Master Bathroom Updates

So maybe when you look at these pictures, you’ll think I’m cropping them very carefully so as to avoid spoiling some amazing project we finished and are saving up for another post. But no. It’s that 1. this bathroom is huge, but fairly narrow, so kind of hard to photograph from certain angles and 2. everywhere else in this room is an utter disaster at the moment.

But! We’re finished with part of one wall!

master bath preview

Benjamin Moore's Jet Black trim with White Dove walls

We’re all finished painting the walls now, and we’re still plugging away at the trim. Three of the walls are Benjamin Moore’s White Dove. The last wall plus all the trim is BM’s Jet Black. I fretted over picking a white paint quite a bit, but I’m pleased that we landed on the White Dove. As promised, it’s a true white, but with just enough warmth in it that it doesn’t read as too modern in this space, where we’re going for a more vintage feel (and also where we’re stuck with a cream vanity top and off-white tub to work around).

We’re painting the crown molding and door and window frames with a brush, but taking off the doors and doing them with the sprayer (and also spraying the baseboards that we took off back when we did the tile). I’ll do a comparison post of the two methods at some point, once we’ve actually finished it all. Because right now most of it still looks like this:

mbpreview07s

This room somehow manages to have three doors (one to the bedroom, one to the linen closet, and one to our big closet) and two windows, so there’s a lot of trim. Have I mentioned? SO. MUCH. TRIM.

I’ve had this campaign chest since I was a kid. My Dad went through an interested in antiques period and gave it to me. If I’m remembering right. It was in the den until two days ago, when we carried it up here. It’s a nice piece, although not in terrific shape. The drawers are a little ornery these days, and there’s a fair amount of damage to the veneer. But I still love it, and it’s pretty much exactly what I wanted for this space and exactly the right size. I’m a little worried about having it in a bathroom, with all the moisture….but this room is so big and the dresser is so far away from the shower that it doesn’t seem like it’s really much different from being in a bedroom that opens to a bathroom. I’ll keep an eye on it and make sure.

campaign chest campaign chest in master bathroom

I just grabbed some stuff to put on top for these pictures; I don’t know what’s really going to end up here. That lamp looks great there, but it belongs in my bedroom. Eventually there will be stuff on that big wall, too. I got these little vintage ceramic dogs at the thrift store the other day. Vintage ceramic dogs are my favorite. The astrology jewelry box was a gift from my mom years ago:

mbpreview05s

I’ll talk a lot more about assorted bathroom accessories in another post. For now let me say that I’m amazed at how many different ones there are to buy. I guess I’ve never started from scratch with a bathroom and replaced ALL of them. But in this bathroom pretty much everything was dated and mismatched.  So anyway, you can see in the pictures up there that we sprang for the more expensive black metal outlet covers. We have the same ones in the dining room, and I’ve found that it’s the kind of little upgrade that I notice and appreciate still, years later.

Dave has another week and a half of school, and then he’s out for summer. We’ll be traveling some, but mostly here, so I’m hoping for fast progress on this and other projects soon. For now I’m just glad this dresser is in here. We’ve been planning to move it for months but had to wait until the trim was painted and the baseboards reinstalled on that wall. As soon as it was in there I was like, “ah! Now the reality is starting to look a little like the picture in my head!”

 


Comments

Master Bathroom Updates — 20 Comments

  1. Well what is done is looking awesome! I’m loving that look of black crown moulding against white walls – exactly what I have in mind for my entryway (eventually). And I love White Dove – that’s what I’m slowly changing all our trim to, and what I painted our kitchen cabinets with.

    • Thanks! Good to hear a positive review of the White Dove from someone who’s been living with it for awhile 🙂

  2. I love it! Like that you brought the tile out from the bathroom. I want slate in our kitchen and great room.

    • Thanks, Di Linh! I’m a big fan of slate, but it is really cold….especially since the bathroom’s right over the garage

  3. I really love the idea of having a dresser in a bathroom. It really is a pretty piece. And i love theblack and white contrast. The black trim is really winning me over.

  4. OH my!!! I can’t wait to see more…..I can feel how sharp this space is already just by your photos up there and that dresser is outstanding! Well done Gretchen! Have a great weekend! Nicole xo

  5. That jewelry box is beautiful! Loving the black trim. I need to paint all my trim since I’m a messy painter so do let us know the sprayer versus hand painting outcome. Although, I probably wouldn’t attempt to remove our old trim, so it’ll probably have to be done by hand anyways. I can’t see why the dresser would be a problem. Don’t people use wood dressers as bathroom vanities all the time?

    • Yeah, we wouldn’t have taken the trim down just for painting if we hadn’t already needed to for tiling, but the doors are fairly easy to take down for painting. I guess it’s the veneer specifically I’m worried about with the dresser? It’s already kind of cracked and wrinkled in places, so it seems a little fragile. But we’ll see!

    • Thanks, Brynne! The campaign chest was always kind of hidden away in the corner in the den; seems like this way it gets a chance to show off more 🙂

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