Who uses their cell in the bathroom the most?

75% of Americans use their mobile phones in the bathroom. And of them

more guys use their cell in the bathroom then girls.

Are you shocked by this number?

 It is a relief to see that 92% of them wash their hands, but with only 14% washing

their cell, these stats really got me thinking............

I thought of all the times I have sat in restos and coffee shops with friends or collegues who have passed me their phone to show some funny video, their kids photos or a picture of their latest boyfriend or girlfriend. Thinking of flicking thru those photos and

then eating a meal, Eewww....

Another fact I found interesting was the online shopping while sitting on the toilet...

What are these 13% of men and 7% of women buying?

I wonder what percentage of these people are on 1-800 flowers or buying some big expensive gift? Having forgotten their anniversary so they sneak off to the

bathroom, order something and then pretend they are all upset telling their

partner that they ordered it and can't believe they haven't received it and

say, let's look at the tracking and see where it is...sneaky bums!

I'm not surprised that it is Gen Y and Gen X that are using their cells while sitting on the toilet the most. I bet there are alot of dating calls where the dialogue goes something like this:

"No, you hang up... Ok, ok, we'll leave our cells on so I can hear you sleeping... What you have to go to the bathroom?....No prob baby, we can still chat...plunk..plunk...No,no, I didn't hear anything, you pee very silently....Oh, you were going number 2? Really? I didn't hear anything..." Aahhh young teenage love...

The stat I'm most surprised by is that 41% of people initiated a phone call !!!?!!

Ok, I can get surfing while sitting on the toilet, texting too, being in the middle of a call and not being able to hang up, ok, or picking up a call because you don't want to miss the call, but initiating a call?! I don't know about that one. Perhaps if you need to call a utility or credit card company where you know that you will have to wait for a few minutes before speaking with someone, but yikes who else would you call when you are about to go to the washroom? Dr.OZ?

And finally, this stat I'm sure makes some companies happy - it is proof that android phones are better than iphones and blackberrys in one situation!  87% of droid users use their cell in the washroom vs. 84% blackberry and 77% apple. So does this mean iphone users are a bit more hygenic? I think it's more proof that the iphone is so much better than the other phones cause we don't need the time in the bathroom to do stuff cause

it's so much easier to use. hahaha....

Want to read the article this diagram was attached to? Click here.

Which stat surprised you most?

For those of you sitting in the bathroom reading this post on

your mobile, leave a comment too!

image via: yahoo

Which would you rather watch tv or look at this view?

Oooooo someone's having a romantic weekend...

Crystal flutes filled with bubbly champagne, strawberries, flowers floating in the bath, gorgeous view, fluffy towels, soft candlelight and images of beaches, all this
setting needs is some chocolate and it's perfect.

Love this modern tub shape, it is so sleek looking. I really like the design of
the tv stand/towel rack/bathtub faucets mounting.

In my opinion if you are getting a tub separate from the shower, always

pay the extra money to buy a fixture set that includes a side sprayer. Believe me it is no fun cleaning a tub without one, not that cleaning one with one is much fun either, but I digress. You will always make a splashing mess if you don't get a hand sprayer. And what if your sink faucet design doesn't have a tub faucet that comes with a sprayer? I've looked into buying a separate sprayer in the past but this is much more expensive, not to mention the extra plumbing work, even more moola. If the tub isn't close to the sink try to find something similar in another line or from another company that can match your sink fixtures. If you still aren't happy with the look, please, please choose a new sink faucet. Don't stick with the tub fixture without a sprayer. You will thank me when it comes time to clean the tub, wash your dog or give your baby a bath or sell your house to someone who has any of these. It really does make a huge difference.

Hope you have time this weekend to take a nice long relaxing soak.

Question - see my post title, do you think I need a comma or a semicolon or a dash or maybe a question mark right after the rather? I kinda think something should be there, but I'm not sure which.

image via: photos day

Stealing ideas from other rooms

So let`s do some stealing....

