Farmhouse Chic

The master bath. I had a heck of a time taking decent photos because the room is so small, but hopefully you get the gist. (And those lights? I don't like them. They will be replaced. Eventually.)

Mine! Mine mine mine! Ashley has her very own vanity! No boy stuff allowed! To make it perfect, I changed the design of the cabintry to be filled with drawers. Never again will my make-up sit out on the countertop . . . . Chris's area on the left. Toilet room is behind that door, but you don't really need to see that, right? Also, this photo shows the walls as way more yellow than they really are . . . .

And, however many weeks (months?) later, we continue our tour of Casa Hofmann. . . . Welcome to our grown-up bathroom. The first time I showered in here, I felt like a kid using her parents’ bathroom. You know, like I wasn’t supposed to be in here. It’s just so. . . grown up. This room may be small compared with the rest of the house, but it has required the most decorative effort. The reason? I didn’t want a nice—but predictably nice—bathroom. I wanted it to be unique while still conforming to the traditional style of the house. A bathroom has so many elements to bring together and the choices are endless. I mean, I had to select grout colors (yes, plural) for the tile from something like 70 shades. Honestly, because it’s so easy to screw up designing a bathroom, I can see why people just go super safe and generic—and I can’t really blame them. As you may (but probably don’t) recall from a blog post forever ago, I was aiming for “farmhouse chic” in the master bath. Let me define this, because I’ve met completely blank faces every time I’ve used this phrase. To me, “farmhouse chic” is classic, traditional yet updated, and tastefully rustic in a non-cute way—meaning no country cottage motifs, no cutesy phrases hand-painted on watering cans, no knickknacks, no embroidery, no stenciling. Still confused? Okay, just look at the above pictures. THAT’S farmhouse chic. To get a better sense of what I wanted, I spent some quality time on the Barnes and Noble floor, going through expensive decorating books without buying any of them (this was in our pre-Charlotte days, so I actually had the time to do this). I didn’t find any overall look that knocked my socks off, but I saw enough dribs and drabs of things I liked that I felt a little better prepared entering our design appointment in which we picked out tile, cabinetry, and so on. Chris was dying for the black granite, and I went along with it, but doing so did limit what would work in this room. I opted for the slightly off-white cabinets, added a few millimeters to the granite to thicken it up, and changed the fixtures to brushed nickel. Easy. Then came the tile. Again, being in Maryland farm country, I wanted “farmhouse chic.” I told the design lady, who kept trying to sell me floor tiles in varying shades of beige, that I wanted something that looked like hardwood but would wear like tile. Ta da! The design center (which was the size of a football field—aka HEAVEN) had gotten a new line of that very thing a day or two earlier. I had quite a few choices, but I eventually chose a more daring, worn-out look to give the bathroom that country feel I was going for. The tiles were laid like floor planks and I love how it turned out. Next, I needed tile for the bath and shower. This made me nervous because I needed to avoid clashing with the white cabinets, the black granite, or the brown floors. To further complicate matters, we had decided to do tile all around the bath as well as the shower walls and floor (instead of white that comes with the shower). So this was going to involve a lot of tile, and of course I was making all these decisions with teeny tiny samples. I chose the brown that you see. It’s not glossy or shiny but instead has more of a natural look than something hyper-manufactured. To tie in the black granite, I added that dark border with the smaller tiles. And, of course, I picked the all-important grout color! (Chris, bless his heart, gave me free reign to pick everything. I ran it by him to give him the illusion of having final approval, and he put on a good show acting like I was a such a clever decorator.) After this much work and expense, you’d think this bathroom would be move-in ready. Wrong! As you can see, one of the great things about the bathroom is all of the natural light. Of course, one does want some privacy when in the bathroom, so we had the plantation shutters custom-made. I wanted something that would let in light, show off the big pretty windows, hold up in a steamy environment, and work with my decor. Solution? Plantation shutters. I didn’t want them to go all the way up because sunrises out here are absolutely stunning and you can see the countryside greet the morning as you shower. Apparently, having the shutters come up halfway is called a “café” plantation shutter and I didn’t invent the concept like I thought I did. Next Day Blinds had to get a little creative with an accordion-style open-and-close method due to the weird placement of our windows, but I suppose that’s how they justify the absurd cost. Another plantation shutter in the toilet room finished off the window coverings. Finally, I had to paint. (Okay, I actually painted prior to the shutters getting installed, but you get my point.) I wanted to paint the bathroom a beautiful airy light yellow. Trouble is, yellow is one of those really, really hard colors to get exactly right. I had never seen yellow done well in a bathroom, but I was determined to try. I found a super cute, very VERY pale baby yellow shade in the Disney-brand paint, which I matched up to a significantly less expensive shade made by Glidden (and got a $5 rebate from Home Depot—which means I painted this room for ten bucks). As I started to paint, I panicked a little and thought the shade was too light. Still, I knew I was on the right spectrum of yellow (not too buttery, not too canary, not too lemony), but I wasn’t sure it was dark enough. After much waffling, I decided to just keep painting. As I finished up and pulled off the masking tape, I was shocked at how well it turned out. I know I you don’t have a “before” photo with the super white paint to compare to, but the new paint really softened the room, still maintained that light airiness I wanted, and hinted at yellow without actually screaming “I’m a yellow bathroom!” I LOVE this bathroom. Sure, it needs some tweaking--it could use some more accessories (not knickknacks, accessories) and the lighting needs to be replaced with something pretty from Restoration Hardware. But overall, I heart it. One of these days, I just may find the time to take a long bubble bath while gazing lovingly around the room.