HOW TO RENOVATE A BATHROOM | CHOOSING YOUR FIXTURE FINISH
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WELCOME TO A NEW VIDEO SERIES ON HOW TO RENOVATE A BATHROOM.
My guess is that many of you live in a property that has at least one, if not upwards of six or seven bathrooms, and at some point you're going to be considering some level of a bathroom makeover. Many of you probably are considering a full blown renovation, meaning that you're going to be starting from scratch, which is very exciting but it can be daunting at the same time. This is why I am excited to share with you a new video series called, How to Renovate a Bathroom.Throughout the series, I will share tips on How to Choose various materials for your bathroom renovation. In today's video, I share the most popular finishes and the pros and cons of each and how you ultimately choose the right finish for you. It may sound simple, but my experience is, it's an overwhelming process because there are so many choices available.To help you account and budget for all the materials you'll need for a typical bathroom renovation, I have put together a comprehensive bathroom materials checklist. It's my gift to you. You can download it here.
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In today's video we're going to be talking about how to choose the finishes for your bathroom. What am I talking about in terms of finishes? I'm referring to is the metallic finish of all of the fixtures in your bathroom. So this could be on your sink faucet, it could be on the shower fixtures inside the shower stall, it could be on your robe hook or your tissue holder, even your towel bar. The good thing is we are in an era when people are embracing the idea of mixed metals, meaning that you don't have to have the same exact finish on everything in the space. We're going to focus our attention on the most common and most popular finishes.
CHROME
Everybody has probably lived in a space that had some level of chrome finish in their home. Chrome is the most popular, it also tends to be the least expensive.
PROS: it's readily available; it's relatively inexpensive; it can pop against an otherwise kind of neutral or dull background.
CONS: it is a mirror or polished finish which tends to easily show imperfections such as dirt, fingerprints or water marks.
BRUSHED NICKEL
Also very, very popular and very sought after. So it is more of a matte finish versus the chrome. So a brushed nickel is when they take the metal and they actually use an abrasive to create that brushed look, which takes away the shine.
PROS: This is very popular because unlike a chrome finish, it does not show fingerprints or dirt as easily, so it's a little bit more practical.
CON: it tends to be more expensive, so you're paying for that convenience. A close cousin to the brushed nickel is stainless steel. They look very similar, the difference is stainless steel tends to have a little bit more shine to it because it's a lacquer finish versus the brushed nickel, like I said, it has the abrasions that take away the luster, and so it tends to give you a more matte finish. We use a combination of stainless steel and brushed nickel a lot of times, especially in kitchens because you don't always have stainless steel finishes in all of the different elements, but you would have the brushed nickel which still works very well together and you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference if it wasn't pointed out to you.
POLISHED NICKEL
This is my personal favorite. It's a beautiful warm finish that does have the high shine to it, so it is polished. What they do is they take the nickel and they plate it and then they polish it to give you that very shiny mirror finish again. But if you look at it, it's very warm. When you compare it to chrome, the polished nickel has kind of a golden undertone, which gives it this very luxe, high end look. Unfortunately, it also comes with a high end price tag.PRO: it's beautifulCON: you're paying for that beauty; is more expensive. It shows a lot of the dirt and the fingerprints and the watermarks because it is a high shine finish.
OIL RUBBED BRONZE
This gives a completely different look altogether. This tends to be used on a lot of old world designs. If you're going for more of a Mediterranean look or an old world European aesthetic, then oil rubbed bronze is the right finish for you. There's a couple of different styles to it; I've seen the oil rubbed bronze where it's matte and is a consistent bronzy color, so it's a dark brown color. There's also the oil rubbed bronze where it's the dark brown with highlights of gold in it.
PROS: matte finish so you don't see the fingerprints as much; it's a little more low maintenance
CONS: not as readily available; there's not as many options, and then the price tag tends to be a little bit higher.
MATTE BLACK
I love a matte back finish. It is beautiful and more unique.
PROS: It is a matte finish, so it comes with those benefits. It looks absolutely beautiful, it has that high contrast, especially if you're installing it in a white bathroom with the subway tiles or with the marble tiles it looks gorgeous. It gives you this very Parisian, old New York flavor which is very, very popular.
CONS: Because it is a dark finish, it does tend to show a lot of dust, so it's not low maintenance by any means. It's going to show dust and it tends to also show watermarks, depending on how hard the water is in your area. It's not as readily available, the price tags tend to be a little bit higher, it's harder to find all of the different elements for your bathroom. So if you needed a matching faucet and then shower fixtures and then getting the robe hooks and the tissue holders and the towel bars and all of those things, it may not be as easy to find exactly what you're looking for in the same exact style that you're looking for.
GOLD
Like it or not, brass is back. And it's not the '80s brass, it's actually a much more sophisticated looking gold finish and it's all the rage right now. I'm not saying it's for everyone, it's not, but it is a very pretty finish, and it looks beautiful against wood finishes.
Pros: it's beautiful; it's out of the box; it's not what you will find in everybody's home. So if you wanted something that was a little more unique, this might be the right choice for you.
Cons: it's going to be in a slightly higher price bracket, but it is a beautiful finish and you can mix it with your chrome. You can mix it with your polished nickel. It looks really pretty together. The most important advice I can give you is -- be careful what you choose in terms of the gold finishes, because I've seen a lot that looks really brassy and it looks cheap, and it looks fake. When it's too gold, that cheap gold, that's not what you're going for. You want something that's warm and complimentary. So be careful, because sometimes you get what you pay for.
So how do you choose which finish to use? It boils down to 3 different factors.
1. BUDGET
What's going to fit within your budget? My advice to you is to itemize everything that you're going to need in your bathroom renovation and price it out. Do a side-by-side comparison of let's say chrome, brushed nickel and then maybe in the black. If you think black might be too much of a stretch for you, but let's see how that fits into your budget. When you have those final numbers you can decide -- is an extra $200 worth it to get the black that you really, really love and you've been dreaming about? Or is it really more of a $500 difference and really that's just not worth it, because for $500 you could buy a toilet, right? To help you account and budget for all the materials you'll need for a typical bathroom renovation, I have put together a comprehensive bathroom materials checklist. It's my gift to you. You can download it here.
2. PRACTICALITY
Are you a good housekeeper? Are you going to have the time to maintain the finishes that you choose in your home? Or are you realistically not going to be able to polish the chrome and the polished nickel so that it shines beautifully day after day? Maybe then a brushed nickel or stainless steel finish is a better choice for you, even an oil rubbed bronze and a matte black. So think about those things when choosing.
3. WHAT'S GOING TO LOOK BEST IN YOUR SPACE?
You've got to take a look at the overall picture, the entire aesthetic that you're going after. Choosing a finish way beforehand is not going to give you the ultimate look that you're trying to achieve. So if you are going for that old world, look, if you're going for that vintage quality, make sure that you choose the finish that best fits within that aesthetic. Obviously, budget and practicality needs to be taken into consideration, but it's important to also look at the big picture. So that's everything I wanted to share with you today regarding how to choose the finish for your bathroom. I hope you found this information helpful and if you know anyone that could benefit from this, please share it with them. If you have questions, leave me a comment below. I'll do my best to answer it, and I hope that I will be able to answer more of your questions throughout this video series. Thanks for watching and reading. Don't forget to share this video and blog post with anyone you know who's considering a bathroom makeover or bathroom renovation. This series will answer a lot of questions that I hear regularly from my private clients. Happy Renovating!!
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I’m raising my virtual glass to say Cheers to your soon-to-be new and improved home!
– Alice
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