Sometimes I`ll see a piece of art or a stool or lamp in a room and think "That would look so good in a bathroom". Alot of bathrooms are decorated like bathrooms. I think bathrooms should be decorated like any other room in a house. It should reflect the homeowners tastes and styles and help them reach their goals. Ok, I am sure a few of you are cracking jokes about what goals you want to reach in the bathroom...you silly peeps;) ! 

For the bathroom, I was thinking along the lines of if for example, you lead a high stress life (and who doesn`t these days) then your bathroom decor should be relaxing and soothing. A comfy soaker tub would be a good investment. So would a sound system to play relaxing tunes. Soft, gentle colours, little clutter, smooth textures and soft and dimmable lighting would all help you unwind.  Or if you have a teenage girl who doesn`t feel like she is pretty, decorate the bathroom with images that will make her feel good about herself. The bathroom is a great place to do this, sometimes even better then her bedroom, because she is not distracted by the computer, her cell (well, she might have it with her as you`ll see in my next post) to give her positive reinforcement daily. Oops, I`ve gone off on a little tangent! So back to the scheduled programming....

So as I was saying, why not get bathroom inspiration from non-bathroom rooms. I saw these photos and thought "how good would this art look in the bathroom". I think these pieces would look fantastic in modern bathrooms.

Sure we`ve seen sea fans and shells used as accessories, but have you ever seen such a modern take on using sea fans - the ones above appear to be pressed onto a mirror then covered by a glass panel.

These shell photos would look incredible in a masculine, chic bachelor's bathroom.

I think these would look killer on a black painted wall or maybe neon?

Speaking of modern, stylish bachelors who here watches Suits?

I could see this art from Harvey Specter office from the amazing tv show Suits looking cool in a bathroom. (btw, if you haven't seen the show Suits, you gotta watch it. It is sooooo good. Check it out here. The final show of the season was playing this week (I'm watching it in repeats, just discovered it in January!) and what a cliffhanger. Love this show. Great stories, great dialogue and great outfits.  Gabriel Macht who plays Harvey, only wears Tom Ford suits on the show, so you know it's gotta be good!) Want to see all the details in Harvey's office? You've got to read this great article: click here) (And for those  Harvey buffs, want to know who the artist who did that art in Harvey's office is? I am searching for it. I will let you know when I find out. Update: I finally have the answer, thanks guys! I've put all the info & links in this post: here. If you just want the name of the artist, it's Heather Millar). Ok, there I went off on another tangent again. 

So I'll be doing some more stealing decor ideas for the bathroom every

once and awhile and will keep you posted.

images via: delight by design, shoebox decor, inside tv

Breathtaking bathtub backdrop

This bathroom left me speechless.

 It is so incredibly beautiful. I can`t get over that mural. It is such a pretty idea to have a mural featuring storks right behind the tub. It almost looks like the stork in the front is getting ready to dip his toes in the bath. (prefer writing toes to claw, doesn`t sound as sweet!) btw, did you know that in most painting storks are painted in pairs? The reason being that storks mate for life. In this mural it looks like there are 2 couples and one

bachelor stork flying off to find a mate!

Even the tub fixtures are gorgeous. It is such an elegant and romantic bathroom.

image via: idfx

Showers with built in benches

There are so many different styles of built in shower benches. If you`ve

got the space in your shower I think it`s definitely a great idea to

have a bench. It is so relaxing to be able to have a seat in the shower and

let the water pour over you. Don`t laugh, but I have sat down on the

floor of my shower many times and just let the water wash over me.

After a stressful day at the office, when your shoulders are all stiff and your little

head is going in circles thinking about all the work you have the next day,

that water beating down on your head (and imagining that you are in Hawaii sitting

under a waterfall in a private lagoon with a coconut drink waiting...don`t even ask

what our water bills are and yeah I come out with raisin fingers!) just

washes away all the stresses of the day.

Look at this tile and granite color combination. I never would

have though to put these two together, but it works to

add warmth to the shower.

