This is our master bathroom before. In one tiny room, there was a toilet and a very small shower, and then, in the master bedroom, there was the vanity. There was nothing about this bathroom that I wanted to salvage. We ended up doing a complete demo and redesign of the entire master bathroom. Although we didn’t actually add to the square footage of the room, we enclosed the vanity into the bathroom and then totally reconfigured it. After meeting with our contractor, the next step was to order all of the tile, fixtures and hardware that we’d need. The bathroom was going to be very small (4ft X 6ft) but very pretty. We wanted the new bathroom to feel like a hamam. When visiting Turkey we fell in love with the hamams and wanted our bathroom to feel simultaneously invigorating and relaxing like the baths do in Istanbul. We would need to use every inch of the 4X6 space concentrating on maximizing shower size and using built-in-niches to add character and storage room.
This was the design idea that we came up with. Our contractor’s architect created the rendering.
The tile was probably the hardest decision. We had received some samples from Fireclay Tile and fell in love with handmade feel and all of the color and shape options.
Picking which shapes and colors to use became an exercise in pulling different tile shapes and colors into our photoshop rendering of the space and evaluating from there.
It was this Instagram pic of mine from over a year ago that ultimately informed the decision to use Fireclay’s Hexagon shape tile in the bath. We went with their Adriatic Sea color after a lot of mulling over. We chose their star and cross tile in the same color for our floors. We also decided on a gold finish for all of our fixtures and hardware. We went to Pirch in Glendale (hello free valet and espressi!) to pick out fixtures and ended up with California Faucets fixtures in the Satin Gold finish for everything.
And so the construction began…
From the get-go we knew we wanted the shower to have some kind of arched niche. We weren’t sure if we wanted the whole shower to be under an arch or what — but at the end of the day we decided on three niches, one between each stud. Watching the gorgeous tile go up was really fun.
When choosing grout colors we were inspired by this pic I snapped at the Gene Autry museum. They have this blue tile similar in color to our Adriatic Sea, and I loved the look of the terra cotta grout.
Once the grout was in I was thrilled about our color choices. The clay color grounded the blue and created a really nice balance.
Next up, was our vanity. Jason and I wanted a simple vanity (that’s Jason and I taking measurements for the vanity design). We commissioned Ad from Treeline Woodworks to make the vanity for us. We wanted the thick reclaimed wood shelves to look like they were floating out from the walls. Once the vanity was done, it was about choosing lighting, mirrors and wallpaper for those finishing touches…
Here is what the after looks like…
Sources:
Tile: Fireclay Tile 8″ Hex and Star and Cross in Adriatic Sea*
Wallpaper: Nana in Blue, Justina Blakeney x Hygge and West*
Light: Hanging West End Sconce – by Sazerac Stitches on Etsy
Vessel sink by Ronbow
Faucet: California Faucets Avalon System in Satin Gold (custom finish)
Vanity Counter custom made by Treeline Woodworks
Shower Head by California Faucets
Shower Fixtures: Avalon System in satin gold
Small mirrors (including Hex mirror in shower) were found randomly on eBay.
Medicine Cabinet: Pottery Barn
It’s truly dreamy to wake up in the mornings and shower in this space. Thanks so much to our contractor and Fireclay for making our master bathroom dreams come true!
You can see the rest of our home in the current (July/August) issue of House Beautiful. All photos by Justina Blakeney unless otherwise marked. Asterix * denotes product sponsorship.