Monthly Archives: August 2012

For the India Apartment: Rustic Pedestal and Wall-Mounted Bathroom Sinks

Recently I shared ideas for making a carved wood table-like bathroom vanity for our apartment in Chennai, India. I’ve also collected many pedestal and wall-mounted sinks on a Pinterest inspiration board. Whatever we do, the final result should be uncommon and creative.

Here’s the floorplan showing the master bathroom I’m thinking about right now:

The wall where the toilet is located will look like this (this is a photo of the store display at Vaigai Sanitation in Chennai):

Sorry for the yucky photos below – it’s hard to make gorgeous construction photos. Here are the tiles installed (before grout) in our bathroom, where the toilet will go:

Looking through the door, this is the space where the vanity and sink must fit:

After this photo was taken, the tile was installed in the shower, to the right. We will install a glass door to the shower, where the step is on the right side, so it’s not a wet bathroom. The vanity and sink will be next to the glass.

I have this rustic mirror, purchased last year from One King’s Lane. It will be going to the Chennai apartment, and may go in this bathroom above the sink:

Many of the pedestal or wall-mounted sink ideas that I like have an old, rustic or natural look. Here’s a few inspiration images …

Via Atelier AM:

Via indetail interiors:

This was pinned on Pinterest from Santa Fe Craig’s List about 7 months ago, long gone now:

Via Barry Dixon:

I don’t know the original sources of the next three images; please comment if you do:

Via House Beautiful:

Via Richard Powers:

Via Eleanor Cummings:

Finally, a simple copper wall-mount sink from Copper Sinks Direct:

Mostly I like the wall-mounted faucets. But our plumbing is not designed for that. And the walls are concrete and brick, and the tile is already installed. Changing plumbing would be an enormous messy pain. So I do need a plan that doesn’t include wall-mounted faucets.

I hope this inspires you to try something very different in a bathroom!

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And the Giveaway Winner Is …

I so much enjoyed reading all the comment entries in the India painting giveaway contest! I love getting comments to hear how you’re inspired, and stories of your travels and keeping your memories alive through remembrances like the little India paintings. Please please keep leaving your thoughts and ideas here even on non-giveaway posts — it’s fun to read them and makes sharing things with you here more rewarding!

I really wish I had brought many more paintings home so everyone could have one! But a winner must be chosen, so I asked Random Generator for impartial help. I admit feeling a little nervous pressing the “generate” button, like I’m waiting to see who the winner is, as much as you may be waiting to see if you’re the winner:

And the winner is …

Salma Hall

Congratulations!! Also check out her website of India-inspired products — beautiful! Salma said in her comment she liked the dark elephant:

Salma, please email me at india.pied.a.terre (at) gmail.com with your address, and I will mail the painting to you. Thank you to everyone who participated. This is much more fun than keeping things for myself! So I plan to definitely do more giveaways in the future. I blog our inspiration for the India apartment and our Chicago home here publicly because I like to share and inspire other people. I’m certain on my next trip to India, I’ll be looking for giveaways for others, as much as personal souvenirs!

Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room

So many of you are liking the elephants in the current giveaway, I thought today that we could discuss the elephant in the room. Or, the many elephants …

Do you ever look around and suddenly notice a recurring theme? One day I noticed lots of big ears and stocky bodies around here. Not on the people, on four-legged creatures!

Here’s a bejeweled beauty on a frame from Z Gallerie. We’re shown in a happy vacation photo:

Peek inside this frame in our guest room, and you will see elephants on that map of Siam there:

On a Thai silk pillowcase from Jim Thompson in Bangkok. It sits on a chair in our bedroom. The chair is also upholstered in a heavy woven silk that we found in the Jim Thompson outlet in Bangkok:

I made this pillow cover with a wide elephant ribbon, below it a thin brown ribbon with beads, brown suede and gold silk chenille:

The big wood elephant is one of a pair of bookends, gifted by some business associates during a trip to Bangalore; the small bronze elephant is one my husband brought from India decades ago:

Erm, please excuse some dust on some things. I’d much rather blog than be a perfect housekeeper, wouldn’t you?!

Here, elephant drawer pulls from Anthropologie lay on a shelf in our guest room. With them are a tall raku vase from a ceramic show in Royal Oak, Michigan, a copper batik printing tjap found at Arhaus and a candleholder found at HomeGoods:

A stuffed elephant wrapped in Thai silk from Jim Thompson:

More elephants made of Jim Thompson silk:

I took a closer look at the textile covering our kitchen bar stools. And there, I found … little elephants:

Many of these elephants are from travel. And very appropriately, I have a few more elephants on vintage hotel stickers:

This is my most favorite elephant of all. It’s about three feet tall, ceramic with “dirt” texture on it, found at HomeGoods. It has the best profile:

This elephant will be traveling. It will be going to our apartment in Chennai some day, where it will live in the guest bedroom there.

A Giveaway! Mini Indian Painting

One night while strolling through my in-laws’ Chennai neighborhood, we found a little market. There in that little market we found something I’d been seeking for awhile — these mini paintings on Jaipur government stamp paper:

I bought more than I need. I’m having a hard time choosing which to leave out of a framed arrangement. So why not have YOU decide!?

Just leave a comment about which one you like best and tell why, by August 24. I’ll use Random Generator to choose a winning comment and that person will get the mini painting they like best! I will ship internationally, as people from many countries visit this blog.

Here are the five choices:

LOVERS

PARADE

ELEPHANT WITHOUT SCRIPT

ELEPHANT WITH SCRIPT

CAMEL

See how detailed these are:

They are unframed, and about 8.5 inches x 12 inches in size. There are some flaws on the paper, which I tried to show clearly in the photos above.

During the evening walk when I found these, something cool happened that isn’t so common in our increasingly mobile world today. Our nephew ran into a friend:

This friend is the son of a (formerly) boy my husband went to school with when he was growing up in Chennai! Except back then these neighborhood streets were relaxed and quiet any time of day. As you can see now, vehicles and headlights are pervasive and invasive.

That’s why I like things like these mini paintings that capture a bit of yesteryear.

Don’t forget to comment by Friday, August 24 midnight U.S. eastern time, for a chance to win! I’ll post the winner here on Saturday, August 25. See you then!