our famously ugly Brooklyn bathroom

This post and project were generously sponsored by Kohler. 

While I don’t consider myself an interior designer at all, I’m definitely a design digester. I have Pinterest boards about kitchens, bathrooms, and lighting, I pet velvet sofas like they’re kittens, and I never met a glossy, lacquered wall I didn’t love. But, even with all my oohing, ahhing, and admiration of good interior design, I have to say that to start from scratch designing a room is a bit intimidating. So when my husband and I decided that it was high time we renovate our (famously ugly) Brooklyn bathroom, I looked to the premier bathroom source: Kohler. Once I started to poke around on their site, I learned that Kohler offers real design help, including floor plans, product selections, and 3D renderings.

Kohler Design Style Preferences: Style Trends

Kohler Design Style Preferences: Materials Palette

Here’s how I best describe it: Kohler Bathroom Design Service is like an online dating service, matching you up with your best bathroom. You start the process with a quiz (see screenshots above)…you are presented with photos of spaces and you just have to viscerally respond to them—sometimes it was the light, sometimes the color, sometimes the textures. It was like an interior design personality test and I loved it. We also were asked to link to our bathroom boards on Pinterest so that they could see where our eyes wandered when day-dreaming about the perfect bathroom.

Once the quiz was complete, we had our first of three video calls with our matchmaker, er, designer, Lynn. The first call is the “Collaborate” phase, where Lynn gathered more info about our taste, our functional needs, and our budget (some things don’t translate into the online dating analogy). As you may guess, I’m more of a Do-It-Yourselfer than a Do It With Someone-Elser so this felt so unfamiliar just unloading wants, needs, tastes, etc. But it all made sense to her…we were speaking her language.

Michael and I are not the types that just say things like “I like green” or “I don’t like brushed nickel.” We are people that describe a surface with more words than probably necessary…I tell stories about where I saw a beautiful tile pattern, when and why I was there. (Michael usually chimes in with—Amanda, Lynn doesn’t need to hear all of this!) I asked her repeatedly if we could do this with every room of my house…it felt so luxurious and helpful to have someone interpret our taste, our needs, and our space and funnel it into a plan that was dreamy and achievable.

Video chat with Kohler Designer

The second call was the “Visualize” phase where we got a swatch-like picture of our new bathroom. Lynn had made mood boards with colors and tiles and Kohler products that were derived from our earlier conversation and the answers from our online quiz.

3D rendering video chat of bathroom with Kohler Designer

And then the third call is when we got to meet our new bathroom…a 3D rendering of our little space, complete with new paint, tile, product finishes, fixtures and even an orchid on the vanity! There was no swiping left on this bathroom…we were amazed! And to top it off, we received a box in the mail…a beautiful package of paint samples, wood finishes, and a blown-up photo of the 3D rendering.

I think bathrooms are one of the most complex spaces to renovate smartly and that’s why Kohler Design Service’s $499 price tag is such a steal. You get expert design advice, an easy-to-visual final product with a photorealistic bathroom rendering, knowledgeable product recommendations and access to a list of Kohler Installation Partners. Plus, you get a 2% discount when you purchase the products recommended to you on the list!

Once we shared our hopes and dreams with Lynn, we decided to take the destiny of our bathroom in a slightly different direction, collecting all of her expert plumbing and fixture advice but tweaking the design ever so slightly. She set us on our color palette path of green, gold and white, but the more we looked around, the more we uncovered what direction we really wanted to go in.

We are ready to finally live happily ever after with our new bathroom…let the dating process begin! To check out the Kohler products that we selected, you can visit my bathroom idea Pinterest board! Stay tuned for the final reveal soon!

This post and project were generously sponsored by Kohler. 

May 8, 2019| ad, Decor, DIY Home, Lighting, Styling, Wall Decor