Plans for the Master Bath

May 30, 2023

When we ordered our kitchen cabinets a few weeks ago, we totally lucked out and Ikea happened to be having one of their famous kitchen sales. We didn’t even know! Except, instead of a percentage discount like they’ve done in the past, this time around they were giving away a 15% rebate in the form of an Ikea gift card. For a whole kitchen of cabinets, that’s a BIG gift card. At first we were like, ugh, we don’t need that, we’d rather have money off. But then we started to think about all those other projects we had on the back burner, and the lightbulb went off. We can use the gift card to update our master bathroom!

As we’ve mentioned, we have a full bathroom attached to our bedroom, which is like 90% of why we bought this house. Attached bathrooms are the way to go! Plus, the shower has jets, you guys. JETS! Along with a really awesome showerhead, there are 3 jets in the shower walls that mean water coming from every direction! The only issue? The bathroom is not our style.

We like white and bright and light, not so much earth tones and ornate details. (Nothing against those things, but they just aren’t our cup of tea, just like we know our all-white-walls-everywhere are also not everyone’s taste.) But when we did a little research on how much those jets cost new, well, let’s just say we won’t be buying new ones anytime … EVER. So the oil rubbed bronze jets and shower door are staying, the tan and brown floor/wall/shower tile will stay for the time being, and right now we can replace the vanity, the mirror, the light fixture and make the room feel more like us in some other ways.

If you remember our master bedroom moodboard, we were going for “modern, minimal and a little beachy,” and we want the bathroom to have the same mood. The two rooms should feel like they belong together because, well, they do.

But how do we blend what has to stay with our more modern style??

THIS.

(via Amber Interiors)

It took me a long time to figure out what to do, but as soon as I saw this bathroom on Pinterest and decided to pretend the oil rubbed bronze shower door is black (it’s close), then it became A LOT easier to decorate around. The bathroom above, designed by the ever-amazing Amber Lewis, has the same modern/minimal vibe that we’re going for, and a color palette that we can work with in our room — white, black, wood and brass. We’ll also throw in a little teal to go with the bedroom (you can see the bedroom’s half-teal wall reflected in the mirror in the bathroom photos I took this morning).

We painted the whole room white before we moved in (the first photo shows the original tan/beige paint, but it was darker in real life). Right away I also bought two of those Moroccan-inspired bath rugs from Target and sewed them together to make one long rug that essentially covers the whole floor to essentially mask the floor tile that’s there. The teal color in the rug perfectly matches our teal bedroom walls. Ikea has a similar vanity to the inspiration image in a walnut finish, and we’ll top it with a matte black faucet also from Ikea (see where this Ikea gift card is coming in handy??). Then a shelf above the toilet for some extra storage (that West Elm one is awesome, but they’re sold out of the size we’d need, so again, maybe Ikea with some spray-painted brackets?) and a few matte-black and/or brass accessories, and we’ll be looking a lot better.

More modern, minimal bathroom inspiration, just for fun: