My Review of 11.5" Wall Sconce in Brushed Nickel with White Fabric Shade

Originally submitted at CSN Lighting

This one light wall sconce is not like many of the bold, eccentric pieces from George Kovacs. It is reserved and simple with a brushed nickel finish and white fabric shade. This sconce is a great way to support you modern decor in a simple, stylish way without becoming overbearing or dis...

11.5" Wall Sconce in Brushed Nickel with White Fabric Shade

Is George Kovacs already married?

By renovationbloviatrix from virginia on 4/28/2008

 

5out of 5

Pros: Easy To Assemble, Shades are very nice, Attractive Design, Diffused light

Best Uses: Powder Room, Bedroom, Living Room

Primary use: Personal

I picked these out to contrast with the natural stone tiles I put on the wall and floor, and the fabric shade softened the look of the room and provided a nice textural contrast. The white shades were also a nice color contrast to the dark grey and black tones in the tiles and vanity base, and matched those of the white sink and toilet.

The brushed nickel finish matched some brushed aluminum accent tiles and the faucet perfectly; the square shape of the metal and the fabric shade complemented the square lines of the sink and toilet.

Sadly, these did not fit in the narrow space between the side wall and mirror frame for my bathroom and so i will have to find a substitute. I am deep in despair. The shade fits very close to the wall, so make sure you have enough clearance between light fixture and mirror or other adjacent structures on the wall.

(legalese)

A Day Off to Enjoy the Garden

I am suffering from bathroom-renovation overload right now. So I spent some time outside taking pictures of the plants coming up all around the yard and breathing deeply. Here are some of the best ones:

I recall casually saying that the sink base was no problem...........

Well, that was wrong. It was a huge pain in the ass because the existing plumbing came out of the side wall, not the back, plus it was old and rusted out. Rick had to work all day+ to change the pipes, he painted the waste pipe so it wouldn't show, and did a beautiful job installing new copper pipes that look fantastic. He cut through the side of the cabinet, shimmed the legs to level it, laid a beautiful caulk line between the cabinet top and the wall, and assembled the whole thing. And that was after the herculean effort to install the toilet, which required drilling a hole in the floor to bring the water supply up from the basement, and lifting the entirely assembled toilet to put it in place. He was not a big fan of the toilet design, and had to improvise and trouble-shoot all day long with the supply line, the bolts, the - you name it, he figured out a way to do it. My newly designated plumber-for-life. Here is everything finally FINALLY installed! If the room was a little bigger, it would be easier to get a good picture. These don't do it justice. It really is stunningly beautiful. Next I need to clean up the walls a bit, put a little caulk along the edges of the wall tile, and get a toilet paper holder and towel bar. I have the mirror for over the sink, and will put it up in the morning. And then I can see if the light fixtures I bought will fit. They might be a bit too big, but I won't know for sure until the mirror is up, and then I can check to see how they look.

I am even excited about this silly register cover I found at Home Depot.

Sharky is fascinated by this toilet.

Change of Plans for the Toilet

I consulted with my Plumber Extraodinaire, Rick Littreal (Pyramid Construction), and he is game to see if maybe there is some way the toilet I ordered could perhaps fit. He persuaded the store owners to let him check out their showroom floor model of the toilet I ordered. He brought it over to see how it would fit. And the bad news is - it doesn't. Not only doesn't, but extremely doesn't. He will have to move the water supply line AND change the waste pipe (wrong size and requires a no-flange installation) AND the waste pipe is about 4" too far away from the wall! Here is is in the bathroom, seated on the waste pipe, and you can see that there is a huge gap between it and the wall. This design is just not practical for existing plumbing. I chose it because I like the way it and the sink have the appearance of "furniture" - this is what you see when you come into the house, and I like having it look like "furniture" rather than bathroom fixtures. But enough of this madness. I went back to the kitchen/bath store and asked the manager to cancel the order and find a subsitute that has a similar style.

I didn't think there would be anything quite like it, but he surprised me. He found one made by Duravit that had some quirks, but was a standard installation - if you don't count the water supply line. The toilet had a solid back, so the water supply line had to either be moved farther to the left or could come up through the floor as the god of plumbing decided to do in my bathroom. So I decided to go ahead and grout all the tile (ah, yes, I forgot to mention that I laid the floor tille) so either this Duravit toilet fits, or else we will just put in a standard boring pedestrian toilet like everyone else on the planet.

So the tile was down, and the grout went in. I used a darker grout on the floor because I don't want the grout lines to be a big contrast to the tile. I also laid it with pretty thin grout lines, just to minimize them. I love love love the way it looks. It is a dark grey, but it has a bit of brown in it, which helps it tie into the brick floor in the entryway. My cat, Sharky, loves it, too. In fact he was in the room throughout the entire tile installation. Here he is while i was working on the grout around the water supply line, and laying out the floor tile. I think I'll let him do the next bathroom.

Did I Say the Walls Were Done??

What was I smoking? Yes, the tile was up, but jeez, the walls weren't done. But I did get some grout that looked great and got the wall tiles grouted. There are lots of websites that will walk you through the process better than I can, but here are the steps:

1. Spread the grout on the tiles.

2. Squish it into the spaces between the tiles with a tool called a grout float.

3. Wipe off the excess with a damp sponge. You will need to rinse the sponge frequently in a pan of water, wringing it out as much as you can so that you won't remove too much of the grout.

