It seems like everyone has a strong opinion about brass fixtures. They either hate them or love them. Some clients are replacing everything brass with satin nickel, while these particular clients in Freedom, IN have loved brass for years and wanted a new shower to replace a small tub that had been leaking anyway. (Always a good excuse for an upgrade, right?)
One thing I’ll say about brass fixtures, they are often higher quality than typical chrome or nickel fixtures, especially if it’s real solid brass and not just ‘brass-finshed’. However, they can be hard to come by. Often they are special order and not on sale.
When I arrived to start this shower, the tub was long gone. This bathroom had an ‘outdoor patio’ feel including brick walls around the tub. I prepped the brick for tile using Kerdi-board, which you can read about here. I added a bench and built the sloped floor from scratch after installing the new fixtures and checking for leaks.
The shower was waterproofed with the Kerdi waterproofing system, which is the orange covering that you see in this photo (right). It results in a waterproof and vaporproof shower and can cover any size or shape, making sure that trouble spots like those bench seats or wall niches are waterproofed and worry free.
For the tile design we came up with a simple grid of 12″ square tiles with a couple rows of complementary 6″ tiles staggered around the middle. It’s not very complicated, but very classy. My favorite part is the small piece of chair-rail trim that caps the stripe of smaller tiles. Trim like that can add a touch of elegance to an otherwise simple design.
T
he floor is made up of 2″ squares that have a bit of texture for slip resistance. The grab bars are a nod to universal design where we were trying to think ahead to the future needs of the homeowners.
Universal design is kind of a trendy buzz-word right now. It involves designing for all stages of life. They just had a big article about it in Remodeling Magazine and I thought I’d include it in my post so I sounded ahead of the curve and quite on top of things…
