In this snack-size episode of Home: The Second Story, we dive into plumbing fixtures—how to choose them, what to avoid, and what we wish more homeowners knew before starting their projects. We walk through the entire selection process, starting from early space planning to detailed specifications and finishes. The big takeaway: start talking about plumbing fixtures early, especially if you’re dreaming of something unique, like a Japanese soaking tub or a stone monolith centerpiece. The sooner we know about your preferences, the better we can plan structurally and spatially.
We emphasize the importance of ease of use—especially when designing for aging in place or for young children. Safety features like anti-scald valves and preset temperatures are no longer luxury upgrades—they’re smart for everyone. We also talk about how fixture technology has evolved. From kitchen faucets to showers, the options are endless, and they can dramatically improve usability and comfort if chosen well.
Finish selection is another area where we’ve learned a lot. There are more metal finishes available now than ever before, and while it's tempting to choose a specialty finish, doing so narrows your accessory options and could lead to compatibility headaches later. Sheri brings up how some finishes, like matte black, might look great at first but can be hard to maintain depending on water quality and cleaning habits. Marilyn points out that higher-end finishes tend to hold up better over time, while Taylor offers a practical reminder that quality and accessibility to replacement parts matter just as much as looks.
We stress the value of visiting a local showroom. Photos online can't convey how a faucet feels in your hand, or whether a pull-down sprayer actually works for your cooking style. Trying it in person helps narrow down hundreds of choices to just a few that feel right. Not to mention, replacing something you ordered online can be VERY tricky!
We wrap by airing our personal love-hate relationships with specific plumbing elements—vessel sinks, wall-mounted faucets, hand showers, and Jack and Jill bathrooms. There’s disagreement, of course, but that’s the fun of design: it’s personal. The consensus? Decisions like skipping a hand shower to save money can lead to deep regret, and vessel sinks are divisive but have their place—just maybe not in a kid's bathroom.
In the end, plumbing fixtures are more than just parts; they’re daily-use tools that should function beautifully and fit your lifestyle.
00:00 – Intro: Why Plumbing Fixtures Matter
00:56 – Space Planning & Unusual Tubs
02:35 – The Power of Early Communication
03:17 – Fixtures for Accessibility & Safety
05:04 – Fixture Finishes: What to Know
07:00 – Mixing Metals vs. Matching
08:50 – Finish Durability & Maintenance
10:00 – Online Shopping Pitfalls
11:30 – Showroom Visits: Try Before You Buy
12:34 – Water Limiting Devices
13:14 – Local Codes & Valve Considerations
15:15 – Pet Peeves: Wall-Mounts & Vessel Sinks
19:26 – The Hand Shower Regret
20:44 – The Jack and Jill Bathroom Debate
22:06 – Wrap-Up & Listener Call to Action
Voiceover (00:02):
Everyone says how horrible it'll be to renovate or build your house. We're here to say, it doesn't have to be that way.
Join three seasoned architects as they interview homeowners who recently completed a large project, and ask them one simple question: what do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?
Welcome to Home: The Second Story Podcast.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:25):
Hi, and welcome to a snack-size episode of Home: The Second Story. I'm Marilyn Moedinger, from Runcible Studios, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts. And today, I am joined by …
Sheri Scott (00:39):
I'm Sheri Scott in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Taylor Davis (00:42):
And I'm Taylor Davis, in Birmingham, Alabama.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:44):
Today we're talking about plumbing fixtures. Which is a wide-open topic.
Sheri Scott (00:50):
(Laughs) It is.
Taylor Davis (00:52):
We just finished two kitchens and bathrooms. So, these are like heavy on my mind.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:56):
Heavy on your mind. I will keep the puns to a minimum. Before we hit record, I started going off on puns. I'll keep them to a minimum. Unless our listeners write in and say they'd like to hear some, and then I'll be vindicated.
Sheri Scott (01:09):
We love them. We all love them, Marilyn.
Taylor Davis (01:11):
We love your puns.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:12):
(Laughs) Try to keep them flowing during this episode here.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (01:15):
And one of the things that I can do, and that you guys can do too, is spec plumbing fixtures. So, let's talk about some wisdom related to plumbing.
Sheri Scott (01:28):
Let’s start at the beginning. So, let's kind of work through the process. So, we start with design. In my office, of course, we just do a preliminary design, which shows a toilet, a sink, a tub, a shower, a kitchen sink. More like location things, planning, space planning.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:50):
Here's basically where it's going to be.
Sheri Scott (01:52):
Then when we get more specific is when we're making selections. And a little bit more than that, particularly in bathrooms, because we need to know space planning for what tubs. Literally, I have a client right now that has, it's called something like the mega monolith something.
