Bathroom Remodel #1: Choosing hardware

The awful paneling is starting to deteriorate and it’s time to re-do the bathroom. We’re narrowing in on tiling options (probably 18” cut stone tiles), we already know the flooring, and we’re looking at what to do for fixtures.

We spend a few hours at our favorite kitchen and bath place (where we found the tiles), think they have a tub in the back that might work for us and be a bargain (the house is small, so it’s basically looking for a 18” deep cast iron front skirt tub, 60” long by 30” or 32” wide), but they don’t have any fixtures which are leaping out at us, so we head over to the local big box store, spend some time there, come up with some finish options, but the kitchen and bath consultant does an awful lot of “look through this catalog”.

So: Home to the interwebs.

Here’s what I want: Tub/shower controls that have the ability to control flow rate as well as temperature. These are the high end valves, but after a little poking around I think I have the names that I’m looking for (although now I can’t remember what Delta calls theirs, Moen apparently calls theirs “Moentrol”).

Now I have to select trim packages. See, what I want is a web site that asks: “What finish do you want? What valve do you want? Okay, here are your options.”

Instead they really want to force you into a style first, you can kind of get finish, but I’m always coming up with results that seem to suggest that for the $160 valve, I’m going to have to pay $400 for a freakin’ handle, a stamped metal cover plate, and a set screw. Really?

Ugh. Hate the whole thing where I feel like they’re trying to make it as difficult as possible for me to explore their product line in order to trick me into paying way too much for a couple of pieces of brass that are going to make my bathroom look like its populated by rejects from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/