Vintage Bathroom Makeover With a Special Tile Touch
A designer helps a creative couple put their artistic stamps on a third-story bath in their historic New Jersey home
Improving the Layout
The first order of business was to improve that toilet/sink layout and find a vanity that would give them the storage and counter space they wanted.
A long Craftsman-style vanity replaced the small pedestal sink that had been wedged between the toilet and the wall. The reconfigured shower stall and its new half wall are in the foreground on the left.
Wall paint: Ice Milk; trim paint: Misted Fern, both Benjamin Moore; toilet: Toto
The first order of business was to improve that toilet/sink layout and find a vanity that would give them the storage and counter space they wanted.
A long Craftsman-style vanity replaced the small pedestal sink that had been wedged between the toilet and the wall. The reconfigured shower stall and its new half wall are in the foreground on the left.
Wall paint: Ice Milk; trim paint: Misted Fern, both Benjamin Moore; toilet: Toto
We Need to Talk About the Tile
It’s a safe bet no one wants to read another word of this story until more is revealed about this unique floor tile composition. This is where the homeowners’ talents, style and personality shine through in the design.
They created their own pattern using a Daltile planning tool, using 1-inch porcelain hexagonal tiles in black, gold, green and white. A pattern of cheerful florets framed by hexagons covers most of the floor, but the real fun happens at the border, where tiles seem to dance outside the typical boundary. One of the owners, the artist in the couple, oversaw the installation, letting the contractor know where to place the colored tiles.
Designer Stephens planned the exact composition, determining a size for the pattern that would repeat nicely and fit within the space in a pleasing way. She mocked up scaled renderings to help them figure out how the pattern would work.
The tile arrived laid out in 12-by-24-inch sheets, but more customization occurred on site under the owner’s artistic supervision. Stephens warns that doing something like this will add months of lead time to a project (the amount of time it will take the manufacturer to create and ship the tiles) and to plan accordingly. In this case they planned for a 10-week wait.
This photo also shows the original curved baseboards in their new shade of green, which matches the green tile on the floor. Preserving this 100-plus-year-old original touch was important to the couple.
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Daltile floor tile colors: Black D311, Garden Spot D141, Luminary Gold D142, Arctic White D617
It’s a safe bet no one wants to read another word of this story until more is revealed about this unique floor tile composition. This is where the homeowners’ talents, style and personality shine through in the design.
They created their own pattern using a Daltile planning tool, using 1-inch porcelain hexagonal tiles in black, gold, green and white. A pattern of cheerful florets framed by hexagons covers most of the floor, but the real fun happens at the border, where tiles seem to dance outside the typical boundary. One of the owners, the artist in the couple, oversaw the installation, letting the contractor know where to place the colored tiles.
Designer Stephens planned the exact composition, determining a size for the pattern that would repeat nicely and fit within the space in a pleasing way. She mocked up scaled renderings to help them figure out how the pattern would work.
The tile arrived laid out in 12-by-24-inch sheets, but more customization occurred on site under the owner’s artistic supervision. Stephens warns that doing something like this will add months of lead time to a project (the amount of time it will take the manufacturer to create and ship the tiles) and to plan accordingly. In this case they planned for a 10-week wait.
This photo also shows the original curved baseboards in their new shade of green, which matches the green tile on the floor. Preserving this 100-plus-year-old original touch was important to the couple.
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Daltile floor tile colors: Black D311, Garden Spot D141, Luminary Gold D142, Arctic White D617
Follow that tile border below the baseboard on the right to get a sense of just how much effort went into making it look just right.
While the wife commandeered the floor tile installation, the husband was busy working on other unconventional touches. He fashioned a wall of towel hooks from vintage plumbing pieces, such as faucets and sprinkler handles. “It’s like a work of art,” Stephens says. “I almost didn’t want to cover one of the hooks with a towel for the photo shoot, but I needed to show the function.”
He also built a glass-front recessed cabinet from reclaimed wood, which was installed over the toilet. Because there is unfinished attic space behind that wall, he was able to make it deep enough to accommodate piles of towels and rolls of toilet paper.
While the wife commandeered the floor tile installation, the husband was busy working on other unconventional touches. He fashioned a wall of towel hooks from vintage plumbing pieces, such as faucets and sprinkler handles. “It’s like a work of art,” Stephens says. “I almost didn’t want to cover one of the hooks with a towel for the photo shoot, but I needed to show the function.”
He also built a glass-front recessed cabinet from reclaimed wood, which was installed over the toilet. Because there is unfinished attic space behind that wall, he was able to make it deep enough to accommodate piles of towels and rolls of toilet paper.
Craftsman-Style Storage
The colors and the vintage feel the homeowners wanted made Craftsman an apt style choice for the room. The quarter-sawn oak vanity’s hardware and glass doors with mullions add a big dose of the style to the bathroom. The vanity is 49 inches wide, and by using just one sink, Stephens left lots of counter space free. The triple mirror has medicine cabinets on either end.
Amish 49-inch Lucern Mission single-sink bathroom vanity: DutchCrafters; Verdera medicine cabinet: Kohler
Browse Craftsman-style vanities
The colors and the vintage feel the homeowners wanted made Craftsman an apt style choice for the room. The quarter-sawn oak vanity’s hardware and glass doors with mullions add a big dose of the style to the bathroom. The vanity is 49 inches wide, and by using just one sink, Stephens left lots of counter space free. The triple mirror has medicine cabinets on either end.