It's like this huge stone tub that’s down in the middle of the floor, which is amazing. But we have to do structural stuff for that. And just space planning, that's a different animal than a regular six-foot tub.
Marilyn Moedinger (02:35):
And it's good. This is a good time to mention one of our favorite pieces of advice (which we're going to give on every single episode, pretty much), which is tell your designer if you have something like that in mind.
So, if that's something that's super important to you, I had a client years ago who really wanted one of the Japanese wooden tall tubs, and that's a very specialty thing. And they told me right from day one when we were having our initial conversations about design, they said, “It's very important to me that we make room for this and that we do this in this way.”
Perfect. So, then I wasn't drawing the five-foot tub in an alcove from day one. I was taking that tub into consideration.
Sheri Scott (03:12):
Did that tub make it into the project?
Marilyn Moedinger (03:14):
It did. It did.
Sheri Scott (03:15):
Yay, awesome.
Taylor Davis (03:17):
I think too when we're going to check out specifics or think about specifics as we move into the selection process (and here comes Taylor’s soapbox), we think about ease of operation, and especially if we’re doing aging-in-place design, we want to make sure that the kinds of plumbing fixtures that we are specifying are going to be things that are easy to operate, that have potentially some safety features that are included on them.
So, some anti-scald mechanisms, some preset temperatures. That's really great for if you're older, but it is also really good for little ones too, so they don't turn on the water too hot.
So, look at some of the technology. When you go to your plumbing fixture store, you're going to see some advances over probably what you're coming from, which is a sink, maybe a pull-down, maybe a sprayer.
There are all sorts of new bells and whistles that allow for safer and easier use of fixtures. And for us, that's really important. But again, it's important for older folks, but it's really kind of important for everyone. And it certainly isn't something that is relegated. This only is worth it if you're 75 or older.
So, I think ease of use, accessibility, safety, and then the combination of those things in the bathroom or in a kitchen. How you move between plumbing fixtures, if you need another sink in another location for a prep zone?
Do you have to navigate around something to fill up your pot? So, thinking about how you use it will also impact your selection process because you're wanting to place those things in a way that makes sense.
Marilyn Moedinger (05:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And something else that is worth thinking about on the early side is the finish color. So, in the past, we didn't have that many options for finish color. Once we sort of left the 1920s and ‘30s, when we had all those porcelain, crazy, green toilets and mulberry-colored sinks and all these amazing ceramic pieces.
When we moved more into everything sort of white porcelain, and then the fixtures themselves, the faucets and the showerheads and stuff are all chrome, that's the way things were for a while, or they were brass. You kind of had one or two or three options.
Now, there's a lot of options. So, you can get gold or brushed gold, or a living finish or a brass or whatever, and all of it is cool. But what can happen (and this is a caution for early in the process) is if you pick a really specialized finish.
I had a client choose this beautiful set of fixtures for their primary bath, that was all in a gunmetal finish. Well, then we had to figure out how are we going to find towel bars that match gunmetal (laughs).
So, if you're working in those specialty finishes, you have to buy into the whole suite of that same finish if you want it to match. So, I'm thinking of a company we go with a lot (California Faucets), they have 30 different finishes, but within each finish, they have absolutely everything.
So, the toilet paper holder, the hooks for the wall, absolutely everything that matches that specialty finish. It just means that you have less choices because you're not looking at all of the hooks or all of the towel bars that are potentially possible.
You are narrowing yourself to whatever that specialty finish is. And generally, (I guess I should say, as a baseline), you do generally, from a design perspective, match all the metal in your bathroom with itself.
Taylor Davis (06:56):
I'm going to do a hot take. I don't necessarily. I don’t think you have to (match).
Marilyn Moedinger (07:00):
I don’t necessarily either, but that's generally a starting point.
Taylor Davis (07:03):
Most people feel comfortable with that. But I think that there are certainly opportunities to mix and match. It depends on all the other finishes in your bathroom. There are so many ways to mix and match things. But if you really have your heart set on things that are different finishes, I think that's okay.
You just have to kind of work through that from a design perspective and understand how those things are going to connect to each other. I am of the newly formed eclectic: think about a little more creativity in how we are specking finishes in our kitchens and bathrooms.
Which may go over like a lead balloon with some clients. But I think it's kind of fun to sort of think about, “Can we make some of these disparate pieces feel like they work together?”
