This guest post is from our friend Carrie Waller of Dream Green DIY. If you like her style, check out her design, crafts and lifestyle blog.
I have spent the better part of the past year working alongside my husband to update our mid-century brick ranch home. As they say of these types of labor-intensive renovations, the process has been quite the journey, but we’ve taken our time with each project to ensure that the changes are updates that we’ll love for the long haul.
One of our major focuses in the past 365 (plus) days has been our primary bathroom. When we first moved in, the space sported wildly outdated wallpaper, yellowing floor grout, as well as shower and tub fixtures that leaked constantly. It wasn’t a pretty sight but unfortunately, with so many other big renovation projects going on simultaneously, we couldn’t afford an entire gut job.
Instead, we’ve taken our time making small tweaks here and there, such as removing the wallpaper and repainting the room white, refinishing the floor grout and—most recently—changing out the shower and tub fixtures for brand new offerings from Delta.
For this fixture makeover, we settled on the Trinsic® 14 Series Tub and Shower Trim and the In2ition® H2Okinetic® Two-in-One Shower, both in the ultra-chic “Champagne Bronze” finish. Our plumber kicked off the renovation by helping to remove the old leaky fixtures and rerouting the plumbing from a split-handle design, to the new Trinsic® single-handle faucet.
After the plumber finished up stage one of the project, we decided to DIY the wall patching and retiling to save a bit of money. Although a time-intensive process, we had the wall sealed up and the fixtures finished with fresh sealant in the span of one long weekend.
To complete the room redesign, I switched out a few of our generic bathroom accents for new modern minimalist accessories inspired by our updated Delta fixtures. Our existing plastic soap dispenser was changed out for a reusable brass model and a few white accessories like a clock, ceramic tray with disposable guest paper towels and marble canister to help round out the spa-like tone of the space.
Is the room completely done? Not quite! However, this mini makeover has served as the perfect starting point!
We couldn’t afford to switch over all of our bathroom fixtures to brass this time around, but the good news is that metallic finishes naturally work together since they’re considered neutrals in the interior design world. Our new brass spout, handle, and shower head might not be perfect matches to the existing chrome sink faucet or even the bath tub drain, but the group still works because they’re all metals.
The moral of the story? Don’t feel like you have to ignore the finish that you love the most just because your existing fixtures are made of a different metal. They’ll all play together nicely throughout the transition, so make small changes in your preferred finish as you can afford them, and ultimately your room will come to life before your eyes—one piece of pretty hardware at a time!
