70's Bungalow: Bathroom Designs

Room design and renderring by Carol Reed Interior Design

The new floor plan for The 70's Bungalow redesign has 2 bathroom ensuites and 1 powder room on the main floor (check out the before and after floor plans here, and the kitchen redesign plans here).  The master ensuite and the guest room ensuite were designed with similar concepts but slightly different material selections.  Each of the bathrooms would have custom wood vanities, solid stone tile flooring and solid slab counter tops.   

I allocated the majority of the bathroom budgets into the floors, vanity and countertops.  Everything else in the rooms would be non-custom, have simple contemporary lines and be basic white or polished chrome.  I'm not a fan of mixing a lot of different tiles in one space, or using trendy tiles,  these looks get dated pretty fast - I prefer to stick with classic natural stones and simple white ceramics, playing up the different shapes, sizes and finishes (honed, polished etc) for interest.

Master Ensuite room design and renderring by Carol Reed Interior Design.

For the master ensuite I designed a floating zebrano wood double vanity that would have 7 drawers, a solid calacatta marble countertop with a tall backsplash and shower jambs to match.  The wood grain of the vanity would run horizontally to play up the contemporary lines of house.  The floor would be clad with one tile, a 12 x 24 honed calacatta, no borders, no inlays.  The beauty of this natural stone's colouration and veining is a feature on its own. The large walk-in shower will be clad in a long narrow white ceramic tile installed in a stacked pattern (not as shown in the renderring), evoking a very modern feel.  The white ceramic walls and white marble floors will showcase the gorgeous zebrano wood.  The bit of non-tiled wall space there is will be painted a deep warm grey for rich dramatic contrast, this was added to the concept sketch later on as the paint colours were selected.

Site sample board for Master Ensuite bathroom.

In addition to a full set of construction drawings, site samples boards are prepared for the contractor - they don't need to be pretty,,,just factual.  Above is the site board for the Master Ensuite material finishes.  Sometimes I'll include photos of the faucets and light fixtures too but this time it wasn't necessary. Final wall paint colour will be selected on site after sampling 2 or 3 draw downs on the primed walls.

Guest Bathroom design and rendering by Carol Reed Interior Design.

The guest bathroom is small but accommodates a standard size tub and a 30" vanity.  The vanity had to be designed to go all the way to the floor, concealing the plumbing (that would come up thru the floor). The custom cabinet would be made from riff cut white oak stained a golden caramel colour.  The countertop will be solid quartz material in white, the same white as the slim narrow rectangular ceramic tiles that will surround the tub, including the tub front and continue across the entire vanity wall.  The floor will be finished with Blue Ocean vein cut travertine in an offset stack pattern which will really play up the horizontal lines in the tile.  The walls will be painted a warm taupey grey. The guest bathroom will have a custom made shower curtain instead of the glass screen illustrated above, and only 1 pendant fixture instead of two.

Site sample Board for guest bathroom.

Using only one tile on the floor and one tile on the walls is a great way to stretch your budget dollars,,,and I think it maintains a clean modern look.  Using a ceramic on the walls, and tiling only the shower or tub walls, instead of all the walls is also another big cost saver.  To maximize a bathroom budget, keep the walls simple and get that luxe high end look by investing in stone flooring and solid countertops.

The renderings above were drawn in the early stages of the design development and it was thru these sketches that the client was able to decide on the room layout and all of the design details.  Subsequently some very minor changes and modifications have been made to the bathroom design since these sketches were prepared but the overall design concept remains the same.

Last week I was out at the supplier's warehouse looking thru their current stock and tagging the orders for both of these rooms and some other areas in the house (talk about being a kid in a candy store!!).  The tiler is scheduled to start in approximately 2 weeks and the vanities are in production,,,I'm so excited to see these designs evolve to the next stage.

 

IDS 2011

If you're in Toronto this weekend you don't want to miss the Interior Design Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.   I'll be at the IDC Canada booth on Saturday between 1 and 4pm participating in their Design Dilemma Consultions providing free 15 minute consultations to show attendees.   If you do go and happen to see me, please stop and say hi!

Modern Log Home - Guest Bath

Guest Bathroom design concept.

Last month I took a road trip to visit a clients weekend cabin located in a popular resort town a few hours north of the city (skiing, golfing, boating etc).  The homeowners are clients of mine who I've been working with for the past several years renovating their home in the city.  They purchased a weekend property earlier this year, its a chink log cabin that was built about 20 years ago.  A chink log cabin has squared logs instead of round and are stacked horizontally with a mortar bed (chink) in between the logs.  The logs used for this type of construction are weather equally on all sides so the exterior and interior look the same, in this case the builder used pine logs that had been weathered for 5 years and aged to a beautiful heather grey.  On the second floor where the guest bathroom is, the log walls are only about 3 feet high, as a result visually this creates a horizontal wainscotting effect.  In the guest bathroom, all the walls outside the room have this log feature but inside the bathroom there are only 2 of these log walls, you can see one of them in the photo below. 

