MASTER BATHROOM PLANNING

Brad and Leanne Ford Shaffer's Pennsylvania schoolhouse bathroom via Country Living

If you look at the Pinterest board that's currently holding all my not-so-secret inspiration for our master bathroom, you could maybe see a theme emerging. It's filled with images of black and white and wood elements in different configurations, and very little else. I didn't really realize it until I did a little scrolling through my pins, but I'm drawn more and more to those three simple elements together. Not in a super sleek way, but in a part-rustic, part-modern and all cool sort of way. Thanks Pinterest, for helping me find a rare moment of clarity in this madness.

Bathroom of Emma Reddington of the Marion House Book via DesignSponge

Now that we finally have drywall in the master suite (and said drywall is in its final stages of installation), it's time to make some real decisions about what exactly we're going to put in this bathroom-to-be. This is so exciting to me you'd think we were actually finished with this bathroom rather than just starting. It's been a long wait to get to this fun stuff, so I'm going to enjoy it.

Our bathroom will have an exposed brick flue and reclaimed ceiling beams, so it's already got quite a bit of rustic character. My hope is to play up those old features while bringing in modern and industrial fixtures for convenience and practicality. A bathroom is no place to be too precious, I say. The words that have come to mind throughout this planning process are calm, clean, practical and spacious. (Also no tripping hazards is a generally good rule of thumb, in my opinion, but a hard one to follow when your toddler has a bath toy addiction. Another reason I'm excited for our own bathroom!)

When planning the layout and details, I have tried to think of ways we can make our morning routine easier and less stressful. Since I'm not a morning person and most of my bathroom time is concentrated during the early morning hours, I would love a space that is inviting -- but not too inviting. I've seen a lot of lovely bathrooms that have comfy armchairs and other froufrou things in them, and that would not be conducive to me ever changing out of my bathrobe and leaving the house.

Another consideration we had to keep in mind is there are no windows in the bathroom (we didn't want to cut new ones and compromise the structure of the logs), so having multiple sources of light was important. I hate showering under glaringly bright lights first thing in the morning, but it's hard to tweeze one's eyebrows in the dark, so I'm perhaps a little too excited about the options we have for varying degrees of brightness.

So after many blissful hours looking at inspiration and envisioning the finished product, here's a little inspiration board for you that I made with my bathroom in mind:

I'm all about economy, so nothing I've shown here is particularly pricey -- especially that old apple crate, of which I promise you can never have too many. In the meantime, do you see (and like) where I'm going with this? I can't wait to see it all come together.

Sources, clockwise from top left: Remodelista, atgstores.com, IKEA, Home Depot and Terrain.