Bathroom of the Week: Traditional Style in a 1920s Cottage
A designer creates a beautiful new bathroom that serves as a powder room and en suite guest bath
This 1920s Atlanta cottage’s first floor had just one bathroom that was shared by the home’s primary and guest bedrooms and that also served as a powder room. The arrangement was less than ideal for the homeowners, and they turned to Copper Sky Design + Remodel for a solution. The design-build firm’s in-house interior designer, Jaime Dupes, carved out space from an oversize hallway to create a second bathroom that serves gracefully as both a stylish powder room and a full bath for overnight guests.
Before: “Because this was a 1920s house, we knew the vanity needed to be super impactful,” Dupes says. The hallway pocket door leading into the room also would be kept open to show it off. Dupes used a company called Red Barn Estates that procures antiques according to dimension and style needs and repurposes them into vanities. This is the unmodified piece the company found.
After: Here’s the view of the bathroom from the hallway. Red Barn Estates added legs to the vanity to get the height to match the dimensions Dupes provided. The top drawer is fixed, the second drawer was modified into a U shape inside to accommodate the sink’s P-trap, and the bottom drawer was untouched. Dupes changed the hardware to drop pulls that suit the piece’s antique feel. The homeowners had the antique mirror in their collection.
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Browse a curated selection of bathroom vanities in the Houzz Shop
The designer wanted to make a statement with a wall-mounted satin brass faucet. She also needed to protect the wallpaper from splashing water. So she added a high backsplash that matches the countertop. “When it would be used as a guest bath, guests would need some surface space for toiletries, so we added a ledge on top,” Dupes says.
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This photo shows how well the pattern and colors in the tile veining work with the wallpaper. Dupes thought carefully about the right size for the shower tiles. “You want a size that’s large enough to show off the beautiful veining patterns of the marble. But large-format tiles are more modern, and this is a traditional space,” she says.
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Find a local tile professional
Before: “There was a very large hallway in the middle of this floor. It was like having another room in the middle of everything,” Dupes says. The space measured about 10 by 25 feet.
After: Within the large hallway space, Dupes found room to add not only the bathroom but also a laundry room and pantry, while still maintaining circulation space between the rooms. They aren’t shown in the photos, but there are two entrances to the bathroom. One leads to the guest bedroom, making it an en suite. The other is the space-saving pocket door that opens to the hallway. The guest bedroom has a second entrance on the left that leads to a hallway not shown on this floor plan.
One interesting structural note involves the pocket door. Dupes needed to attach a towel bar to the wall that the pocket door would slide behind (visible in the first photo). So she had a half-inch plywood sheet installed behind the drywall. This gave her blocking to attach the bar to the wall without impeding the pocket door.
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One interesting structural note involves the pocket door. Dupes needed to attach a towel bar to the wall that the pocket door would slide behind (visible in the first photo). So she had a half-inch plywood sheet installed behind the drywall. This gave her blocking to attach the bar to the wall without impeding the pocket door.
See more of this home
More on Houzz
Read more bathroom stories
Browse bathroom photos
Find a bathroom designer
Shop for your bathroom
Bathroom at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their two daughters
Location: Atlanta
Size: 58 square feet (5.4 square meters)
Designer: Jaime Dupes of Copper Sky Design + Remodel
“My clients had great style and a wonderful collection of antiques and art,” Dupes says. “We wanted to continue the timeless aesthetic they’d already established in other rooms. We also wanted to up the ante because this was a powder room.”
One of the most dramatic elements in the new bathroom is the beautiful botanical wallpaper. “This room has very tall ceilings, and the vine pattern emphasizes verticality in the room,” Dupes says. “It also works great in combination with the shower tiles, which have the same hints of blue-green in the veining.” The shower tiles are Volakas marble.
This photo also shows off the original heart pine flooring from the hallway that Dupes was able to preserve and refinish. Using a vintage rug like this one is a great alternative to a bath mat, particularly to provide a sophisticated powder room feel.
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