Thursday, September 4, 2008

(mostly) remote shopping

Our small bathroom disappeared for a short while last week. In a past life it used to be a little entry way into the dining room on the right of the hearth. I still can't believe someone turned this small space into a powder room! It's currently all boxed in again (of course I don't have an illustrative photo for you - we keep forgetting the camera) and we actually gained a whole inch in width. This is all pre-plaster of course so I don't know what kind of difference it will actually make.


I also purchased mosaic marble tile for the floor. Actually, I bought it online and I'm a little nervous to see it in person. I looked everywhere for a honed Carrara marble tile in a herringbone pattern. Next time you're bored, try going to a tile store and asking for herringbone patterned tile. They will usually show you a hexagon pattern or a basketweave. One woman showed me a basketweave and when I said that I was really looking for a herringbone, she said "that IS a herringbone, hun."
I found herringbone carrara in two places - the first would not give me a price quote? The second (Waterworks) only had it in a polished finish. I really wanted a honed finish because I want that "it's been here for a while" kind of look. We had polished marble floors in our last bathroom and I loved them. They started to look honed after a while but only in some spots. I suppose it wouldn't even matter because the tiles are so small (our other tiles were 12X12) but the honed finish was definitely my first choice. The ordered tiles should be here at the end of the week and I hope they're nice!

The old light in the powder room used to work on a pull chain. It's now been wired to a switch. The ceiling needed to be dropped a bit because of new plumbing and a fan that we had installed. I bought this little fixture (not my photo) on ebay a few days back and I'm hoping it will work for the small space. The globe is glass in a bubbly texture. It needs rewiring and I'm thinking that the brass should be sprayed silver but we'll see when it arrives. I actually have a similar but larger fixture, purchased at an estate sale that we were thinking of using in the foyer.

We also nabbed a slab of Calacatta marble for the kitchen countertops over the long weekend. And what do you know? I don't have a photo of that either. If I did have a photo it would probably look something like this:

It's a beautiful piece and we're hoping they will be able to cut it so that the backsplash is bookmatched with the counter. We mapped it out and the marble guy seemed to think it should work so here's hoping.

3 comments:

  1. So I guess that means Fuda never found the card with the honed herringbone on it? That sucks. What did you wind up ordering?

    Marble was my first choice for kitchen countertops, but we had no time to deal with the whole thing, so we went with pre-fab stainless steel. I still want marble! I think I need a little Tulip table with a marble top in the kitchen just so I can get my fix.

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  2. No the sample disappeared and they never got back to me. I got a little fed up of calling. We are going to use them for the cabinets because the cabinet person is really on the ball... but I can't figure out the deal with that tile? I found a guy online and the tile actually came yesterday... it's really nice! I'm happy I took the chance ordering it because it's exactly what I had wanted. And we got a really good price.
    If you decide that you do want to do marble in the future, let me know. We found another place that has great prices and does amazing work. We're using them for these counters because they came in $40 a square foot less than everywhere else we tried!
    Although, I do like your stainless counters. And marble top tulip tables make me swoon. I just sold our little tulip dining table (not marble topped) and I miss it... but we had no room for it!

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  3. Hi there,
    I am also looking for honed carrara herringbone tiles for our bathroom floor. Would you be willing to share your source with me?

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