (vent covers): Honeycomb Brass Floor Register, Antique Brass
Barn Door Mounting Hardware: 60" Bowden Top-Mount Barn Door Hardware x2, plus joiner
Door Knobs: Satcher Door Knob Set with Knurled Lever Handle
