Bathroom mural ideas

The other day Jen at Rambling Renovators posted a link to a mural she liked that led me to the Canadian website anewall.com.  What an awesome site!  They specialize in historic, and I assume royalty-free prints for your home in large sizes, including wall mural decals.  I could lose myself for hours on their site, and their blog, but when I came across this painting above in the wall mural section, my imagination went a bit crazy.

A Dreamy Bathroom

These are my colours - muted blues, greys, a hint of green, and cream.  While I would be thrilled to have this on just about any wall of my house, for some reason it got me thinking bathrooms - perhaps because I could imagine lounging in a soaker tub gazing out enormous (but well-insulated) windows looking over a stormy sea like the one pictured.  What?  You don't have daydreams like that?  Weird.

Anyway, I spent much too much time flitting about the web, collecting items for my dream bath.  Of course the room is enormous, because to me the epitome of luxury is a huge bathroom (that and a walk-in closet).  I ended up with so many ideas I had to do a couple of boards.

Go with the Design Flow

Here's the funny thing: these boards looked WAY less alike in my head as I was doing them than they ended up. I started out with two completely different people in mind, but when I look at them together I sort of did the same room twice.  Not sure if that means I have a distinct style, or that I have no imagination. :)

Also, neither room looks quite like the ideal image I had in my head when I saw the painting.  It could be that this is where mood boards don't quite capture the essence of a room.  However, I also think that this is true to life in any design - you start with a concept and in fleshing it out you adapt it to the things you find and the pieces available, and it sort of modulates along the way.  I quite love how both the rooms represented above turned out! 

What do you think?  Is it better to stick more closely to an original idea - staying absolutely true to it - or to let the design take on a life of its own during the process - at the risk of losing the original thread?  I guess it would depend on the client, and the level of attachment they or you have to the original plan, or aspect of the plan.  Oh the things I waste my time thinking about...

PS. I have sources for all the stuff if you are interested.  Recognize the Turkish towels and hooks in the second board?  They are from Emma's bathroom on The Marion House Book!