With those dark grey tiles, if buying granite,

 I would have gone with a black granite bench top or a grey granite or maybe even

a blue granite shower bench. Are you sick of me saying granite? I would have also looked at using corian or quartz in white or you could add a wild splash of colour such

as red quartz, fushia quartz or lime green quartz (quartz,quartz,quartz heheheeee),

but I think I would stick with a neutral colour so I'd never get sick of it and

just add colorful towels if I wanted that punch of color.

Nice simple bench, and this shower wall and floor tile pattern is also really nice:

I really like this classic bench look:

Makes me think of the movie Rocky.

This u-shaped shower bench gives enough room for a

few people to sit and enjoy the steam shower.

Do you like any of these benches? If so which ones?

Have a great day.

images via:unknown x 4, elle decor, unknown x 2, hgtv, mary anne smiley interiors, unknown

Pretty white bathroom oasis

Take a look at this beautiful white bathroom.

Such a fantastic shower. Eventhough it is a 3 tiled walls shower it

looks open and airy. I really like the cararra marble brick tiles, the pretty ceramic stool and

the tiled shower ceiling, which is great for me because I somehow always get the ceiling wet.  

Arent' these mirrored doors perfect?

There are so many pretty details to this washroom, from

the pop of pink of the flowers, the female bust, tulip stool and chic makeup station,

ornate sconces, mirrored wall and marble hexigon floor tiles. It all adds up to a

fabulously feminine white washroom.

images via: martensen jones interiors

Warren Buffet`s old vacation home bathroom in Laguna Beach California

Since I'm writing about his vacation house, I just had to use a photo

of Warren Buffet in a Hawaiian style shirt.

Try to find bathroom photos from Warren's main home is impossible, believe

me I've tried! But seeing inside his vacation home was easy, I didn't even have to dress in black, climb like spidey or wear a ski mask. Well alright, there is a catch, the

house has been renovated since he lived in it. In case you're wondering, Mr.Buffet last owned this house in 2005, he originally paid $1.05 million and

sold it for a cool $3.5 million.So what I've got here are the after photos. However, I think it is still fun to see. It gives us an idea of how he lives. Actually, the photos we're seeing are an improvement on how he lived, cause if his bathrooms were so spectacular to

begin with then they wouldn't have been renovated. Maybe that's why the

new owners are having trouble selling his house...

 I mean it's one thing to be able to say you shower in the same shower

Warren Buffet did, imagine all the ideas he must have had in those showers, sit

on the same toilet reading the Financial Times as he might have, come bum to

bum with the world's richest man, now that might be worth an additional few

mill to some people. To live in the renovated version of his home, still exciting, or to

renovate his house and sell his old stuff on ebay, even more exciting. The house is 

still for sale and has had a few price drops, in 2009 it was listed at $6,495,000.

So can you afford to live in the prior home of the man who has

repeatedly been named the world's richest person?

The price tag to live in Warren's old vacation house:

$4,995,000

Let's put this into perspective, that's a $1.5 million price drop from it's original listing price, and that's only $1,495,000 more than what Warren Buffet sold it for back in 2005, and you haven't even started negotiating yet...

Some deets on his former vacation home:

35 Emerald Bay, Laguna Beach, CA 92651

MLS# U11004235 (I've included a link at the bottom of the

post so you can check out the rest of his place)

- it's located on a private cul-de-sac

- is located on the ocean side of PCH overlooking Emerald

Bay's private beach (Oooo sounds nice)

- Views: Catalina View, Coastline View, Hills View, Ocean View,

White Water View

- is 3 stories

- has a 3,190 sq ft lot, the house is 3,103 sq ft

- 4 bedrooms, 4 baths (we get to see 2 of them)

- was built in 1955

Now lets take a look at his place.

Here`s an old photo of the outside of Warren Buffet`s house:

and a more recent one:

I think they did a nice job renovating this washroom. I like the small iridescent mosaic shower tiles, the shower fixtures and sink faucet look quality. The metal sink is nice, seeing as it's a vacation house, I think I would have gone with a bigger sink for people to rinse out their bathing suits in. However, overall it is a nice simple contemporary bathroom. I like the choice in window treatment, the loads of counter space, the open shelving of the vanity, the dark wood floors and classic color combo. It's a classic, safe, never go out of style looking bathroom, that you can recreate even if you're not a billionaire and don't own a beach house!

