We are on the brink of potty training our first born. And I’ve made a terrible realization. Only one of the beautiful bathrooms I designed in our home is truly potty-training appropriate (i.e., has LOTS of room around the toilet and a ceramic tile floor). I cringe at the idea of repeatedly scrubbing the marble floors in the other bathrooms to prevent any staining from potty training near successes. But they really do make for a pretty place to potty.
When we were building our home, we absolutely had our kids in mind (see drawers for toys and books built into our living room bench seats; the Jack & Jill bathroom between two of the secondary bedrooms; the inclusion of a bathtub in that bathroom; removal of the linen closet that was original in the floor plans for that bathroom to give us room for more kids and parents to move around for baths and bedtime, the large, flat, back yard with boxwoods edging the highest points of our retaining wall to prevent or at least slow the propulsion of small children heading off the end of the yard). But I did not factor in potty training them.
Had I, I might have opted for more ceramic tile in our main floor guest bath. The one I expect to get the most use during the potty training days. But at the same time, maybe not. I just love that tile. It’s a statement in and of itself that I wanted to share with our guests. And bathroom design requires a balance between utility and providing us with a pretty place to potty.
Bathrooms are rich with opportunities to express ourselves in their design. Floor tile, wall tile or molding, or not, vanities (or not), cabinets, shelving, hardware on the vanities and/or cabinets, mirrors, lighting, art, and bathroom hardware (e.g., towel bars/rings, toilet paper holders, towel racks, train racks, and robe hooks). There are few if any other places in our homes that afford us with this many ways to give voice to our style. But they also require us to juggle many necessary elements (at a minimum, we need a toilet, a sink, lighting, and usually a mirror). We also usually have very little space to squeeze all these things into.
This is why our bathrooms were so much fun for me to design. They presented a challenge. But they were style bombs. I hope as you peruse the pictures of our bathrooms that I’m inundating you with here you get a sense of our style. We like the new/updated traditional style with some farmhouse mixed in. I wanted our bathrooms to be timeless. That’s why you see so much marble, polished chrome hardware, and vintage (early 1900s) inspired faucets and mirrors. The warm wood vanities add to the timelessness of these rooms. The black vanity in our main floor guest bathroom is more modern. But it was the perfect pairing with the tile; and the hardware, mirror, and lighting tone down the modern vibe and put it right in the pocket of the modern farmhouse style. The large black and marble hex floor tile is a play on the classic black and white floor tile that was so common in the early 1900s and that we have in our Jack and Jill bathroom (below).
This brings up another point. A theory I have (and apparently I have quite a few). Continuity in your bathroom design helps your home feel cohesive. It helps bring together the design elements throughout the rest of the house and define the home’s style. If all of your bathrooms are a different style, that does not mean your style is “eclectic.” It likely means you have some work to do to define your personal style (or pick one you’re going to stick with) and then some re-decorating to do. Our brains like continuity, cohesive design, flow (I’m sure there’s research out there somewhere to back me up on this). And our homes should be a place where our brains can decompress from “it all.” So while you’re answering the question of how you’re going to meet your/your family’s needs and fit the necessary elements into your style packed bathrooms, think also about what’s going on in or what you have planned for) your other bathrooms. I mean, potty training’s stressful enough. We don’t need disjointed design to add any more stress to that situation (or whatever you have going on)!
So, for us, because I prioritized pretty in our downstairs guest bathroom, we’ll have to be extra careful with our potty training experiment down there and take as much advantage as possible of our still very pretty but more utilitarian ceramic tile in the Jack & Jill bathroom. Balance, right? Sometimes that balance is struck between spaces, and sometimes all in one space. It’s for you (and the dictates of your home) to decide.
Spit & Polish 