My favorite countertop material is "cultured marble." For bathrooms to wears better than any other material we've ever had--- including granite (hate it in bathrooms, I feel like Wilma Flintstone brushing my teeth); white Corian (stained badly over three years under normal use); and tile (grout lines on horizontal surfaces, major upkeep). We recently replaced two cultured marble bathroom counters with.... Cultured marble! There is a factory near us that does custom installations in every color and pattern imaginable. The only reason we replaced them is that they were the white with silver swirly thingies that look very dated.

The lady at the fabricator said many people with Carrara marble tile shower floors are coming in for custom light gray shower pans to replace the marble tile that just doesn't hold up under constant use. Their light gray color blends with the marble and is easy to maintain. I know two designers in iur area who are skipping the tile failing step and just installing the cultured marble pans initially.

And for the record, I think a shower/ tub combination is the most cost and space effective configuration for most bathrooms. We have four of them! Our master has a separate shower and tub--- the latter is so large it takes all the hot water from the heater for that end of the house.

If a quality material is one that lasts a long time and looks good over the life if the item and functions the way it was designed, then I do not understand why there isn't a universal embrace of high quality fiberglass tub / shower combos. They're easy to clean, never leak and the one we have looks so good I would to dream of changing it out. I think the separate tub / shower / tile matrix is, basically, planned obsolescence.

Pal, I hear you. My bathroom is smallish and it needs renovated badly as our home is close to 30 yrs old and the po didn't use the best quality when they built the home. They did use high quality cabinetry but the bathroom fixtures were el cheapos quality wise.

Because DH and I want to age in place I want to renovate the master bath. I dread moving forward because I don't want to sink a ton of money into it but I will have to in order to get the quality I want.

Kswl, I don't understand why the fiberglass tub/shower insert is thought of so negatively either. I guess it is "plastic," but it is so easy to keep clean and, as you said, it doesn't leak. I had them in my last house and loved them. In this house, I have natural stone which water spots and can be slippery even when honed, not to mention grout/caulk seams which I hate.

Palimpsest, I'm surprised there aren't some specialty manufacturers who offer some of the items you need, especially from Europe or Canada where bathrooms are often smaller than the latest U.S. trend.

I am having an ongoing discussion with my plumber who is meticulous and on some level almost a savant of plumbing but he has very strong biases about what manufacturers he likes and what he installs or will not install.
He won't install Toto Toilets with that Uni-fit thing. He says they always leak. I am assuming that if they always leak when he installs them I had better not get him to install one. Maybe he's not doing something right but why get someone to do something they can't do?

He thinks Moen spouts are the best because of the way they attach to the rough plumbing. There is a clamping system that is sort of ingenious, rather than the twist on spout or the set screw which indents the rough plumbing pipe.

The down side of this is that there is a big slot on the bottom of the spout. I think this is a very poor design from an industrial design-product finish standpoint and they wouldn't get away with it if it was someplace you could readily see. It seems cheesy and cheap and an "oh why bother" sort of detail.

But the bigger question is why should one even need to take off something as simple as a spout?

I prefer a tub shower diverter button on the valve trim, (or an old fashioned knob which no one seems to make) rather than the pull up stem on the spout.

He says manufacturers have moved away from on the valve an onto the faucet because they are easier to replace when they fail. My feeling is that it is a way of cheapening the mechanism and then making it easy to change when it breaks because *apparently * it *will. Easy retrieval of parts assumes that they need to be replaced which assumes they are going to break. So they are cheaply made because if they break you can change it easily. Its a circular self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fun

There are a couple issues that I have regarding Canadian or European fixtures. You are right, some of the options I would like are available.

One is getting someone to install them correctly. Another is that I would rather use American stuff with parts that can easily be replaced. I ordered a European kitchen faucet for my last place, it came damaged and when I had to return it they gave me a hassle because there was a "part missing" which was apparently a small rubber ring about the diameter of a dime. I told them I would gladly buy them a replacement rubber ring for their $600 faucet at full retail price if they would just take back their (&^(^& faucet that had an obvious finish defect and shouldn't have shipped out to begin with. I just want to deal with more locally made stuff.