This must be the master bath with the dual sinked vanity. So this could
have been Warren Buffet's master bathroom:

What do you think of the tile work in that angled shower?

For a multi-million dollar house I find the choice in white square tiles very bland. They look like inexpensive ceramic tiles. These square white tiles look a bit old fashioned for a bathroom renovation, especially since large tiles or mosaics are all the trend now. They could have really made this bathroom pop by doing a beautiful mosaic tile pattern, especially since this might be the masterbath. To save money they could have done a combination of subway tiles and mosaic tiles (see this post for an example of that) or chosen a fancy trim tile and combined it again with subway tiles which cost as little as the tiles they used. Since it's a beach vacation house they could have played up that angle by using colored glass tiles. They are a bit more expensive then ceramic tiles, but less expensive then marble & stone tiles. This would have added visual interest to the bathroom and created that WOW factor people are looking for.


I also think the shower bench is ugly! They should have put in a stand alone bench (a teak wood bench would have looked good with the beige vanity countertop and given a nautical vibe to the bathroom playing off the location of the house) or done the bench in stone. (I'll be posting a post on built in shower benches later this week. There's some really nice examples, come back to check it out! UPDATE: here's the post) And the shower floor would have been nicer if they had done a pebbled floor (playing off that beach theme again), there are any number of ideas that would have looked better than this. It really depends on what tiles you choose for the wall tile, but this shower is just plain old boring.

Plus, there is way, way to much grout in that shower, all I can think about is

how much of a pain this shower is going to be to clean (ok, you'd have alot of
grout with mosaics too, but at least it would look good!)

This washroom does have some nice features thought - the skylight and the vaulted

ceiling. Wish they would have added a bit more Oomph that's all.

Talking about Oomph....check out the views from Warren's house:

Aren't these the perfect shades of blue?

Ahhh... to be able to walk down to the beach every day...pure happiness.

And how far a walk is it from his house?  Here's an aerial shot of Warren

Buffet's house, it's circled in red:

So what do you think of Warren Buffet's bathrooms?

As I mentioned, they've been renovated since he lived there, but it

still gives you an idea of what they looked like.

Are you surprised or is it what you expected?

If you buy Buffet's former vacation house, don't forget to tell 

Tim Smith, to contact me to send me my commission!

Want to see more photos of Warren Buffet's old beach house? Copy this address: 35 Emerald Bay and go here (and enter it in the search box on the left). Or you can check out this article which also has photos of his place.

This was actually a frustrating post to write. If you are interested in reading about my

story about writting this post, click the click to see more to read more:  

Penelope Cruz gets glamorous in the tub

Perhaps this is how Penelope Cruz waited for Javier Bardem on Valentine`s day?

Love that modern tub, the exposed brick walls and full length Venetian mirror. But

most of all I love her dress! It's the perfect cut and perfect shade of red.

image via: fyeah hollywood

Pink and red girly romantic bathroom

Does this girly pink bathroom not scream Happy Valentine`s day?

I love the pretty bows on the makeup station and vanity skirts and that perfect shade of red of the mirror frame & chandelier just makes the pink pop more. All this bathroom

needs to be perfect is to fill up the tub with bubbles, scatter a trail of rose petals on the 

floor leading to the tub and have a huge heart shaped chocolate box lying on that seatee.

