There have been a couple of posts about this over the last week already, but it is worth getting the call to action message out there, whenever some kind of listing is possible. This one is for, https://www.stakingrewards.com/account/vote and it really should be simple for us to get the community to do something as simple as sign up with an email and vote.
I'll wait.
Still waiting....
If you have just voted because of this post, add a comment and a screenshot and I will give a little higher vote on it.
In the meantime, this picture is from our nearing completion second toilet. I don't think I even put a picture of what it was like before, but if you have seen Trainspotting and remember "The worst toilet in Scotland" scene - that was approaching what we had here. Okay, I might be exaggerating slightly, but it really was terribly grotty and very poorly done.
Voted yet?
Here is the link again if you misplaced it.
We have been a little bit "daring" with or choices of materials by Finnish standards, as we have large tiles and exposed wood on the wall behind the seat and for the ceiling. This is a very small toilet area, making the selection of basin a challenge, as there were very few that could fit, with most of them being terribly ugly. This one is simple and tiny, but will do the job. The mirror is still to go on, as well as a few other fittings, but I think it has come together well and while different, still fits in with the style of the bathroom upstairs, as we carried the black, wood and concrete grey theme over, with the tap and toilet the same models.
The taps themselves have been a drama, as we went with black taps (our shower glass has black trim) and again, there weren't many options available. We ordered the first ones from a smaller Finnish tap company and when they arrived, they were damaged and scratched during the production process. So we sent them back for a replacement. Those were damaged slightly too and finally when we installed and tested, the hand bidet leaked. So they went back too and the third time, the same thing happened so we are getting a refund on them.
The one pictured is the new style we chose from Oras, another Finnish company that has a pretty good reputation for their kitchen and bath fittings. When we first made the decision a year ago, they didn't have this tap in black in their range and even after ordering, we had to wait three months to get it, as they have had supply-chain issues like many companies.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to hide the pipes in the walls like we did upstairs, because this wall backs onto the chimney structure, which acts as the core of the house. This means that we have to have it "Finnish style" and on the outside of the walls, something I find very weird.
The other thing we added here is electric floor heating. Where possible, we have used the air-water heating exchange that heats the house radiators to heat the floors instead, but it wasn't possible here and since this is such a small room, the cost isn't very high. Because it sits on an unheated (for now) basement, the floor can get very cold and uncomfortable in the dead of winter, so heating is pretty necessary.
While it is changing now, Finns in general don't seem to put much effort or thought into their bathroom spaces, which is strange considering that they often also have saunas and therefore spend more time there than usual. The bathrooms are generally small and impractical to use and follow the Finnishism of "as long as it does the job, it doesn't matter what it looks like". This happens in many aspects of home design here and part of it is because people think style has to be expensive.
While this might not be to everyone's taste, in my opinion, no matter what is being done, there is always a chance to add a little design thought into it. The wood idea came from a picture my wife found somewhere, but generally I have picked a small item of some kind (like the taps) and designed outward from there, rather than go from the big components to the small.
The reason I do this is that it gives some inspiration as a starting point, leading to less generic decisions for the larger pieces of the project. I actually do the same thing with much of my writing, as I don't usually have a high-level topic I want to cover, I have a sentence, quote, or some tiny fragment that I flesh-out into a story. For me at least, it is easier to use a detail as a seed to grow a forest, than in reverse.
Have you voted yet?
https://www.stakingrewards.com/account/vote
There is only half a day or so til closing and we are currently in second place, just behind the leader. For those who vote because of this post, add a screenshot as proof in the comments section and I will add a bit of a higher reward on it than normal.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