Third, is that this is a modest, mid-century house. I am not going for time-capsule bathrooms, but I want something that looks right, which is a simple sturdy and compact bathroom without anything too high design, flashy or precious looking.

It's actually turning out to be more expensive to do little unassuming bathrooms than something that is flashy or faux riche.

Palimpsest, I guess you are at the mercy of your plumber's preference because if you choose something he doesn't like, it will surely be installed incorrectly. ;-) Personally, I love Toto toilets, have five of them, four of which are over 20 years old, none of which have ever leaked.

I understand the desire to deal with products easily available in the U.S. The original owners of my house were from Europe so the house has mostly European appliances. Besides being smaller than I would like, it can be a hassle to find replacement parts, although many European manufacturers have a larger presence here now.

Okay, here is another complaint, while we are at it: DS has a builder grade townhouse that is small, but has tremendous charm potential. There is a premium charge for small fixtures and appliances. Less material, less weight to transport, etc., but cost more.

I also found my European appliances a bit quirky.

My Asko condensing dryer required maintenance of the condensing unit which involved unscrewing a panel on the front, removing a cassette and cleaning it pretty carefully.

My Miele DW needed to be "calibrated" and needed the water softening salt, which was available in exactly one place in the city, and other cleaning and maintenance issues, or it would stop getting things clean, especially glassware.

Most Americans don't want to have to do more than push a button and let all the work be done by the machine itself.

I am getting a Toto toilet in the one bathroom but it is a wall hung unit without the Uni-fit thing.

I feel like I am sometimes in a trade off situation. The plumber I previously used had fair amount of experience with Toto and I had never had any problems with their finish plumbing installations.

But I had some problems with their rough-in plumbing which is ultimately more important and then I had a Major problem with the rough in for an entire bathroom, which I essentially had to remove and replace just about from scratch. So I get this plumber who does beautiful rough in plumbing but has all sorts of rules and biases and dislikes.

I think if he had his way everybody would have Wolverine faucets and one particular model of toilet that he thinks is the best model in the world, from somebody I can't remember who makes mostly lousy no-name toilets that are put in rentals but managed to apparently hit a home-run with this one particular toilet. The sort of thing always chosen by Consumers Reports in that sort of perverse way that they do, elevating some cheap and pretty ugly thing to the "best".

The sort of thing always chosen by Consumers Reports in that sort of perverse way that they do, elevating some cheap and pretty ugly thing to the "best".

Bwahahahahahah!

I'm laughing at the Consumers Report comment. I don't even bother with the ratings there. The negative comments can sometimes be helpful if you are deciding between several choices.

As for quirks of European appliances, my Miele oven only has even numbers degrees, like 320 or 330. So, two of the most common settings in the U.S., 325 and 425, are unavailable. Of course, most ovens aren't calibrated exactly anyway, but to not have the choice makes me a little crazy.

Kitchendetective, I guess the manufacturers you reference are thinking that their products should be like electronics, the more miniaturized, the higher the price.

Also, very few plumbing companies make "plain" mildly contemporary, reminiscent of mid-century faucets and fixtures. Kohler makes Triton and Taboret. (Basically one option in each general category) And they probably still make these only because they are commercial stand-bys.

And the latest faucet offering from Kohler is High Victorian: not even the Edwardian subway bathroom sort of thing.

Are people building Victorian style houses and doing Victorian interiors? No? Then why in ---- do they want Victorian styled bathrooms?

And most other manufacturers offer similar Edwardian/Fancy, overwrought transitional: (I don't want a square sharp edged tub spout or showerhead, sorry), or Modern that is too sleek. A lot of it is just "vulgarly overwrought" which is how my jewelry designer client described a lot of plumbing fixtures.

Pal, have you looked at Ikea? The last time I was there, I saw some very small bathroom sinks, both for corners and straight walls. They may have shower base too, I didn't look.

I will look at IKEA for sinks, thanks.

