Main Bathroom Design | Part II — katie hilton thorne

As I mentioned in Part I of the Bathroom Design, I wanted this space to function as both a powder room for guests and full bathroom for the 2 bedrooms on this floor. The designs below all have a focus on making the two spaces feel distinct yet related. I kept the pine flooring running into the bathroom. A lot of people are wary of putting wood floors in the bathroom. As long as they’re well finished and maintained, they should fare just fine, barring any major flooding. While I would not put wood floors in a kids or basement bath, for a primary bath or guest bath it is an option to consider. For me, I prefer the warmth of the wood both aesthetically and in a tactile way - it feels better under foot than the cold tile. These seemingly little details that change the way you feel in a space make a big difference. This feels more inviting, elevated and more in line with other rooms in the house.

Aesthetically, I want this space to fall in line with the rest of the house in being bright and modern but with a 70s touch. I want the space to age well and not feel trendy. I’m aiming for approachable but not typical. While all rooms in the home should flow, I believe they should all be just different enough to be interesting when moving room to room. I like to think about each room and what its ‘high note’ is. For the bathrooms below its the accent stone with curved detail on the backsplash and, in some, the juxtaposition of the wood walls with the stone. Here are the options…

Option 1: Bright white w/ green accents

Floors: continue bleached Pine flooring into the bathroom
Walls: White Limewash Paint
Ceiling: Painted White
Shower Finish: Simple white tiles 2.5 x 9.5” stacked vertically
Vanity: Cane and Bleached Oak
Counter/Backsplash/Shower Portal: Calacatta Turquoise

I love this option. Green is almost a neutral in my mind and I wanted to see what it would feel like if we amped up the green a bit in the shower area so it felt like a distinct immersive space. In reality, there will be a window in the shower, however, to save time in the 3d modeling process I didn’t include it. There will actually be more natural light in the space once its built so the darker tile could work. Here is the same option, switching out the shower tile for a sage green tile…

While the white is classic and very approachable, I’m finding myself gravitating towards the green tiled shower.

Option 2: wood, white and wine accents

Floors: continue bleached Pine flooring into the bathroom
Walls: bleached pine tongue and groove vertical paneling
Ceiling: Painted White
Shower Finish: Simple white tiles 2.5 x 9.5” stacked vertically
Vanity: ribbed bleached oak
Counter/Backsplash/Shower Portal: Calacatta Viola

I like the warmth of the wood surrounding the powder-room portion of the bathroom. It felt perhaps a little heavy with the wood ribbed vanity so I tried a wine colored scalloped base…

Didn’t quite feel right in the space. I moved on and tested it with the white ribbed vanity option:

That feels a bit more balanced - there’s option 2!

Option 3: Sweet Green Terrazzo

Floors: continue bleached Pine flooring into the bathroom
Walls: bleached pine tongue and groove vertical paneling
Ceiling: Painted White
Shower Finish: Simple white tiles 2.5 x 9.5” stacked vertically
Vanity: white with caning detail
Counter/Backsplash/Shower Portal: Sweet Green Terrazzo from Concrete Collaborative

This option is a bit less approachable but I think its a really fun option for this house specifically. The terrazzo here is not too overpowering - I think its just enough.

The Outtakes…

Design is not linear… I’m always going back and forth to test out ideas. I think its fun to see the designs that didn’t make the cut. Sometimes, there are some really good concepts there to build on or evolve in the future. Here are a few of my outtakes…

First up - penny round tile, wood walls and black and white marble…. I actually really love this. Maybe it should have been option 4?

OK I have always wanted to do a black bathroom. They are so moody, chic and elevated. I have an entire secret pin board of these bathrooms and one day, I will do one. Alas, that day is not today. I really loved this design, though it would need some tweaking, but felt it was too distant palette-wise from the rest of the house.

And here are some terrazzo outtakes. It just goes to show you, you can’t force it. I want to include terrazzo in this home and tried SO many different options. The first one is a little too boring and the second one, is, well, a little too not-boring…