Bethany talks about mirrors, vanities, lighting, and creating the perfect (and proportional) cohesive look:
Remember when I was obsessing over hinges? The obsession began because I needed to make a litany of decisions before I could even get to the hinges. Fast-forward a few weeks: the same thing happened again—but this time, the obsession was bathroom lighting.
I chose lighting for each bathroom. Then I realized that I had not considered the dimensions of the light compared to the bathroom fixtures (namely the mirror and vanity). So when it came time for me to buy lights, I realized that I had chosen lights that were wider than the wall or that I was unsure about the ratio of light size to mirror size. This meant that I needed to make some decisions about mirrors before I could order the lights.
The master bathroom presented the biggest challenge, since we’d designed it with separate his & her vanities with different dimensions. My vanity happens to be rather long, featuring both a sink area and a space to sit down. Hair dryers, straighteners, and make up take up so much space that I wanted to have a dedicated area where I could sit and get ready every day. We also have 10 ft ceilings. So, ceiling height would also factor into decisions about mirror size.
Just trying to visualize in my head all the separate factors that would go into my vanity seemed impractical. I turned to my handy PowerPoint to create a scale model of the vanity, mirror options, and the lights. Then I sketched out various placements. I narrowed it down to these three options:
After being able to actually see how the options would play out, I decided on option #2. I liked the clearly delineated creation of two separate spaces. I also appreciate how the long mirror plays on the height of the ceilings.
These are the light fixtures I chose:
This was the bathroom that inspired me to create the look for our master bath:
I loved that the lights coordinated but were different and defined the two spaces separately.
Lighting can be integrated in so many exciting ways, beyond the traditional track lighting over mirrors:
Ultimately, I opted for different types of light fixtures (hanging, sconce & double sconce) to create a unique but still cohesive look.
Re-Constructing Home 