Interior log wall of Guest Bathroom.

Now that my clients own the cabin they want to update the interior to reflect their personality and lifestyle, starting with the colonial 'knotty pine' kitchen and bathrooms.  They're a young family who are drawn to character homes but love simplistic modern style interiors and especially anything that's vintage 60's and 70's.  Knowing their style, I have to admit I was pretty EXCITED at the idea of mixing this modern aesthetic with the log cabin structure,,,,,,the interior would be a cool mix of rustic + vintage + modern + industrial - whatever you wanna call it (I hate trying to labell a style) it'll be a personalize mix that can only be called 'their' style.

For some bathrooms I design I'll spend a lot of time on the details, custom designing a vanity and mirror, I may spend hours searching for just the right marble or stone,,,searching thru batches of warehouse inventories to find just the right lot of tile or the perfect slab, and I'll order that 'perfect' light fixture, and faucets and statement tub,,,,,hoping they'll arrive within the next month or two.  But for some bathrooms I design, like this one,,,,,its all about simple design with ready-made and in stock.  These are the projects I really like to share on the blog because I think more readers can relate to these types of renovations.   My objective for this bathroom was to come up with a design plan using materials that were readily available thru local building stores up north and/or products that my clients could simply purchase off the shelf and bring them to the cabin on a weekend visit. The contractor was already standing-by, ready to go he was just waiting for the design plans.  So with no time to waste (literally!) here's what I came up with... 

Keeping in mind there are weathered grey logs on two walls and no windows, I wanted to use lots of white to keep it bright, modern and really showoff the wood.  To me, nothing beats the simplicity of white subway and hex tile, the grey grout will give it a vintage vibe and an entire tiled wall simplifies all the angles.  I proposed installing the subway tile vertically to enhance the vertical lines to offset the low ceilings.  A ready-made floating vanity in high gloss white is a modern contrast to the weathered grey logs, with 2 drawers its also super functional.  Because I wanted the vanity to go wall to wall, I've asked the contractor to make a cubby shelf at the one end.  A new glass enclosed shower with ready-made carrara marble jambs will replace the tiny old one piece insert.  I suggested an industrial style cage light painted in a fun bold colour like a tourquoise blue or bold yellow,,,with towels to match.  The large round steel rimmed mirror, numbered towel sets and chevron bathmat are fun graphic elements. 

A slightly different twist on the same concept, here I suggested an entire wall (the vanity/shower wall) be clad in the multi-toned glass mosaic with the rest of the shower wall tiled in the white subway and a light grey floor tile.  I've seen this glass mosaic at Lowes and HD so its readily available and not super expensive.  I like modern graphic of the small 3/4"x3/4" and all the various tones of grey and white which I thought added interest and compliments the wide stripe effect of the grey logs, both visible from outside the bathroom too.  Although this is probably my favorite of the two options,,,they opted to go for the white subway tile, installed in the typical horizontal fashion (I tried!).  I then sketched a quick 3D for them to illustrate the shower stall glass detail and how everything all worked with the slope ceiling.

A couple of days after the design plan was finished I did a quick scouting trip for some lighting and came across this awesome outdoor fixture that I thought would be perfect for the bathroom, especially with a silver base bulb.  I love the industrial style of this fixture and at only $45 I think they're a steal!  The homeowners loved it so much they've bought several of them to use in the other bathrooms too.  Now let's see if I can convince them to paint at least one of them yellow. : )

The old bathroom was torn out about 2 weeks ago and the contractor is already about halfway finished building this new one, he'll soon be ready for the glass and the countertop to be templated which are the only things not ready-made or off the shelf but will give the entire bathroom a custom look. Once this is done I'm not quite sure yet if he'll be moving on to the new design plans I've done for Master Bedroom Ensuite,,,,, or the kitchen, but I'll keep you posted!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

After: E-Design Bathroom Project Part 2

One of the most exciting parts about E-Design projects is when I receive those long awaited 'after' photos from clients.  Handing a project off to someone else to takeover fills you with lots of anticipation (and anxiety!).  A couple of months ago I received one of those Christmas like emails from an e-design client who had just completed her newly renovated bathroom.  It was soo exciting to hear from her as I knew she had proceeded full-on with the renovations following my design plans so I couldn't wait to see the results.  To check out a few of her 'after' photos along with some of the before pics and my design plans for the space, you can go here.