Amish 49-inch Lucern Mission single-sink bathroom vanity: DutchCrafters; Verdera medicine cabinet: Kohler
Browse Craftsman-style vanities
Jet Mist honed granite tops the counter. Its dark gray color and white veins work with the tile’s color palette. The faucets are new, but their silhouettes and white porcelain cross handles add to the vintage look.
Faucet (similar): Jaclo; sink: Devonshire, Kohler
Faucet (similar): Jaclo; sink: Devonshire, Kohler
A petite walnut-and-marble stool topped off with a plant adds some life and character to the corner.
Fitting In a Roomy Shower
Before: The old shower sat where you see exposed framing here. Code required the new shower to have an area within it that was at least 30 inches square and 80 inches high. Because this third floor’s ceiling is affected by the sharply angled roofline, this did not seem possible at first. The shower had languished in this state for a while before the homeowners hired Stephens.
Before: The old shower sat where you see exposed framing here. Code required the new shower to have an area within it that was at least 30 inches square and 80 inches high. Because this third floor’s ceiling is affected by the sharply angled roofline, this did not seem possible at first. The shower had languished in this state for a while before the homeowners hired Stephens.
The designer had the solution: She’d scoot the shower stall as close to the bathroom door as possible because this area had the necessary flat, high ceiling to meet code.
To make it feel even larger, she continued the stall underneath the angled ceiling, which provided a good spot for the handheld shower head, a shower stool and baskets for toiletries.
Instead of fully enclosing the shower with walls, she used a half wall topped with clear glass between the shower and the vanity (see the second photo). This also helps maintain a more open and light feeling.
The same hexagonal framed floret pattern continued onto the shower floor. Stephens saw that the shower floor was too tight to fit the border and the hexagons, so she suggested they place the border along the bottom of the shower walls. This way the renegade tiles can float up the walls randomly like colorful bubbles.
Find handheld shower heads
To make it feel even larger, she continued the stall underneath the angled ceiling, which provided a good spot for the handheld shower head, a shower stool and baskets for toiletries.
Instead of fully enclosing the shower with walls, she used a half wall topped with clear glass between the shower and the vanity (see the second photo). This also helps maintain a more open and light feeling.
The same hexagonal framed floret pattern continued onto the shower floor. Stephens saw that the shower floor was too tight to fit the border and the hexagons, so she suggested they place the border along the bottom of the shower walls. This way the renegade tiles can float up the walls randomly like colorful bubbles.
Find handheld shower heads
Taking Advantage of a Faraway Window
Before: The homeowners had hoped to make the most of the light provided by this exterior window.
Its location under the eaves was beyond the back of the old shower stall.
Before: The homeowners had hoped to make the most of the light provided by this exterior window.
Its location under the eaves was beyond the back of the old shower stall.
Stephens placed a fixed tempered-glass window at the back of the shower to bring in light from the exterior window. She framed it out with a quartz she also used on the shower curb and half wall.
She added a plywood floor between this shower window and the exterior window and painted the entire unfinished area white to help bounce the light around.
Shower baskets: Kohler; shower head: Elements of Design
She added a plywood floor between this shower window and the exterior window and painted the entire unfinished area white to help bounce the light around.
Shower baskets: Kohler; shower head: Elements of Design
Before: This was the state of the bathroom layout when Stephens took on the job. The shower stall is not marked because it was in its demolished state; it was located in the bottom center portion of this plan.
After: The thing to pay attention to here is the way the shower stall works, particularly the relationship between the shower window and the exterior window behind it, shown at the bottom left.
Takeaways
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Takeaways
- Even if you have a strong sense of what you want, a design pro can be indispensable. Stephens saved the day by getting the tiles exactly right and solving the shower code dilemma.
- Vintage plumbing pieces repurposed as towel hooks are one of the best things you’ll see all week.
- One advantage to rooms located right under a roofline is that there is space to borrow underneath the eaves. Here a shower stall and a recessed cabinet took advantage of this space. You can also install recessed dressers and cabinets that extend back into them.
- Get creative about stealing natural light wherever you can. Here natural light came from a window deep under the eaves, but it can also come from a skylight or light tube.
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Bathroom at a Glance
Who uses it: An artistic couple
Location: Montclair, New Jersey
Size: 62.5 square feet (5.5 square meters); 11¾ feet by 5⅓ feet
Designer: Tracey Stephens
The creative homeowners of this 1906 New Jersey home like quirky, but the state of their third-floor bathroom was not the right kind of quirky. Between the two of them they have plenty of creativity — she is a scenic artist for theater and film and he is a project manager in exhibitions at The American Museum of Natural History. But their third-floor bath had been sitting up there with an awkward layout and a demoed shower stall for quite some time before they joined forces with interior designer Tracey Stephens to help them make their vision come to life.
Their must-haves included preserving the historic charms of the room (such as the original wood trim along a curved wall), a large walk-in shower stall, radiant floor heat, more storage, more counter space and a trifold mirror for doing hair and makeup. In terms of style, they desired a vintage feeling with happy quirks.
Before: The toilet and sink were awkwardly laid out, and there was little to no storage or counter space. “My clients compared using the old tiny, claustrophobic, one-piece plastic shower stall to being squished into a coffin,” Stephens says. It had been demoed, but the sharply angled ceiling was making it tough to find a layout that would meet the code requirements for height.