A Little Help From My Friends! Please!

Dear friends and clients-I have been in your homes. I know you are all much better home decorating people than I am. So I need your help.

Okay, here it is. The most current project that has been consuming my mind is our bathroom remodel. I discovered moisture in our bathroom vanity (the bathroom on the other side of our master bath), and long story short it resulted in our master bathroom being jackhammered in three areas. Thankfully our insurance covered some of the cost of fixing the leak, but now I'm trying to design a new bathroom on a dime--with an unfortunate habit for expensive taste. I'm not necessarily saying it's good taste, just somehow I always gravitate toward the salt and pepper shakers that are $300.

So, let's start with what our bathroom currently looks like. This is hard for me. I feel like I'm sharing my deepest, darkest home secret with you. Only about 5 other people have seen this bathroom other than Ryan and I. Don't judge us, we did not choose one thing in this room, but have been too lazy to change anything except for putting up that mirror. I think that it was just too far gone for me to even try. But here it is:

And here are bathrooms that I love:

(Photos are all from my pinterst board, please go see it so the people who took them get credit)

So, these are the things that I would love to have in our new bathroom:

• knock out little wall next to sink, do frameless shower door (see exhibit 5 & 7)
• tile wainscoting with this chair rail from The Tile Shop

• This tile for the floor. Ordered it yesterday, so don't tell me if you don't like it!

• This medicine cabinet from PB

• this light

• a shower shelf like this, but with penny tile behind

• secret picture frame cabinet (I've been wanting to do this FOREVER! A tutorial here) and add the galvanized steel behind like in martha's medicine cabinet

  

• Pedestal sink. I like square, but may need to go round because our sink space is only about 20-22 inches

• bathroom fan (we don't have one now and, man, does that bathroom get steamy
• new fixtures for shower and sink. And there are too many choices, it stresses me out. Really, someone, just tell me some to buy in brushed nickel and we're cool.

But, of course, this puts us about a billion dollars over budget. So it broke my heart was decided that some things had to go. This is what is going for sure:

• The tile wainscoting. I love it, but the tile I fell in love with is a bit pricey, even for our tiny bathroom. I decided I had to choose between the shower door and the wainscoting, and we think that the glass wall will make it feel bigger and that is a better investment. We thought about a wood wainscoting, but our plumber talked us out of it because the bathroom is so small and likely to get damaged or warped.

Here are the things we are on the fence about, and have more questions than answers:

• Should I do a medicine cabinet or just a mirror? The medicine cabinet would be nice to give us a little more space to store things, but will it look weird above a pedestal sink with out wainscoting? Or should I just do something bold that makes a statement
• Should we do shelves above the toilet for more places to store things? My gut is to do glass shelves so that it feels light and airy, but would that make it feel too sterile? Will I really want to store real things, or just cute things? Should we just do a shelf above the sink instead? Or do artwork above the toilet? TOO MANY OPTIONS.
• Is the light above mirror worth the cost of the light and the cost of rewiring?
• What about a shelf above the door??

 So, what are your thoughts on where we should trim and where we should splurge? Any other ideas for me?