When I saw the first after photos of the space, I was speechless,,,you really had to see the befores, this transformation was dramatic but the fact that she implemented the entire renovation so successfully from my E-Design plans was such a thrill for me.  She and her family had lived in the house for 25 years and had never taken on any renovations or upgrades,  until now they had only dreamed about them ...so she was brought to tears when she saw the finished bathroom for the first time.  Since the house was located in Toronto I couldn't resist the opportunity to visit in person and take some of my own photos, so a couple of weeks ago I arranged to meet this client face to face and see her home in person for the first time.  Camera and flowers in hand of course!

Its hard to describe what it felt like to walk into this space, because its like I had already been there - its surreal to see what had been a very vivid image in my head for so long, now right there in front of me, yet I hadn't been part of the physical transformation process.   I hadn't seen it evolve so this visit was a role reversal, it was the designer experiencing the 'reveal' not the homeowner.  The fact that someone else who I'd never met had so literally brought the vision that was in my head to reality was overwhelming.  And as corny as it sounds, the space itself,,,really was breathtaking, I actually gasped, the photos truly don't do it justice.  If I could only capture that 'feeling' on camera or find the words to convey it.....

The house is a heritage home so the goal was to give the space some classic traditional character but with a contemporary edge.  But it was most important that the space wasn't done in cool greys or blues or too white.  There were splurges, saves, and great buys. The floor was the definitely one of the splurges.  A basketweave mosaic marble, simply laid with no borders or inlays.  Classic and timeless.  I loved the varying shades of warm greys.

The old brick chimney wall was clad in drywall and surface applied panel moulding was added to create a wainscotting effect around the entire bathroom.  Simple crown moulding and baseboards complete the trimwork.

Another splurge, a custom designed vanity with plenty of deep drawers provides tons of room for each family member to conveniently stash all their products.  The sink was offset to maximize the counterspace.

The biggest objective for the redesign was to create a separate tub and shower.  It was intentional that all the plumbing fixtures have simple clean lines and be contemporary.  I think this works well in an otherwise traditional space and keeps it from looking dated.  You can see the plumbing fixtures have rectilinear lines.  One decision the homeowner made was opting for an undermount sink as opposed to a sink that had a 3" lip around it the same as the tub....but I think this option works just as well especially because of the shape.  I normally provide 2 options when making selections for a client and either one is meant to work equally well.

I think its important to point out that aside from the fresh hydrangeas on the vanity (its all I could find - why is there no selection of fresh flowers in June???) and the potted orchid on the tub deck (my gift),,,,this is exactly the way the bathroom looked when I arrived that day.  I was impressed how well her artwork fit in.

This moravian star fixture from Home Depot was a great 'save' and one of her favorite things in the bathroom.  You'll also notice in some of the shots the ceiling is painted a soft pale blue.  A beautiful detail that I often do in bathrooms.

One of the key finds was this sleek soaker tub by Duravit, and surpisingly it was a great buy too at less than $700.  Because the existing window was so low to the floor this tub with its low profile fit perfectly without having to make any alterations to the window.  Its clean lines are gorgeous looking and the homeowners all rave how comfortable it is, even the men!

The front of the tub was paneled with the same moulding detail as the walls and finished off with a simple shoemould at the bottom.  The marble tub deck and vanity counter were finished with a rectilinear profile to maintain that contemporary edge.

On the inside of the shower, on the back of the half wall is a built-in soap niche which contains all the products and keeps them out of view.  Hooks are a must in any bathroom that's used by men or children, they simply won't use towels bars!

When I design showerstalls I always specify solid slab thresholds and jambs.  One of the reasons I often use carrerra marble in bathrooms is because you can find ready-made marble jambs instock at any building centre in one of two materials, carrerra and jura beige.  If you go with one of these it means you save the expense and time of having to get jambs custom fabricated from some other material.  I prefer classic carrarra so I'll chose counters and tiles that will work with that.  Then, splurge on a frameless glass shower enclosure.

The rectangular lines continue in the shower fittings, and the classic white subway tile (another 'save') was installed with a light grey grout to add more character.  In general the minimal use of tile in the room is a big cost savings.  I love the sparkle of polished chrome fixtures, and they'll also cost you a lot less than polished nickel.

A luxurious rainshower head.

The rectangular shape is continued on the vanity drawer fronts and hardware.

This is the view standing in the doorway....

I hope you can see why I was so excited to share these after photos.  I'm thrilled that my client is happy, in fact she tells me "its the most beautiful bathroom I've ever been in" and its been such a joy to use.  How amazing is it that its had such a positive and uplifting effect on her and her family's everday living!  

Next she's going to tackle her 25 year old kitchen which she plans to overhaul next summer.  I'm about halfway thru the design planning for it and I can tell you its going to be as dramatic of a change as the bathroom was.....  

If you have a space that your planning on renovating but don't have any design plans, check out the E-Design services available on my e-design site thedesignshop where you can also see more of this bathroom redesign project in the Gallery.

All Photos:  Carol Reed