Sheri Scott (07:53):
Yeah, I think it's a design challenge. You just have to pay attention to it. It's an easier lift to make everything match and nobody's going to question it, and you won't walk in and feel like there's something off, I think, if everything matches. But then if you do it right with different materials, then it could be magical.
The other thing about specialty finishes that I have learned is to understand how they will wear before you use them. We had a moment where people were asking for black finishes, and looks great for maybe two months, and then it's just so hard to take care of water spots and lime deposits.
It depends on where you live and what your water is like, and what your cleaning habits are like. But just take that into perspective, go a little bit deeper, and figure out how that's going to age.
Marilyn Moedinger (08:50):
While we're speaking of black fixtures in particular, I've noticed a huge difference in quality of a black finish depending on the quality of the fixture itself. So, if you're getting the bargain basement, whatever, faucet that's black, that finish is not going to last at all.
If you're getting a really nice fixture like a Kohler or I said we use California Faucets all the time, we're not endorsing anything, whatever. There's lots of really great stuff out there. And I'm not just saying expensive, I'm saying good quality.
So, if you get reputable, good quality, whatever, those finishes are going to last longer. But there's no getting around that black is an applied finish where something like chrome in the same way, it's not. So, that's very important.
Taylor Davis (09:40):
So, along the lines of selection of plumbing fixtures, there's so much that's available online for you to look at. And it can be very tempting to purchase something online because you think it looks beautiful in a picture or on the catalog site. And I'm going to offer two pieces of advice with that.
The first is that if something breaks, if there is a washer that is missing, or if there's a part that doesn't come in, A, you as the homeowner are likely responsible for figuring out how to get that. And B, that part might not be readily available with even your local plumbers.
So, if you are looking at a gorgeous faucet that is only available in Europe and you want to bring it to the States … that's a whole other issue actually, is European fixtures versus our fixtures and the spread and the sizes of the plumbing. All of that stuff can be really problematic.
So, it's important to talk to your designer, and I would always advocate going to your local fixtures supply place. Because they have the connections with the plumbers to be able to tell you, A, which fixture brands they have to repair more frequently (laughs), which is the stuff that breaks a lot. And, B, the plumbers will have access to the parts from the faucets and the fixtures that they carry in that vendor's showroom.
So, you are setting yourself up not just for today, for a beautiful fixture that you can touch and see and select while you're in the showroom, but you're setting yourself up for down the road, you know that you have access to the parts that you will need, and they will be able to help you with a plumber that can help repair a fixture because nothing lasts forever.
Marilyn Moedinger (11:30):
That's right. And the other part about going to the showroom, which I 100% advocate for, and that's super important, is you get to try everything. So, turning the faucet handles, especially the kitchen faucet.
I've had clients walk into a showroom with 300 kitchen faucets, and at the look of them, they're like, “Oh my gosh, I could pick many of these. These are really cool.” But when they start playing with them and trying them and pulling down the sprayer-
Taylor Davis (11:57):
Squeezing.
Marilyn Moedinger (11:59):
Yeah, whether it's a squeeze handle, whether it's the little button that you push or slide, and immediately, they start to eliminate things based on how it feels. And then they're down to only three or four faucets that are viable for them. Then that's also much easier to digest than 300 faucets.
But also, they've tried it and they have confidence in how that's going to feel. Something like a kitchen faucet or a bathroom faucet, you're using all the time. You do not want it to feel chintzy or to feel awkward in your hand. You want it to feel right. So, going to the showroom allows you to try it out.
Sheri Scott (12:34):
Another thing that has been around for a long time, water-limiting devices. And so many devices are different. They're not all created the same. So, if you can understand how it limits the water, I am fully behind the idea of limiting the water out of a faucet.
I think that we don't need as much as we used to use, and there are better technologies than others. Some of them (I swear), it's just that plastic cap that just literally reduces the water, and they did nothing else to make it work better. There are better ways, and so research.
Marilyn Moedinger (13:14):
Well, and also depending on what state you're in. So, obviously, I do a lot of work in Massachusetts, and we have very strict limits. So, I can't even buy certain fixtures because it's not Massachusetts-compliant.
So, that's something you definitely don't want to get into if you as a homeowner don't have a designer involved or a designer who doesn't understand your local codes, and is just specking all this stuff and buying all this stuff. And you get all this stuff there, and then the builder says, “I can't use any of this.”
Because the company will sell it to you. Online, whatever shop will sell it to you. The other part of that too is making sure that you have the right valves for everything. So, when we are specking fixtures, faucets, shower, that kind of thing, they have valves, and the valves are the thing inside the wall.
