When we decided we’d be open to not finishing our basement right away, it meant that we’d have one non-primary bathroom to choose finishes for. One bathroom for the next few years for our kids and guests. That’s no different than we have today, but it does make me want to be intentional with our selections!
The layout
Now, this bathroom is currently laid out with a tub/shower, toilet, and 36″ vanity. Don’t ask me what the little dry walled off section is next to the shower. We wanted the bathroom to be this width, and it created a little extra space on the shower end. I wouldn’t want such a narrow, deep shelf or closet in this bathroom, but if we don’t need it for plumbing or structural purposes, I’d be interested in making a built in bookshelf for the hallway. It’d be a great place to store books being so close to the living room, especially since our living room doesn’t have much space for furniture besides seating. It also allows guests a chance to see our books instead of them being hidden in our office.
For the tub, we’re thinking of just having a classic shower surround with a shower curtain. I personally think tiled showers while beautiful, are more maintenance, so it makes more sense to just use a a standard shower tub surround in this bathroom. While we won’t get to pick out tile here, we can look for a beautiful shower curtain to fit the space!
This bathroom’s footprint is relatively small at about 36 square feet (6′ x 6′ when excluding the shower space). The tile I’m interested in is a little pricier at $17/square foot, but the small square footage of this room makes the cost more palatable.
The vanity
Now here’s where things get a little more expensive. I love the idea of incorporating a statement marble with our vanity, and I thought this room would be the perfect place to use a remnant slab since we’d just need one that’s 36″ wide. However, I was browsing online slab yards in the bigger cities near us, and I just don’t think we’ll see the stones I’m looking for. I decided to see what Etsy has, and while I didn’t find many vanity tops for undermount sinks, I found a ton of pure marble vessel sinks or wall mounted vanities! I l love the idea of using a wall mounted vanity in a future power bathroom (whether in our basement, down the road reno house, or dream cottage!), but I would want some cabinetry in this bathroom to store towels, q-tips, toothbrushes, etc.
We then decided that a reasonable approach may be telling the builder to not write in the cost of a guest bathroom vanity and instead, customize our own! It would be a new experience that has lots of room for mistakes, but what a fun project this could be. Here’s a to scale render of what this custom vanity could look like.
The star of the show is obviously the vessel sink. It was so hard to pick just one off of Etsy, but here’s an example of the shape/dimension of sink I liked and used in my render:
I loved the lower height on this one, but our kids/guest bathroom would be a great opportunity to use a darker Calacatta viola marble. The Etsy store lets you customize the sinks, so I would probably go with a similar marble to what’s seen in another of their sink listings:
With this being a high traffic bathroom, I like the idea of using a raised marble sink that discourages things being left on it. The most we’d have to worry about is globs of toothpaste being left in the bowl, but this is the perfect opportunity to teach kids to clean up after themselves anyway.
As far as vanities, I found this one from Wayfair that is *perfect*. I love the color, the little knobs, and the detailing on the doors and drawers. I especially like how the inside is pretty open, which makes it a good place to store more towels or toothbrushes out of sight. One slight concern with this vanity is it’s 33″ tall, and it’ll have additional height with a countertop and vessel sink on top of it. The base of this vanity however create a perfect little nook for a small step stool to make hand washing easier for smaller kids.
We’d of course still need a vanity top for the vessel sink to rest on. I rendered the vanity with a Carrara marble, which is surprisingly a cost effective solution, especially if you find a remnant. I’m very flexible on what this material would be, and I think it would be best to wait to decide until after we got the vessel sink, so we could also compare samples of laminate, solid surface, or quartz.
Overall, I think the best approach for this custom vanity project (if we take it on) would be to order the sink from Etsy first since it really sets the tone for the whole piece. Then buy the vanity when it’s on sale, especially since Wayfair shipping should be relatively quick. Finally, once we have the sink and the vanity, we can look at countertop samples to see what would look best. This would be the one area where we’d work with a countertop shop or big box store, so the bulk of the project could be done on our own timeline. I have faith that Brandon would be able to handle the assembly of all the vanity pieces, and then it’d just be him or the builder doing the actual installation in the new house!
Finally to wrap things up, here’s an example of a marble vessel sink vibe in this bathroom from the #JoshuaTreeCustomBuild project by THELIFESTYLEDCO.
Previously I always added in a disclaimer to all of my renders and designs that the floor plan had not been approved and things might change. However, it seems that our builder feels pretty solid about our floor plan if they’ve been having someone draw it up and get estimates off of it! Now, it all comes down to what we can afford to do. If you read our first real builder update, we find it very important to stay within our target budget, and will make sacrifices to do so. Design is something I love to do, and we aren’t afraid to do (hired if necessary) projects down the road. If it were any different, we wouldn’t have spent years working on our floor plan, wandering Floor & Decor, and learning how to 3D render.
We’re so, so excited for all of the new experiences next year. It’s crazy to think that we will be building soon based on how fast things are moving with the builder, and our little baby will either be here just before or just after we break ground!
Thanks for reading!
Davien
fluted wood & marble 
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