The All Black and White Room in my House!!

It is no secret to my readers that this girl loves Black and White! The other thing about me is I love to design bathrooms. I have shared my theory on bathrooms, especially a guest bathroom:

The bathroom is the only room in your home that your guest will go into, sit down and have nothing to do but look around at everything without any apprehension since there will be no one (Mainly YOU) watching them check things out! With that being said I believe one’s guest bath should be one of the best dressed rooms in the house for YOU and your guest.

Often bathrooms can be relatively small and in such cases I feel they should be like a jewel box so I will often have clients use darker, richer colors on the wall for a little drama.

Now, back to my all black and white room in my home, my guest bath.

When we moved into our home over thirty-two years ago ( Yikes, has it been that long, and I am still decorating and changing things?! You see it never stops!) At that time, I wanted to find an antique piece where I could place a sink. A common practice now, but 32 yrs ago, not so much. My sweet hubby wanted to just get the house finished being built. His father is a cabinet maker and made all my cupboards in the house so he built our bathroom cabinet. I agreed and it was 20 years later that I finally got my antique piece of furniture.

I have always loved black and white checked flooring and I knew the bathroom would be a perfect place to do this element. I chose to use white Carrera marble and absolute black granite for the flooring. I must say when the floor went down this girl felt like I had died and gone to heaven!! To this day I can not look at that floor without smiling.

 

The other piece in this room that I had looked for for years was a fretwork to put over the opening of the bathtub. I actually found this in an antique refinishing place that dips antiques pieces to strip them. It was literally hanging on a nail in the rafters, in pretty bad shape. It was a fret work off of an old Victorian home porch in San Francisco.

When I brought the piece home, which had been stapled together and had been dipped and all the finish that was coming off was off, my poor hubby said that it was a piece of junk and could not believe I had paid what I had paid for it. I was deflated, but still determined since this is a piece I had literally looked for for years.

The re-finishing began. I used a drill with a sanding bit on it. I literally worked over 2 hrs on ONE!! spindle with very little success. This was a solid oak piece and I wanted to stain it. It had white paint in the grain. I did not quite know what to do, so I took it to an older man that was a paint specialist in our town and he told me it was not paint but a filler that they use to put on large grained wood to paint it. Oh No!! Not good news. What was I going to do?

I sanded a bit more, Hubby glued and clamped it together. He stained it. He shortened the length to fit above the tub and we installed it!! Here it is today after twenty years!!

All the lighting in the room is reproduction. The actual piece of furniture for the sink dates back to the late 1800’s so I chose the lighting according to the era of that piece. That is why all the fixtures are in a brass finish.

I have had a black and white bathroom for over 40 years, so I guess I am married to that color scheme, so to speak. Previously the bathroom in another house, and in this house had been wallpapered in a black and white ticking, which I still miss. When we did the re-do I chose a black and white toile’ which I have enjoyed, but lately I have been thinking of another black and white wall paper. Shhhh! don’t let hubby hear that. I will have to go slowly with that change, more on that later.

I have all white towels in my home but in this bathroom they are monogrammed in black. I love the look, it is so classic and sharp to me.

I put a few pictures of old world scenes on the wall and one black and white sketch of a building in Charleston, South Carolina that I got on one of our trips. I like to get black and white historical building on our travels.

Well, there you have it! The complete history of my all black and white guest bath in my home.

“Enjoy the Process” Of:

Waiting and planning to get a room you will truly love for years!

Kathysue