Bathroom of the Week: Elegant Look With a Wet-Room Layout
A designer plans a primary bathroom addition with calming and classic style
This Saratoga, California, couple chose a home that had great bones and good light and was located near family. However, they knew it wasn’t big enough for their growing family or for hosting extended the family who would be visiting from out of the country, so they planned to add on to it and remodel. One of the biggest issues was that the house had only one full bathroom, plus another bath with a tiny shower that doubled as the powder room. Before they moved in, they hired interior designer Katelyn Gilmour to create plans for several additions, including this classically elegant new primary bathroom.
Floor plan: To get a better understanding of the wet-room layout, let’s jump into the floor plan. A wet-room strategy can save space when both a generous shower stall and bathtub are desired. Gilmour enclosed the wet area on the right side of the bathroom with two hinged glass shower doors.
The area with the X shape is a double shower area, with the shower heads marked at the top and bottom of the plan. The shower area is about 3 feet wide, but because of the wet-room layout, it feels larger. “With the tub height, it’s not like they will bump their elbows on a wall when they are washing their hair,” Gilmour says. The freestanding tub occupies the area under the window. The shower floor slopes slightly toward the drain, represented by the square in the middle of the X shape on the plan.
The toilet wasn’t photographed, but it’s at the bottom left corner, with the entry from the bedroom to its right. The double vanity runs across the top of the plan.
The area with the X shape is a double shower area, with the shower heads marked at the top and bottom of the plan. The shower area is about 3 feet wide, but because of the wet-room layout, it feels larger. “With the tub height, it’s not like they will bump their elbows on a wall when they are washing their hair,” Gilmour says. The freestanding tub occupies the area under the window. The shower floor slopes slightly toward the drain, represented by the square in the middle of the X shape on the plan.
The toilet wasn’t photographed, but it’s at the bottom left corner, with the entry from the bedroom to its right. The double vanity runs across the top of the plan.
The countertops are quartz with a marble look. “We wanted to use slab apron fronts with mitered edges to add more of the stone to the room,” Gilmour says. These 8-inch-high expanses of stone beneath the sinks work well with the proportions of the 7-inch-high backsplash. The countertop is 2 inches thick. “We used this thickness throughout the house for a cohesive look,” Gilmour says. The vanity has three banks of drawers, one on each end and one in the center. Some of the drawers have electrical outlets inside.
“The wife loved the idea of adding more natural light, so I put a transom window over the mirror,” Gilmour says. She designed millwork to tie the window, the mirror and the sconce together.
While the room is classic, modern touches like the wall-mounted faucets keep it fresh. “My client wanted to use polished nickel on the faucets, lighting and hardware,” Gilmour says. “She fell in love with these faucets that mix in onyx on the handles.”
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“The wife loved the idea of adding more natural light, so I put a transom window over the mirror,” Gilmour says. She designed millwork to tie the window, the mirror and the sconce together.
While the room is classic, modern touches like the wall-mounted faucets keep it fresh. “My client wanted to use polished nickel on the faucets, lighting and hardware,” Gilmour says. “She fell in love with these faucets that mix in onyx on the handles.”
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To the right of the wet room, Gilmour added another built-in. The shelves are designated for extra towels and the cabinet door conceals a hamper. “We also put outlets in here for things like their smart speaker,” Gilmour says.
The designer used the same quartz she used on the countertops around the opening to the shower, on the wet room’s window trim and in the shower niches.
Check out our beginner’s guide to get started on your home project
The designer used the same quartz she used on the countertops around the opening to the shower, on the wet room’s window trim and in the shower niches.
Check out our beginner’s guide to get started on your home project
While the wife worked closely with the designer, both she and her husband got very specific about their shower heads. This is hers, which has an exposed column and a slide for the hand shower wand. “He didn’t care about a hand shower, but he did want body jets and the rain shower head,” Gilmour says.
Both husband and wife have generous matching shower niches. Gilmour placed them on a wall where things like shampoo bottles won’t be seen from the rest of the bathroom. She outlined the niches in quartz and backed them in the shower wall tile for a seamless look. This photo provides a closer look at that shower tile: a gorgeous mosaic of Thassos and Carrara marble from Bedrosians.
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Both husband and wife have generous matching shower niches. Gilmour placed them on a wall where things like shampoo bottles won’t be seen from the rest of the bathroom. She outlined the niches in quartz and backed them in the shower wall tile for a seamless look. This photo provides a closer look at that shower tile: a gorgeous mosaic of Thassos and Carrara marble from Bedrosians.
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Placed beneath the frosted glass windows, the bathtub adds a beautiful shape and symmetry to the calm and classic room. Look closely at the windows to see how Gilmour trimmed them out in quartz.
The floor tile continues from the vanity area to the wet room for a seamless transition. “This keeps the wet area from feeling divided from the rest of the space,” Gilmour says. The tiles are honed Carrara marble composed in a herringbone pattern with tight grout joints.
It was important to plan how the orientation of the tile would work in both the vanity and wet-room areas. Gilmour oriented the V shapes in the composition to point toward the vanity from the bedroom door. It was also important to get the grout right. “Smaller grout joints keep the tile pattern from looking super busy,” she says. The grout color, Smoke Gray by Laticrete, blends well with the color of the tile.
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The floor tile continues from the vanity area to the wet room for a seamless transition. “This keeps the wet area from feeling divided from the rest of the space,” Gilmour says. The tiles are honed Carrara marble composed in a herringbone pattern with tight grout joints.
It was important to plan how the orientation of the tile would work in both the vanity and wet-room areas. Gilmour oriented the V shapes in the composition to point toward the vanity from the bedroom door. It was also important to get the grout right. “Smaller grout joints keep the tile pattern from looking super busy,” she says. The grout color, Smoke Gray by Laticrete, blends well with the color of the tile.
More on Houzz
Read more bathroom stories
Browse bathroom photos
Find a bathroom remodeler
Shop for your bathroom
Bathroom at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with a baby
Location: San Jose, California, area
Size: 101 square feet (9.4 square meters)
Architect and interior designer: KBG Design
Gilmour’s plans expanded and reconfigured the home to take it from three bedrooms with one full bathroom and one three-quarter bath to four bedrooms with 3½ baths. This included three additions that were modest in size. The new primary bathroom is en suite and is part of an addition that also extended an existing bedroom. The addition made the bedroom bigger and also made room for a walk-in closet, establishing it as the primary suite.
The color palette throughout the home was inspired by a project of Gilmour’s that the homeowners had admired, Navy Is a Neutral, which mixed white with pops of navy. However, they wanted a calm and classic light palette in their bathroom. “My clients really liked the look of classic gray and white, as well as Calacatta and Carrara marbles,” she says. “The project they admired also had a wet-room strategy layout and they liked that idea a lot.”
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