One of the things that has happened in the second, smaller bathroom is that--since I will be going custom on the shower base--the finished size of the bathroom can end up being very specific rather than based on availability. And, even though the bathroom is small, I don't need things to be small in every dimension.

The shower is going to end up being 30x54 and the vanity can also then be 54.in length But it has to be narrow depth wise--so it needs a sink that is narrow front to back.

However, with a custom shower base, if it makes more sense to make the bathroom 52" deep (the toilet projects 22" deep so that still gives me 30" in front, which is generous--I just removed a bathroom with 17" in front--.

Anyway, with a custom shower base and sink I can play with one of the bathroom dimensions to the inch. (The other is limited by center-to-center requirements as a minimum and an immovable doorway as a maximum.

So some manufacturer who used to make shower bases in the dimensions I needed and used to make narrow sinks or those bathroom sinks that had an apron front and projected from the vanity (Kohler, American Standard, and other companies that have been bought out and have disappeared) have essentially lost my business with regards to a shower receptor, a custom matching sink and countertop as required in one bathroom (But why not have them make one for the other) and all of these items are going to cost toward the upper end of those companies' offerings. And I don't want Kohler's wall hung toilet because it's new and Toto's been around longer.

So I went from two bathrooms (three actually) that could have been all Kohler (three toilets, three sinks, two tubs and one shower) to *maybe* buying the bathtub from Kohler in one bathroom. But they just discontinued the color I wanted in my first choice of tubs and the size I wanted in my second choice of tubs --while continuing the color on a couple of *newly introduced* products--it makes no sense....so it seems pointless to buy anything from Kohler at all, for example. They could have sold me nine fixtures and now they are lucky if they will sell me one. And my plumber hates their shower valves so I won't be installing those either. They just lost thousands of dollars of business from one potential buyer.

Pal,

I loved this post and nodded along the whole time! My current and my prior houses are both older -- and, in both cases, the footprints for the bathrooms were quite small and couldn't be expanded. I'm going to have to redo both upstairs baths in my new (1940s) house because the prior owners had the original tile sprayed to sell, and I know it's not going to hold up. Plus the sprayed tile is ugly and annoys me every time I see it!

Anyway, I will necessarily be looking for small everything, especially in the master bath, which has a teeny tiny little shower that would never be photographed for Houzz or GW.

Not sure if it's better or worse that you know what you want and just can't get it -- I simply don't know what to do!

Also, my new (to me) house has an Asko W&D and they drive me crazy they're so tiny. I've also been having issues with the Asko washer, so I'm going to have to look into whether there's something I should be doing to it!

Pal, I totally agree with you. We have a rental house that we've had the same renter in the last 20 years (maybe longer, I forget). It's an elderly couple and they are delightful. We had reno'd it when they moved in and it was time last year to do some additional work - remodel the bath and kitchen and repaint most of the interior although they keep it up well. The GC we hired did good quality work and we wanted to work with him and the renters to put in some decent quality stuff. All she asked for was a comfort-height toilet, bless her heart. Anyway, it was fairly easy, with his help, to find good quality flooring (tile), appliances, countertop, but there was a really big leap with plumbing fixtures and cabinetry. Instead of good/better/best it was more like shoddy/expensive. At least with cabinets. We were mostly looking at big box stores, not custom.

I'm giggling at the Consumer Report comment too!

I feel your bathtub pain. When we redid our first bathroom, we needed a two sided, or J tub that was 5'. All i could find were larger models that were super expensive.

I went vintage..had a choice of shipping from Seattle or Boston. I spent almost as much to ship it and I did for the tub. Then I trashed the beautiful finish trying to clean it.... Still haven't forgiven myself for that.

We love the result, but the process was painful.

I'm going through many of the same problems with my bathroom remodel. I also need a shallow-er vanity so will order from Conestoga again.
Hansgrohe has some great faucets with simplicity and I'm happy with that anyway.So far I haven't had a plumber get back to us after mentioning the Toto and 10" rough-in. I'm not using the plumber we used for the guest bath as I requested that the non-steel tub with apron get a cement bed under. Of course he didn't do it.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Fri, Aug 8, 14 at 18:58