4. After about a half hour or so later, you will need to go back and scour off the dried haze with a scrubby thing - one of the scrubbing pads that won't scratch teflon off of a frying pan, but will clean it up; I forget what they are called. (but if your grout is light-colored, don't use a green one. get a white one that is sold in the tile aisle at hardware stores. little microscopic shreds of it break off and will get stuck in your grout and show up.)

The one in this picture is a sponge on one side, with a white scrubby part on the other side. It is important to do a good job of removing the grout from the tile surface now, but you don't want to scrub out the grout from the joints.

5. Let it dry overnight and give it a final buffing with the scrubby thing. I love this moment. It is so cool to see the finished, grouted tile. I have to keep going into the room and turning the light on to admire it. After another day or so, put a sealer on it. I used one that is a matte finish. I don't want this to be shiney. Now on to the floor.

I Forgot to Expect the Unexpected.......

And just when things were moving along nicely.

On Friday (yesterday) I stopped at the kitchen/bath store to see if they could recommend a plumber, and got a couple names. I called the first one, Rick Littreal, and he had just finished a big job early (good sign) so he offered to come by that very same day and take a look at what I need to have him do. He asked if I had the spec sheets for the fixtures, so I downloaded them. Hmmm. I noticed right away that the toilet installation guide said "READ BEFORE INSTALLING!" "Non-standard installation!" Oh boy. I was hoping that I have a non-standard bathroom. But, no. He did admire my tile choices, so we were off to a great start. And the vanity base is no problem. But when I showed him the installation guide , he immediately spotted two things that will have to be changed. The guide specifies that the waste pipe should be a four inch pipe with no flange, and it needs to extend above the floor. The water supply line needs to come out of the wall at a point about 7 inches higher than it currently is. And the bolts holding the toilet to the floor will need to be pre-drilled and tile will need to go around those spots because he will not be able to drill through tile. Argh. So the short story is that it will cost about $500 to install instead of $100 for a standard installation. But he is Richard the Lionhearted Plumber - - did a thorough diagnosis and is not afraid of this totally unique installation, just letting me know it will cost a bunch. The guide said there was a template that the installer would use to mark the floor for drilling, so he suggested I get my hands on a template so I could continue with the tiling if that is the toilet I want.


So I am a little disturbed that the salesman at the K/B Store didn't tell me about this - they have it in the showroom, for pete's sake, so he had to know it is better for new construction than it is for renovation. I looked through my old bookmarks to see what other toilets we had looked at to see if any of those were standard and cheaper to install. But when I called my husband and told him I was looking for an alternative, he said no, Let's Go For It. That is the Toilet I Want. So I went to said K/B Store and requested the template from the floor model, he gave it to me, and I guess I will Go For It.


But I decided I would grout the wall tile (except for about a square foot right around the water supply pipe, which will need to be ripped out to move it) before I lay the floor tile. I got out my bag of grout and started mixing. Just as I was getting it all mixed up, I realized it was smooth...............too smooth. What is up? Suddenly, I realized ----it must be unsanded. I checked the bag, and dambit dambit dambit - that is exactly right! No sand!! This is not good. Unsanded is for very thin grout lines (or for applications with really polished tiles that might be scratched by sanded grout). My grout lines are going to be way too wide, sometimes more than 1/4", and those will be too big. I need the sand or else there is a strong chance that the grout might crack. I might be able to get away with this since it is a wall, not a floor. But who wants to take a $15.00 chance with $600.00 worth of tile??? Not worth it. Plus, I want the floor grout to be the same as the wall grout, so I had to just trash that whole batch of grout and drive back to the hardware store and buy new grout. By the time I got home, I had lost all my momentum. Ready to plop on the couch and watch "Blades of Glory".

Tomorrow is another tile day.

The walls are DONE.

Today I painted the walls. It took a lot of coats, but it is finally done. We (I) used a metallic paint that was the lightest silvery shade they had. It is a Ralph Lauren color from Home Depot.
I guess that little circular shape on the wall is a reflection of the flash, because I don't see that on the wall when I look at it. Tomorrow I will seal the tile so I can grout it.

I also put down the first layer of leveling compound on the floor. There is one corner that was lower than the others when I moved the ladder around the room. Here is the box of the stuff I used. When you mix this up, you need to be ready to spread it right away. It sets up in about 20 minutes, and I am not kidding. The first time I ever used any of this, it seemed similar to grout, and I mixed it and then started sweeping the floor I was planning to patch. By the time I was finished sweeping, the compound was solid, with the stirring stick stuck standing straight up. I had to throw away the whole bucket. Here is the floor area I patched, taken about 2 hours after I spread it out. I may need to add one more layer. It is better to do two or three layers, rather than try to do it all in one shot, since it will get sort of "wavy" on the top if it is too thick. There are a couple lumps on the surface, so I will need to smooth it out a bit even if it doesn't require another coat.

In the last post I mentioned that the strips of marble turned out to be very easy to cut. Here is a picture of my tile nippers and a piece of the marble. These nippers are nice new ones that are quite sharp, so it was really easy to snap these into smaller pieces to fill in the ends of the rows of tile sheets.