Ok, if there was a diamond tennis bracelet or diamond necklace dangling from the tub faucet that would be pretty spectacular too! Seeing as I'm a chocaholic though I would probably be happier getting the big box of chocolate. I'm such a cheap Valentine's

date, buy me a box of chocolate and I couldn't be happier. I've got to end

this post now so I can go find a piece!

image via: architectural digest

Two people showers are twice the fun

Since Valentine`s day is tomorrow, I thought there is no better

time to do a post on double showers! I think I`ve found one of

each style to suit everyone`s taste. From sleek and modern to

classic and romantic, what a nice way it would be to start off

Valentine`s day in one of these huge showers.

images via: elle decor, belle vivir, ideal home, locati architects,, trendir, unknown, ana williamson architect, bella mumma

Zen with a view

I imagine this tub to be in the middle of a forest in Japan at a yoga and meditation

retreat. The view looks so tranquil and relaxing. The green slate tiled walls and the wooden window frame are in perfect harmony with the view outside. (Look at that, just from looking at this photo I`m even sounding zen-ny, zen-ish ??!!) The only thing that's got me wondering is what is in those plates? I'm not sure if it's bath products or snacks?

Anyone have a clue?

image via: unknown

Before and after puppies bath time

Are these guys not the cutest or what?!!

 

If you have some cute photos of your pets or kiddies, 

email them to me and I'll include them in my

next pets and tots in tubs post.
You can email them to me at: mikky@todaloos.com

I can't wait to see your little cuties!

 

image via: live love laugh

Wainscoting in the washroom, which style works for you?

Ever thought about adding wainscoting to your bathroom?

There are so many different styles to choose from. I've assembled a bunch

of photos of small, medium and large bathrooms with different styles

of panelling. I have to admit, I used to not be too crazy about wainscotting.

I felt it was a bit too conservative for my taste and I like the look of tall walls. The

house we bought had wainscoting in the office that was painted in two different

colours, it was UGLY! I was so happy to remove it, I thought it really shrunk

the room. However, I think it had more to do with the paint job and style

of the wainscoting that I did not like.

This two tone blue and white wood panelling is stunning. I

love how elegant it looks with the floral wallpaper.

Here's a great idea: add a ledge or a shelf to the top of your wainscoting. It's

a great way to display your favorite sea shells like in the picture bellow or

to store your bath salts and moisturizers. I also like the idea of displaying

different sized frames with art or photography or your kids drawings in them,

I find it can give it a more eclectic look.

Another idea is to use extra tall panelling like in these bathrooms:

Here's another favorite of mine.

I love the pattern of this red panelling. I think

it adds something special to the look of a small powder room.

Still can't decide which style you like the best? I've got a few more

photos after the jump. Click the "click to see more"!

The bathroom of THE most expensive home in Miami's history

So how much does THE most expensive house in Miami's history go for?

Oh do you have a spare $60,000,000?

Are you dying to see what a bathroom in a $60 million house looks like? I was. You'd expect it to have out of this world bathrooms. Since solid gold or platinum walls might look a bit tacky for some, I was guessing they would have marble wall for sure.

No suprise here, the master bath is wall to wall, floor to ceiling covered in Calacatta or Staturio marble. These are the creme de la creme of marbles. Look at those delicious gold veins. And that stunning gigantic glass shower with his and her shower fixtures and spray jets. This shower is HUGE. Can't see any storage area, but I guess you have your own washroom attendant in a house like this! Oh Jeeves fetch me a towel please... There must be a seperate toilet area, probably tucked away behind one of those doors. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were built in tv's in those mirrors.

You know how much I love my tubs with a view...this view is not too shabby!

Guess how many bathrooms $60 million buys you????

10 bathrooms and 4 half baths.

(just like Anna, they only let us see one bathroom, sniff, sniff)

So if you've won 3 or 4 lotteries or if your names are Jay-Z, Beyonce and Blue Ivy Carter your new address may just be 3 Indian Creek Dr, Indian Creek, FL., 33154, USA. (Here's the MLS number Beyonce: MLS: M1199866)

Check out the virtual tour here. (this bathroom is shown at the 2:30 mark, you can see the amazing view) It's listed as a single family dwelling. However, this modern mansion has 5 kitchens! Some of the other cool features it has is it's own waterfall, roof top lawn, over 30,000 sq ft in living space and can you believe it is green certified. 

So what do you think? Is this washroom worth the huge price tag or would you have expected more??

images via: the jills