black | Door Sixteen

FAQ: What’s it like having a black bathroom floor?

Mar 27, 2013

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I get a surprising amount of traffic here on the blog from people searching for pictures of black tiles with black grout (or black pennyrounds, or just black bathroom floors in general), and a lot of those people then email me to ask about whether I like having all of those things in my house and what the maintenance is like. It’s been about 4 years (!!!) since we put them in our downstairs bathroom, so I feel like I can speak with a bit of experience about them at this point.

We used matte black pennyrounds from Nemo tile (the style code is m890) in our bathroom with Polyblend sanded grout in Charcoal, which really does read as black to my eye. It took a bit of hunting to find it locally, but Tec makes sanded black caulk (Raven) that matched the grout pretty perfectly. (Grout is for between the tiles, and caulk is for joints — like where tiles meet at a corner or where your tile meets the tub.) Including the tile underlayment and all of the “ingredients,” the whole floor cost about $350.

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The caulk line looks a little grayish here, but that’s really just the photo. After four years, the color hasn’t faded at all — it still looks rich and black. Several people have asked me whether using products like talcum powder in the bathroom would be an issue with black grout. That’s not something I ever use, but I do wear loose face powder every day that I brush on with wild abandon…and I’ve never noticed it showing up in the grout. I have dropped bits of broken pressed powder onto the floor, though, and that does definitely require some clean-up, but nothing that a regular sponge and warm water can’t take care of. (Note: I did use a sealant after grouting. Not sure if that actually makes a difference, but it can’t hurt.)

The other thing that comes up a lot is the question of whether dust and water spots show on the tile. In short: No. Nothing shows on this tile. Even if I were a total pig and didn’t regularly clean my bathroom, I could go for a really, really long time before the floor looked dirty. Like…months. At least. I’m not going to try it to find out, but seriously, this is NOT a nightmare floor. I think that’s probably because the tiles are tiny/visually busy and because they’re matte. If I had 2×3′ polished black marble tiles, I might be singing a different tune!

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Next up, cleaning! I don’t do anything special to clean the pennyrounds. The first thing I do when I’m cleaning any bathroom is vacuum, because otherwise I’m just pushing hair around with a sponge and EW. Usually I just follow up with a wet Swiffer cloth, but every couple of months I do get down on my knees with a bucket and a sponge and go to town on all the nooks and crannies. Again, though, this is just something I’d do regardless of the type of tile, not because the floor looks grimy or anything.

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Alright, so you can’t actually see the tiles at all in these pictures, but I’m including them anyway because I love this bathroom so, so, so much. I’m still really proud of all the work Evan and I did in there (even though it did take us the better part of a year!). It was such a sad, ugly room when we bought the house, and now it’s one of my favorite places to be. Maybe that’s a weird thing to say about a tiny little bathroom? I really do love everything about it, and we learned so much in the process. That was my first time tiling!

BONUS PICTURES!! I recently saw this black-floored Brooklyn bathroom on Remodelista and fell in looooove. It looks to me like they used polished black marble hexagons with a slightly lighter grout than I did, but the effect is very similar. For your ogling pleasure…

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Photos by Sean Flattery for Remodelista. (There are more photos on designer Elizabeth Roberts’ website — click through the slideshow for more bathroom shoots!)

British Standard.

Mar 21, 2013

Inspiration

34 comments

I’ve had these photos from British Standard saved in my kitchen inspiration folder for almost a year after spotting them on Remodelista, but I forgot about them until I started thinking about painting the cabinets in the kitchen of our new apartment. That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon (for starters, I’d definitely have to ask the landlord first, and I’m waiting for him to fall in love with us as tenants before I start bringing up that kind of stuff), but now I can’t get this kitchen out of my head!

British Standard cabinets from Plain English

LOOOOOOOOOOVE. I mean beyond the inset, flush-mount doors (you don’t see those much in contemporary kitchens!), the exposed copper piping, the door latches and the wooden countertops, how amazing is that paint job?! It’s like the entire bottom third of the room was dipped in black paint. I love that it even goes right across the upper cabinets! So, so good.

Plain English (who make incredible kitchen cabinets that I’ve coveted for ages) created their lower-priced British Standard sister line as part of an apprenticeship in building skills program for the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community. A custom-fitted Plain English line will run you at least £50,000 (gulp), but the no-frills, off-the-shelf British Standard cabinets cost about a tenth of that. They’re intended to be painted by the owner, which is good if the black-dipped thing isn’t for you for some crazy reason.

