Case Study:

English Garden Bathroom Makeover

Design Brief: Makeover a post and beam guest bath and laundry with a warmer palette and capture the client's love of gardening.

The Process

Project Overview

Color consult

Lighting & Floor overhaul

Project management

Project Overview

After meeting on a volunteer garden project, we were so excited when the client asked us to brighten up their guest bath and laundry. While the carrera marble was once fashionable, it was starting to feel a bit muddy. It was an easy pathway to settle on "an English Garden in South Bay" as the design inspiration since our client is a highly accomplished gardener and floral stylist. The selection of the beautiful floral wallpaper was the key to unlocking all the other design elements which included classic penny tiles and chrome hardware, with some unexpected moments like a glass herringbone niche. We're so happy with this bold expression of the classics, a new twist for a coastal home.

Before Images

Testing Tile, Color, & Wall Paper

Skrenders

To aid in decision making prior to buying paint and wallpaper samples we utilize digital skrenders (sketch+renders). Using photo images of the house, we apply digital finishes. While these aren't exact, they can help narrow down color families and application types. In this case we confirmed we liked the combination of the wallpaper with a penny tile which gave us the pathway to making additional design decisions.

Plumbing

Pipe Camouflage

In a post and beam home all the "guts" (plumbing, electrical, structural) must be built around somehow. In this case the plumbing main (aka really big pipes) were dropped through the ceiling and covered up by a bulkhead with large can lights. The box and lights were much larger than they needed to be and ate up visual and physical space. We designed a much more streamlined box to house both the plumbing and a delicate pendant light and then collaborated with Studio Cotty to fabricate. For this process we used CAD to create multiple version for our client to explore as possible solutions.

(And don't miss the curtain we installed in the laundry room to hide the mixing valves and pipes)

New

Lighting

All the lighting needed a refresh in this space. A combination of bulky can lights and exposed bulb sconces were doing no one any favors. We added beautiful diffuse accent lighting in the form of an opaline glass french pendant light and chrome based glass sconces. We also installed some practical safety lighting via an under-vanity kick light.

After Images