And we could go into a whole thing about shower valves and whether it's thermostatic and whether it's pressure balance, and all this kind of stuff, all that stuff matters. And we actually, as designers and architects, know that stuff and can walk you through, “Okay, here's why you do this, here's why you do this, here's why you do that.” And how it works with the actual innards of the valve.
And that's important too. Especially when you're putting together a budget and you're like, “Okay, here are all the fixtures,” but then you forget to count the valves. So, valves aren't crazy expensive, but it's a few hundred dollars per fixture that requires a valve.
Taylor Davis (14:37):
Well, it depends on the valve.
Marilyn Moedinger (14:38):
It depends on the valve, of course. And it depends like if you're doing a deck mount faucet, a widespread deck mount faucet in your primary bath, you don't need the same wall innards that you do if you're doing a wall mount with a valve inside the wall.
And there's other considerations that may impact how you have to frame the wall, or how you have to do things, or how you have to build the vanity. You want to make those decisions early, so then you can go back through the rest of the design and make sure you're not destroying your vanity or that kind of thing by putting this stuff in.
Taylor Davis (15:15):
People have love-hate relationships with different kinds of faucets. I'm curious to hear what y'all's love-hate relationships are with different kinds … so, let's limit it and I'll start. I don't have a hate relationship with a wall mount faucet-
[Laughter]
But here's where the rub comes in. I do have a hard time when it is mounted onto a wall without tile or stone. Or wait, wait, I've had it happen several times with wallpaper. Somebody's coming wallpapered behind the faucet. Or the faucet isn't long enough to get really fully into the sink.
And so, somebody goes in – y'all can actually see this in restaurants all the time. Restaurant bathrooms are notorious for doing these lovely wall-mount fixtures, and the faucet doesn't extend long enough, and you get splash all over the place.
So, that's my like, maybe not love-hate, but like super pet peevy stuff about wall-mount faucets. Alright, I'm done with that.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (16:19):
Well, that goes hand in hand with one of my super pet peevy things is vessel sinks. So, vessel sinks are sinks that sit on top of the vanity. And look, I've done them.
Taylor Davis (16:31):
They were a thing.
Marilyn Moedinger (16:32):
They were a thing. We all were there. But they're impossible to clean around. You lose all your stuff. Your countertop is now 6 to 8 inches below where the sink is. It's very silly.
And if you do it in a half bath as a special thing … and look, go on my website, you'll see a couple vessel sinks. So, whatever, you got me.
So, it's not always that you wouldn't do it ever. But I think in a workhorse bathroom, like a primary or a kid's bath, certainly do not do that in there. In a half bath or something where you're trying to have a little fun or something, maybe we'll let you off the hook there. But vessel sinks.
Sheri Scott (17:13):
I think we'll agree to disagree (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (17:16):
Sheri!
Sheri Scott (17:17):
Maybe a kid's bathroom.
Taylor Davis (17:19):
Oh, hot take on the vessel sinks.
Sheri Scott (17:20):
In our place in Cincinnati, I have a modern vessel sink, and I love it. I love the lower counter and the sink. It's like a rectangle. It's awesome. Love it.
Marilyn Moedinger (17:34):
Alright. You heard it here first, guys. We don't always agree on things, and that's okay.
[Laughter]
That's the beauty of design.
Taylor Davis (17:40):
Sheri, what are your pet peeves?
Sheri Scott (17:41):
My love-hate, I will say, is a beautiful sink faucet that (I don't even know the right terms) have the hot dial and the cold dial that you touch and turn, with the four spokes. Is there a name for that?
Marilyn Moedinger (18:04):
What? I don't even know what you're talking about.
Taylor Davis (18:07):
Yeah, the ones with the little porcelain. The old-school, like 1920s ones that say “chaude” and … I can’t remember what cold is in French.
Sheri Scott (18:15):
And then like the hot and cold, you like mix it. But even-
Marilyn Moedinger (18:19):
Like a widespread faucet?
Sheri Scott (18:21):
Even better-
Taylor Davis (18:21):
No, but with two faucets.
Sheri Scott (18:22):
When they actually have their own faucet.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:24):
Oh, with two faucets?
Taylor Davis (18:25):
I knew where you were going. The two, mix it in the-
Sheri Scott (18:26):
I love it.
Taylor Davis (18:28):
In which case a vessel sink is very helpful. Because you can mix it in the bowl.
Sheri Scott (18:32):
You fill it up, yeah.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:32):
Oh, listen to you guys and the vessel sinks.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (18:38):
I love it, but I hate it because it's very impractical.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:42):
But it looks cool.
