How to Re-plumb a Vintage Sink

Vintage 1953 ad courtesy of retro renovation, my sink except in white!

They said it couldn’t be done.

All I wanted to do was find new faucets for a vintage sink. Who would have thought it would be so challenging?

Let me take you back, dear reader, to one day last fall. Ever since we realized that the lovely Kohler Memoirs pedestal sink we ordered would overpower the downstairs powder room, I had been struggling to find a replacement. Not only that, but I was also struggling with the design of the room overall. I had a few ideas, but nothing seemed to really click. So without a design concept to guide me, I really had no clue what I was looking for in a sink.

One day I happened to be wandering around the RE Store, and I spotted this amazing blue vintage bathroom sink.

Master Bath: Vision and Reality

Man in search of a towel...

 Besides the kitchen, what other room carries as much weight design-wise as the master bath? In this busy world, it seems we all dream of a luxurious bath as the place to pamper oneself and recover from the stresses of life. It needs to offer privacy, serenity, and beauty. And, in the case of the master bath, it also needs to be practical and spacious enough to accommodate two people at once. There is a lot of pressure in designing a bath to meet all these expectations!

Although I don't have any statistics to back me up, I suspect many a house is sold based on buyers falling in love with either the master bath or the kitchen.

If you like to see the process by which a design becomes reality, I hope you'll enjoy this post where I share how our master bath evolved from just a few vague ideas into the final product. (Well, almost final product--nothing in the house is completely finished yet...)

The Sideboard that Ate Sunset Hill

Yes folks, it’s a double-feature now playing here in Ballard!

The Sideboard that Ate Sunset Hill

along with

Attack of the Giant Kitchen Island 

We knew house construction could be scary, but I never thought it would veer into science fiction! Here’s the scoop.

Ode to a Tree

Our wood flooring is arriving in 3 days—yahoo! Not only am I excited to see it, but getting the flooring installed is critical to moving forward with cabinets, and then countertops, and then light fixtures, and then… Well, you get the idea.

Sequencing the work of building a house is one of the toughest parts of being your own general contractor, in my opinion. It reminds me of that old song “Dry Bones” (or Skeleton Bones). “The toe bone is connected to the foot bone, and the foot bone connected to the ankle bone…” Everything in its proper order and timing!

Living Room Blues

The drywall is up and mudding is well underway. We should be ready to paint within a week or two, so I'm busy finalizing color palettes for all the rooms. Since I have been looking at color chips and deliberating over palettes for more than a year, one would think the decisions would all have been made already! But not so. You know the axiom about the task expanding to fit the time available for it? That's exactly what has happened.

Bathroom Design: Creating a Retreat for My Tween

There isn’t much guidance out there in the design world for creating spaces for kids between 9 and 12, or more specifically, tweens.

Our daughter is 10 and I’m trying to design the 2nd floor bath in a way that feels like her personal retreat, but is universal enough so that guests are comfortable using it too.

So far she is only minimally interested in hair and clothing, and baths are still all about playing with toys in the water. That suits me just fine—I’d like her childhood to last as long as possible. But I suspect that is all about to change...!

I’m aiming for a bathroom that gives her privacy to experiment with hairstyles, make faces in the mirror, and generally try out new versions of herself as she grows into her teens. It should have room to organize what will probably be a growing arsenal of personal care products. It should store towels and bed linens, extra toilet paper, and a good-sized clothes hamper. It should be relatively easy to clean and hard to damage. It should be able to survive the occasional science experiment and spilled nail polish, slamming of cabinet doors, and washing of the fish tank, and still come out looking good.

The décor needs to be fun but not childish. Modern but not cold. Personal but also welcoming to guests. It needs to be able to grow with her. It should be large enough for two, or even three, giggling girls with hair dryers. A floor-length mirror and a lot of good light would be a nice touch too.

So what have I come up with for Miss K’s bathroom?

Choosing Floor Materials



Walnut Floor, Wide Plank Hardwood

We have used a lot of different flooring materials over the years in our remodeling and building projects, so the field is wide open with respect to the new house. Looking back on previous projects, we’ve used…

Linoleum tiles in a former kitchen,

White marble tiles in the main bath;

Granite tiles in the guest bath;

Laminate in the basement multi-purpose room;

Wide plank heart pine with a Swedish finish at the house on Whidbey Island; and

Slate in the entry on Whidbey.

All of these were relatively low maintenance and quite durable. The linoleum was virtually indestructible and had the benefit of being resilient enough that if you dropped a dish it wouldn’t necessarily break. I never even got around to sealing it as was recommended—or the marble or granite—but it never seemed to matter! The Pergo laminate was a little vulnerable to dents if you dropped something on it, but otherwise cleaned up very easily and stayed fresh and bright looking. We love the wide plank pine flooring on Whidbey; same with the slate which handles tracked-in mud and wet shoes very nicely. It never shows any wear. 



Pine Floor at our house on Whidbey Island

Softwood vs. Hardwood The fir floors in the old farmhouse on the Sunset Hill site had certainly seen a lot of wear, but still could have been refinished. In fact, that fir flooring was salvaged and may already be in someone’s house living a new life. Our pine floors on Whidbey are quite soft but we haven't had any problems. I really don’t know why there is so much concern over fir and pine being soft woods. Sure, they dent more easily than other materials or harder woods, but unless you are walking around in spike boots or stiletto heels, the damage is really minimal.

Solid Wood for Longevity
Given our success with all these materials, the question is what will we choose for the new house?

Let There Be Light(ing)!



Despite not even having the wallboard up yet, I have been thinking about, researching, agonizing over, and actually buying lighting like there is no tomorrow!

Although lighting isn't installed until nearly the end, the decisions need to be make earlier when the rough electrical work is being done. We thought we had a pretty hefty budget for lights, but now that we have walked through the house room by room, it appears that even more dollars will need to slide into this category.

Slab Shopping

Michelangelo Granite

MTH and I went shopping for stone slabs for our kitchen and bath countertops today and, oh, what a treat! We visited Pental’s showroom in south Seattle where the warehouse contains literally hundreds of gorgeous slabs of granite, marble, and quartz—all so delicious-looking you could eat them!

We already have the following in mind for the bathrooms, but are still uncertain about the kitchens:

•  Miss K’s bathroom countertop—white quartz (she chose the one with sparkles in it)
• Our bathroom countertop—Michelangelo granite (honestly it looks more like marble…)
  
• Mom’s bathroom countertop—something in a soft green

House Jewelry

For the last two weeks I have been literally and figuratively in the trenches figuring out downspout drainage for our site. To give myself a break, I stopped by Builder's Hardware Supply today to look at doorknobs. Now you might wonder how looking at doorknobs could be any more exciting than plotting drain lines, but I promise you it was.