We’ve picked out and purchased most of the items that we’ll be needing to renovate the bathroom, which is making this whole thing a lot more real to me. I’m getting excited!

We found the sink faucet and the new bathtub at Home Depot for very fair prices ($89 and $329 respectively), and pretty much all the rest of the brand new items will be coming from Lowe’s. This is a relief, since Lowe’s is 5 miles away and Home Depot is 30 miles away. I was adamant that we use white hex tiles on the floor, which will definitely make up for the vintage qualities that will be lost by getting rid of the art deco tub that’s in there now. We went with a pedestal sink because the room is so small, and we’ll be going with white subway tile that’ll go 4′ up the walls and 6′ up for the tub/shower surround, probably with a black pinstripe around or close to the edge. Yay, hot black and white bathroom!

We also found a fabulous antique Montgomery Ward icebox at Artifacts a few weeks ago, and it’s just the right depth to use in the room to store toiletries and towels. We’ll have to repaint it white and clean out the inside, but it’s going to look dynamite. We also picked up a brand new mirrored medicine cabinet at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $20. We’re lucky that we’re coming in so under-budget, so we’ll be prepared in case any big, unforeseen expenses come up.

We did a little browsing at Lowes last night after work, and didn’t really find any vanities that piqued our interest. After really considering it, we decided that the ones that we had seen at Menards might be a little too big and overpowering for that size bathroom. The floor space is only 4′x8′, and putting a big sink and cabinet in there would just take up precious space. So, we’re back on the pedestal sink track, which means that we definitely need a medicine cabinet, as well as a free-standing cabinet to hold miscellaneous items like toilet paper and towels. We’re both pretty set on the square-shaped ones, like this:

In looking through my IKEA catalog last night, I found this cabinet:

It’s pretty much ones of the best looking ones I’ve found that isn’t too deep for the wall that it has to sit on (14.5″ is not very deep in storage furniture land). We’ve got one other option, a vintage cabinet with glass doors at Artifacts. I think we’re going to go check it out tonight after work to see if it’ll fit. At $35, it’s a lot more affordable than the $150 for the IKEA one, and will leave more money for other fun stuff in the room, like an accordion shaving mirror and funky lights.

I’m really glad that we went to Lowes, actually, because I found out that my hex tiles for the floor are going to be about $60 cheaper there than they’d be if I ordered them from Home Depot. AND! We were both really disheartened to discover that the subway tile we had been eying for the walls was really expensive, but then I walked around the corner to see what they had as their normal stock, and they had it for $0.19 a tile! Huge relief, seriously.