Sheri Scott (18:43):
That has to be in a sink that you just look at. And someday, I'll have that sink that I get to look at.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:49):
Well, I will reveal here and now for everybody, the biggest regret when I redid my bathroom that I messed up totally, I'm actually upset about this. So, I'm saying it here, so no one else makes this mistake.
I was in the throes of VE. So, I had gotten the prices back and I was like, “Ugh, I really need to cut some money. Like it's too expensive.” So, I kind of went through my whole thing and I was like, “Okay, I'm going to cut this and this and this.”
And most of the things I cut were fine, it was this or that, I don't even remember. But the thing that I cut that was a huge mistake, a hand shower in my primary-
Taylor Davis (19:26):
I cut. It's not just you. I just finished my bathroom.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:28):
You did it too?
Taylor Davis (19:29):
I cut that. I did the exact same thing.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:31):
Well, isn't it the worst decision?
Taylor Davis (19:32):
VE hit me and I was like, “Well, I've only been back in the shower for maybe two weeks.”
Marilyn Moedinger (19:37):
Taylor!
Taylor Davis (19:40):
It was not a good decision on my end.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:41):
I can't believe you did that after I did it like three years ago. Oh, my gosh. And here's why (folks) this is a stupid decision. It's stupid because it's really hard to put a hand shower in later.
There's a lot of things you can fix later that, okay, you picked the wrong toilet, you hate it, take it out, put a new one in, whatever. Your kitchen faucet, you hate, take it out, put a new one in.
A hand shower requires getting into the tile, putting a different valve in, it's a mess. And that was stupid. And I saved $1,500. And every time I think about that, I'm like, “That was really dumb.”
Taylor Davis (20:19):
I don't have the excessive regret yet because the shower's not that big. And so, I haven't missed it.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:25):
It’ll set in. It’s coming.
Taylor Davis (20:26):
It's coming? Well, like I said, I'm just glad to be back in it at this point.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:31):
That's how I was too. And then like six months in, I was like, “Oh.” (Laughs).
Sheri Scott (20:34):
The last thing I'll say, that's my real pet peeve (and we draw them all the time, design them all the time) are Jack and Jill bathrooms. I think they're ridiculous. I think it's a terrible setup.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:44):
Ugh, agreed.
Taylor Davis (20:48):
I love Jack and Jill bathrooms (laughs).
Sheri Scott (20:49):
Ugh.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:50):
But only between kids’ rooms.
Sheri Scott (20:51):
Even same-sex kids’ rooms. Come on, you're saving a bathtub and a toilet.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:56):
Yeah, I know, I know.
Taylor Davis (20:58):
But if there's not room – so, in a renovation, if there's no room-
Sheri Scott (21:02):
I’ll do a hall bath.
Taylor Davis (21:03):
So, I will say this, we just did our primary bath, and we actually turned it from an enclosed bathroom into kind of a mini-Jack and Jill, and here's why. Because the room next door had no access to a bathroom at all. It was sort of landlocked.
And so, by making a little door there, we allowed for it to be a nursery so that if somebody in the middle of the night needs to go to a baby, they can walk through a lovely lit (with my awesome potty lights) bathroom to get to the nursery and do it in a quiet way. Or it could be a dressing room, which is the other option that we were thinking about for it. So, I'm not anti-Jack and Jill.
Sheri Scott (21:49):
Well, there are exceptions to every rule.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:50):
There are exceptions to everything. And that's why it's a love-hate, right?
Sheri Scott (21:55):
Yes. Correct.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:57):
The truth here is, guys, we could talk about plumbing fixtures for the next like eight hours straight and we wouldn't get bored, but our listeners probably would. So, we should probably wrap it up.
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (22:06):
But we want to hear all your hot takes on vessel sinks.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (22:10):
Yeah.
Sheri Scott (22:11):
Yes, please. Let's have a poll.
Marilyn Moedinger (22:12):
Yeah, and mistakes that-
Taylor Davis (22:14):
And mistakes.
Marilyn Moedinger (22:15):
We know better to do. But seriously, I think there's a lot more, we can talk about all this stuff, and we can do a deep dive on showers or toilets. We didn't even talk about toilets. There's a lot to talk about there.
So, anyway, but I think that's it for today (laughs). So, thank you so much for joining us today on Home: The Second Story, for this quick snack.
If you have questions for us or topics you'd like us to cover, including a deep dive on toilets, or if you're interested in being a guest, just reach out to us at admin@htsspodcast.com. See you next time.
[Music playing]
Voiceover (22:49):
Thanks for listening to Home: The Second Story Podcast. Feel free to share this episode with a friend. Contact information for all three of our architects are in our show notes, and don't miss future episodes.
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