Choosing Materials for the Flooring and Bathrooms A Marathon Meeting that Left Us Dazed

Now we’re on the third day of our trip and it’s planned to be a full day with the kitchen and bathroom designer Angelo.

We meet Kevin near the SS77 superstrada for our 30 minute trip to Civitanova Marche, the town on the Adriatic where Angelo has his office. We’re right on time at 9:30.

During our marathon meeting which goes until 7:30, we look at options and make decisions about flooring and the bathrooms. We also spend a little time discussing the general layout of the kitchen.

(We did break up the day a bit with a nice lunch at a restaurant on the sea.)

Anne took a few notes and we took a few pictures as we went, but we should have done more. We relied on Kevin and Angelo to capture and summarize it all, which was fine, except we walked away at the end of the day not clearly remembering everything that was done.

I had to wait until I got the summary from Kevin before I could write this up.

Flooring

Our goal here is to have flooring that works well with the underfloor heating and to have a little variety in the two floors.

All Bathrooms

The fixtures and hardware were easy choices. Clean lines in the porcelain, glass, and metal. We spent about 15 minutes of our ten hours on these topics.

Master Bathroom

Angelo wants to go for a dramatic room here and we like his ideas, for now. I’m sure there will be changes.

• Flooring: Angelo wants to use a large-format 80cm x 80cm (32in x 32in) gray tile on both the floors and the walls of the showers.
• Walls: These will be in either a large rectangular 90cm x 30cm (36in x 12in) lighter gray tile or intonaco (plaster), depending on location.

• Cabinet/vanity: Angelo’s thoughts here run to a custom built-in, in a modern, rectangular style, with the sink sitting on top of the counter rather than being inset. Anne’s not sure about the design and wants more drawers and less open shelving

Ground Floor Bathroom

This bathroom is mostly for powder-room-use, but it can be used as a guest bathroom when guests are using the study across the hall.

• Vanity: Key element here is to be an old piece of furniture used as a cabinet/vanity, assuming we can find one. (More on this later.)
• Floors: Tiled like rest of ground floor.
• Walls: Long rectangular 80cm x 30cm (32in x 12in) gray tiles and intonico.

Top Floor Guest Bathroom

Here we have both a shower and a tub, in case we have any little visitors

• Floor: Same as rest of top floor.
• Walls: Large rectangular 120cm x 30 cm (48in x 12in) off-white tiles laid vertically and intonico
• Vanity: The plan is to have a custom-made vanity piece here, too, that shares the overall design with the one in the master bathroom.

• Key design element: The countertop — if we carry through with our decision. We chose a tile printed to look like an old, faded piece. It might be interesting or it might look too phony.

Kitchen

Our discussion here was mostly limited to the design of the island. Angelo had two proposals with different sizes. To do the larger one would mean no dining room table. We chose the smaller option, but with room for some stools.

One other topic was my coveted ice maker. Since ice is important to me but uncommon and in Italy — I didn’t think they even had refrigerators with ice makers — I was holding out for a separate machine. Angelo did show us an option that did have an ice maker, so we may go that way.

Anne had a least a temporary disappointment, too. She had decided she wanted quartzite countertops for their appearance an durability. Angelo said they weren’t done there and had an alternative material that he recommended.

We’ll need to get after the kitchen in a big way next time.

Addendum

Here are the details of the flooring and bathroom designs.

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