British Standard cabinets from Plain English

One more thing: You know I can’t resist doing a recreation of this kitchen using stuff that’s readily available in the US, right? Yeah. I’m going to leave out the sausage links, though.

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WHAT HAVE I DONE? Haha, this took forever. Geez, now I really want to do something like this in the apartment kitchen! That’s what happens when it’s 1AM and you can’t sleep…you wind up badly Photoshopping paint onto IKEA cabinets. Seriously, though, this would look pretty great. You could easily do something like this with existing cabinets, too—take down a few uppers, paint the cabinets, add new hardware. Wood paneling is really cheap and easy to work with, and it’s a nice alternative to tile in kitchens and bathrooms—just make sure to prime both sides before installing it. We used it in our downstairs bathroom (though not in the shower area, obviously), going a full 8′ up the wall instead of stopping at the usual wainscot/chair rail height.

1. EverTrue unfinished pine wall paneling
2. AKURUM/Ädel wall cabinet with glass doors, IKEA
3. AKURUM/Ädel base cabinet with drawers, IKEA
4. Rohl apron front sink
5. Rohl brass wall-mounted faucet
6. NUMERÄR birch countertop, IKEA
7. Esse Ironheart cook stove (I’ll bet this stove is a nightmare, but gosh…so pretty)
8. Factory Light No. 7 cable pendant, Schoolhouse Electric
9. Steel cabinet latch, House of Antique Hardware
10. Half moon cup pull, House of Antique Hardware
11. Coconut bristle and dust pan, West Elm
12. Fleet hot orange chair, CB2

Half moons from Ferm Living.

Mar 8, 2013

Greed
Inspiration
The House / Newburgh

18 comments

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Have you seen the new collection from Ferm Living? I’m almost as much in love with it as I was with their fall/winter 2012 collection. As far as I’m concerned, the highlight are all of the Half Moon-patterned things—a perfect storage basket, a laundry bag, cylinder/bolster cushions in neon (!) and black, and my favorite piece in the whole collection…the shower curtain!! I wonder if it would be too much in my tiny downstairs bathroom?

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The Half Moon wallpaper is also on my wish list. I’m kind of running out of walls to put wallpaper on, but maybe inside of a closet? Hmmm…there’s no wallpaper in the guest bedroom yet. Maybe on the walls to the left and right of the fireplace?

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Excuse the terrible Photoshopping, but I had to see how cute it could look! The answer is very cute. Hmmm. HMMMMM.

Peeking into the Brooklyn apartment.

Sep 19, 2012

The Apartment / Brooklyn

42 comments

Even though we’ve been renting it for the better part of seven months already (!!!), I’ve been extremely slack about sharing photos of the Brooklyn apartment. I’m not sure why, exactly. I definitely don’t have the same attachment to my apartment as I do my house, obviously, but in truth I don’t even feel half the affection for it as I did the last apartment we rented in Manhattan. I really loved that place.

I do like DUMBO, and of course I’ll always love Brooklyn, and there’s no question that I feel extremely fortunate to have even one place to live, let alone two. I guess the disconnect comes from the fact that this apartment doesn’t NEED me.

Going all the way back to the very first apartment I rented (Yonkers, 1995) and through all the ones I’ve rented since (White Plains, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Beacon and Manhattan—I’ve moved a lot!), I’ve consistently been in places that are both old and run-down around the gills. They’ve all needed me to make them better. I’ve done extensive renovation work in some of these apartments, investing myself not so much financially as emotionally—and that’s really how you become connected to a place. That’s how it goes from being just a place to live to being a true home. Every apartment I’ve lived in has been in better condition when I left it than when I arrived, and that makes me feel good.

You know, for all of my perfectionist tendencies, I actually adore imperfection. Imperfection is a sign of hope that things will improve. Imperfection is full of promise. Imperfection makes that which is beautiful look even more so by comparison.

This new apartment, though…it doesn’t really need anything. There are no real imperfections. The walls are white, the floor is pale oak in perfect condition, the kitchen is well-designed—it’s fine. All of it is just fine. There’s nothing for me to do here except arrange my stuff, and where’s the fun in that? This apartment doesn’t need me, and it will inevitably look worse when we eventually leave, not better. Even though it’s in a late-1800s building, the entire thing was gut-renovated less than a year before we moved in. And so: Track lighting, sprinklers, pre-finished MDF moldings, veneered doors, built-in AC, and so on. Our lease is an inch thick, and we can’t change anything. (There’s even dishwasher. I have a dishwasher?! What?)

