Tea in my Toilet and other bathroom deco

Today I went to another bathroom showroom to get ideas for a mirror solution (for our German bathroom) and to find accessories as towel hooks, toilet brush and toilet paper holders. Something you do not easily find in design blogs or magazines!

I like the window decoration (above) that I call 'tea in my toilet' (seen at Ottenbruch, Stuttgart-Filderstadt Germany). And I like the toilet brush set by Decor Walther. Although the brand name does not sound very sexy, they have some cool bathroom accessories.

Decor Walther brush set chrome / white porcelain (DW 6700), height 74 cm, foot Ø 17 cm, about 288 Euro - sigh!

More at their website:

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See also my blogroll for more links under 'Bath Equipment'
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Honey, I shrunk our kid

Maybe I was too occupied with workers going in and out of our house, that I did not pay enough attention to our child ?

Maybe paying all these bills made me crazy ?



It happened at the 'R&T' fair (Rolladen & Tor Messe) in Stuttgart, Germany. These giant chairs and table were just too inviting ...

zoccolatura - or the wrong skirt

In Italy, a zoccolatura, a baseboard or SKIRTing board (I like the 'skirt' in the word) is often used at the base of facades. Some baseboards are simply made of grey plaster, some are made of stones of other shape or tonality than the rest of the facade.

Below you see an older picture of our street. In front (right) is part of our palazzo, with the former zoccolatura of grey plaster. The neighbouring palazzo even has no zoccolatura.


The church, next by, Chiesa Carmine, has simply used brown paint to indicate a high baseboard (here behind the statue of Padre Pio, I need to find a better picture):


Another example of a beautiful zoccolatura can be offered by the main church of Lipari of Isole Eolie (see above first picture).

Well, well, and now we have our own new skirting board.
Made of my 'favorite' material, my grandfathers grave stone.
We inherited a few plates for the finishing of the balustrade from the previous owner. And it went on and on, for consistency, with window sills and door sills (remember my post about now I have to live with this) and now it is the zoccolatura:



These granite stones are not shiny. They have been treated with flames and the material on the top of the surface, due to thermal expansion, come out leaving an uneven surface. This is how the windows sills should have been treated.

I have to see it on site.
And if I still don't like it, my solution for the 'wrong skirt':


Put back the church's benches in place and the stones become invisible.

Again: A house that is older than 200 years should be restored in a way that preserves the old charm, the patina, the age ! - Sometimes less is more ! - Otherwise I can go on a green grassland and build a new house that suits my needs. - Of course it is also the dilemma of being not on the construction site myself.
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Some more zoccolatura can be found around in my flickr set Italian doors.

To preserve the Old: Colorful Tiles

One day in the palazzo, I was wondering how the tiles under the layers of dust would look like... downstairs I found an empty plastic bag and opened the only water tap we had in the basement. Then I carried the water in the plastic bag upstairs and spread the water over the tiles in the future bathroom. With an old broom that workers had left I roughly brushed the floor, took pictures and went again to get water for the dusty tiles in the next room.

This is the flooring of the future bathroom, 'before and after':




The flooring of the master bedroom - before and after some rough cleaning:




The dusty floor in the soggiorno, living area - before and after some rough cleaning:




Only in these three rooms of the primo piano (first floor) we have this kind of colorful tiles.

The tiles of the future bathrooms (first 2 pics above) had to been taken out to install the piping and to reinforce the floor (full bathtub will be heavy). Also not all the tiles were in good shape. So at the moment we are not sure if we will lay the tiles with the flowers back into the same room or rather use them in another smaller bathroom downstairs. In any case:

I cant' wait to see these floors restored !