Not to be too sensationalist with a post title, but I have an embarrassing admission to make. We've aired a few dirty secrets here on the blog in the past, and I think it's about time we publicly own up to this little known fact that both rivals and contributes to the hot mess that is our basement. This little secret sits in boxes covered in dust, tucked away in a dark corner of shelving having not seen their intended use in years.
Our secret? We're slow at renovating. We're also terrible at estimating project timelines. So much so, that we purchased the majority of our master bathroom hardware nearly five years ago. Yes, you read that right. During the summer of 2008, spurred on by a mean deal and a healthy dose of naïveté, we bit the bullet and purchased a couple thousand dollars worth of bathroom hardware and accessories, because we were sure that we'd be renovating...and completing...our master bathroom in just a matter of a few short months. That was a long. time. ago.
Fast forward roughly 1,800 days (or 2,592,000 minutes if I want to feel really bad about the situation) and these boxed polished nickel friends of ours are sad, lonely reminders of what might have been and could hopefully be.
From time to time I venture down into our crowded basement and dig through the stacks of boxes to pay these lonely friends a little visit. I open the boxes and brush off a piece or two, just to check in on our purchase, but mostly to ensure our selections still jive with our design aesthetic.
Lucky for me (and for my spouse) I'm still quite satisfied with our choices. These various accessories and hardware elements came from Restoration Hardware, way back when Old Town still had a Restoration Hardware just a short walk from our home. That fateful day many years ago their summer bathroom sale signage called to us like a siren song to pirates on a pillaging voyage down King Street, boasting discounts of 30%, beckoning us closer and closer as thoughts of a luxurious master bathroom clouded our judgement. The purchase of bath hardware, normally reserved for the last moments of a renovation, was an opportunity that was simply too good to pass up.
With so many options out there for bath hardware, making a decision on what brand and style to purchase can be quite a difficult proposition. We settled on using Restoration Hardware items in our master after using them in a smaller quantity in the guest bathroom, and we've been quite happy with both their look and performance. The hardware is heavy and solid enough to feel like very high end fixtures, but the sale-adjusted price tags bring the overall cost into a more reasonable range. It's more expensive than your typical entry level bath fixtures or those that you'll find at big box stores, but it's a fraction of the cost of places like Waterworks, where you can drop five Gs on a thermostatic pressure balanced control valve without batting an eyelash.
After much deliberation on style, we settled on not one option but a mix and match of two styles for our master bathroom to be -- known in RH speak as "Lugarno" and "Vintage." Umm seriously, how posh and pretentious does that sound?
"Why two styles," you might wonder? Because I'm picky like that. I didn't like the faucet in the Lugarno collection (the "mouth" looked too wide for me), and I didn't care for anything but the faucet in the Vintage collection. Some might call this "high maintenance," but I like to think of it as "deliberate." (Right, Alex?) After all, you're talking to the same woman who agonized over claw foot tub faucets, because one style looked to phallic.
It was not an impulsive decision in the least bit. In reality we, and by we I mean "I", absolutely agonized over this seemingly simple but life altering decision. I knew I'd need to look at these hardware pieces each and every day once they're finally installed, so I had to be secure and happy with my choice.
So here we are, years after our purchase, waiting for the day we can eventually put these bad boys to use to do such amazing tasks as deliver water, support hanging towels, or provide a convenient method for toilet paper dispensing.
We've got all we need to move forward, but as the best instructions always say, "Just add bathroom." Well, something like that.
Some day, hopefully sooner than in five more years, we hope to be at a point where we might be able to install these accessories. And no, I'm not talking about installing them in some random place in our basement or kitchen, I'm talking about actually installing them in a master bathroom. A girl can dream!
If there's any benefit to doing a renovation where you purchase the expensive hardware elements months or years before you ever get to a point where you can use them, it does do wonders in making your project seem far more affordable and lower cost. No, not actually lower cost, but simply spread out over a sufficient number of years that you forget how much you actually spent. Either that or the fact that things probably cost less years ago when we actually purchased the goods. Yeah, I'll justify it to myself that way, but it doesn't mean I'll be any more happy about it.
Do you have any juicy deep and dark renovation secrets that you're in the mood to share? This is a supportive environment, not one fraught with judgement, so please feel free to spill the beans. I promise I'll leave a very nice response even if we're all silently judging you while doing it.