It’s weird, being in this new, fancy apartment in a bizarrely fancy part of Brooklyn. I’m trying to love it. Part of me feels a lot like when I go into Saks to buy a lipstick, though—like I don’t belong, like I’m a kid trying to pass myself off as a grown-up, and I like I’m just too sloppy and, well, run-down around the gills to pull it off and fit in.

Anyway, I think I like this little spot in the apartment. It’s starting to feel right. I love the neon sofa legs, and I finally bought some decent pillows. It’s getting there. I’m getting there.

Yeah, I could live there.

Sep 18, 2012

Inspiration

15 comments

Yeah, I could live there is a new, semi-regular D16 feature wherein I post pictures of houses I want to break into, kick out the inhabitants and move in. Today I’m spying on the home of Swedish photographer and art director Jakob Nylund.

I came across Jakob’s photoblog after following a link from Just—My—Type, a repository for his typography work. (I downloaded all of the fonts, of course, which are free from any usage restrictions. I can’t wait to try them out!)

Yeah, so I probably don’t even need to spell out what I love about Jakob’s home (uh, everything?), but two things are abundantly clear to me upon looking at these photos:
1. I need to suck up the VAT and the shipping and just order some String Shelves already.
2. I want to mount marble shelves above my radiators, too.

Wait, I think I need to add another item to my list:
3. I have to get going on my kitchen mini-renovation (ugh, that post is almost two YEARS old). Just the slightest glimpse of subway tile + black grout at this point sends me into a fit of guilt over how long I’ve been procrastinating!

There are more photos of Jakob’s home over on his blog. While you’re over there, take some time to look at his other work—it’s all pretty fantastic! His understanding of black and white photography in particular is really compelling…

✚ All photographs © Jakob Nylund. Used with permission.

Ferm Living, Fall/Winter 2012.

Sep 13, 2012

Art + Design
Greed
Handmade

27 comments

Apologies if this is old news, but I haven’t checked in on those amazing Danes at Ferm Living in a while, so it’s all new to me! I have wallpaper from Ferm in my dressing room, studio, bathroom and pantry, so you could definitely say I’m a fan. I keep looking for more things that I can wallpaper just to have an excuse to use more of their patterns. I wasn’t really aware of all of the other non-wallpaper housewares they’ve added to their line, though! Obviously I need to pay more attention, because apparently Ferm are just designing stuff for me. I mean…look at this collection! I kind of want everything.

Yeah, I could live there.

Sep 5, 2012

Inspiration

14 comments

Beckman Villa, Stockholm // DAPstockholm, 2004

Welcome to a new, semi-regular D16 feature: Yeah, I could live there. Wherein I post pictures of houses I want to break into, kick out the inhabitants and move in.

Earlier today I was on the DAPstockholm website looking for pictures of these amazing rowhouses they designed a while back (how cool is that black–gray gradation of exterior colors?!), and this villa in Stockholm caught my eye.

White on the sunny/water side, black on the shady/trees side—it’s got Anna written all over it, right? These photos were taken in 2004. I wonder what it looks like now that those little trees are probably a lot more mature. Must be heaven…

Yeah, I could live there.

p.s. Twenty bucks says my mother gasped out loud when she saw these photos. (Did you, Mommy?)

This is what my living room looks like now.

Aug 26, 2012

The House / Newburgh

76 comments

I’m pretty happy with how the living room at the house is looking right now, so I thought I’d put down the iPhone, pick up a real camera, and take a few photos.

Bruno went through a phase (and by “phase” I mean the first nine years of his life) where he pretty much regarded any kind of floor covering as a giant wee-wee pad, so rugs have mostly been something I fantasize about for a long time. Something happened this past year, though—I’m not sure what (his brain is probably the size of a walnut, so I doubt he knows either), but when I decided to take a chance and put my favorite rug down in the apartment Bruno didn’t pee on it. Not the first day, not the second day, not ever. Good boy!

I’ve been wanting the Stockholm Rand rug from IKEA for years now. Every time I see it come up on a blog or in an interiors magazine, my heart jumps a little. I decided that I’d buy it maybe make Bruno wear a diaper. The only thing is, though, that this rug is one elusive little sucker. I can’t even tell you the number of times I obsessively checked the websites for the Paramus, Elizabeth and Red Hook IKEAs hoping to find it in stock somewere.

Alas, it was not to be—until a few weeks ago. The Red Hook IKEA got about a dozen in stock, so Evan and I hustled over there on our way up to the house one night. He ran in with 10 minutes to spare until closing while I stayed in the car with the dogs, and the rug was ours.

It totally makes the living room. (I mean aside from the fireplace.)