Pretty laundry room = happy laundress

I really despise doing the laundry.  I do it, dutifully each week but I would really rather be doing pretty much anything else.  Knowing this about myself, I created a laundry room I would enjoy being in.  A space that would inspire me to embrace the laundry and all of the folding and sock matching that goes along with it.  Bright, white subway tiles adorn one wall to freshen up the joint since it doesn't have a window and the other walls are painted in Dunn Edward's crisp, French White.  For lighting, crystal flushmounts add a bit of glamour as well as the crystal hardware on the cabinets.  The black and white tiled flooring adds some whimsy and for further inspiration, I had a sign made from Etsy reminding me to be thankful for the piles of laundry.  So now I really have no excuse other than to tackle those dirty clothes with the happiest of hearts.  And I do.  Most of the the time.

When you have talented friends...

My dear friend works for California Closets and happens to be really, really, ridiculously good at what she does.  She designed our master closet, as well as the kids' closets.  What she created in ours makes me want to pinch myself every time I walk inside. Here is just a little piece of the beauty that she gave us…

We still have a bit more work to do in here.  I need to have a valance made and a cushion for the bench under the window.  I will get to those little projects this spring.  Even without it being completely finished, it is one of my most favorite spots in the house.  It's the perfect place to have a glass of champagne while contemplating what to wear for a night out.  Cheers to that!  And cheers to super talented friends!

OK, where was I?

I had to take a quick break from blogging.  We took back-to-back trips to Newport and Manhattan.  We came home, exhausted and needing to thaw out only to find that our Internet had been disconnected.  It took a while but we finally figured out the problem.  Apparently our new neighbors who just moved into their home disconnected our service in order to get theirs.  Every man for himself I guess, not very neighborly if you ask me but there you have it.   So, we are back home and reconnected and everything is right in our little world.  Here are a few more pictures of our master bathroom, for the flooring I wanted what else?  Marble, of course.  It's a big space so I wanted to break up it a tad, adding these small, polished, black granite pieces did the job beautifully.

Master Shower

For the master shower I continued to use Calacatta Oro marble.  The great thing about marble is that it comes in so many different shapes and patterns.  The bad thing about marble is that it comes in so many different shapes and patterns.  I would leave design meetings feeling dizzy from all of the choices.  I loved the mosaic pattern and knew I wanted to incorporate it somehow in the shower.  Using it on the floor and as an accent on one wall was the answer.  Knowing that using this material would come with a lot of color variation, I kept it simple from there and surrounded the rest of the shower in 12x12 tiles.  We used a decorative border piece for the bench seat and to wrap around the mosaic on the wall.  I am so happy with the way it turned out.  It's fresh and bright with nice some details while still maintaining a classic look.

Master bathroom tour, part 1

Designing the master bathroom probably caused me the most amount of stress.  I knew I wanted to use Calacatta marble, so that part was simple.  The difficult part was choosing the right marble pieces for the floor, the shower, and the countertops so that they would compliment each other.  For the countertops I took a trip to a marble yard and found this beautiful slab of polished "Calacatta Oro."  I had them fabricate it with a square ogee edge to add some nice detail and finished it off with a thick border in the same marble.