No More Pink Toilets!

No More Pink Toilets!

This powder bath had a color problem. Pink fixtures! Nothing dates a bathroom faster than colored plumbing fixtures. I almost always do white or bisquit, unless it is a special sink that makes a statement. Black toilets are particularly bad for me. Okay, I'm gagging right now.

In this powder room remodel, the color had to go and a neutral, classic style was put in it's place. The homeowner wanted the look of a beautiful, boutique hotel. We had a very tall, narrow space at the vanity and I chose to accent that by locating two sconces beside a slender mirror. The walls were painted a dark neutral and then the vanity, countertop, and wall behind the mirror were a contrasting light neutral. This served to highlight the tall, narrow, dramatic space. I pushed for the expense of having the marble tile all the way up the back of that wall, I felt it just gave a sense of quality we needed in there. Extending the countertop material up the wall again just emphasized the tall, narrow space and added a sense of drama and elegance.

Another Powder Room Remodel

Another Powder Room Remodel

Here is another powder room remodel (before photo is at the bottom!) where existing cabinets were reused but all other finishes and fixtures were changed. The homeowner desired a more stylish and upgraded look and wanted to paint the walls her favorite color, purple. The main problem was the tall cabinet that you walked right in to when you entered the room. The homeowner wanted to keep the storage, but you don't often have tall storage like that in a powder bath, much less having it the first thing you see.

I minimized the tall cabinet by painting it the color of the walls and highlighting the vanity area with a little glitz on the mirror, lighting, and vessel sink. Your focus goes straight to the bowl and mirror and you totally miss the tall cabinet. Having all the other elements in the room a warm neutral made the purple color appear dramatic and purposeful. The room is all about the glitz at the vanity, while the wall color provides a rich backdrop.

Powder Rooms

Powder Rooms

I do lots of powder room remodels. It’s a smaller project and easy to include with a kitchen or master bath remodel. If you are going to have all those trades in your house, you might as well get this small room done while they’re around! I’ve only done one powder room as a separate project and it takes just as long to do as any other project because you go through the same process and same consecutive steps in construction. You might as well select the plumbing fixtures for the powder room while you are doing the master bath or the kitchen faucet.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be showing a few powder room remodels. Most are pretty simple. The basic rule for designing a powder room is to keep the focus on one element in the space. These are small rooms and too much going on will look busy and be unsettling. I like to have some wow factor in there, after all you have a captive audience in the powder room, you might as well make an impression.

The powder room before and after above is a dramatic change. This was an older house, with dated wallpaper and fixtures. The homeowner liked dark, rich colors and traditional style, kind of a Ralph Lauren look. We kept the base cabinet, painted, added a new remnant granite countertop with a vessel sink, changed out the wall sconces and mirror and got a brand new powder room! I think the wow here is the mirror and the vessel sink and sconces play a supporting role.

Updated Window Treatments

Updated Window Treatments

The photos above are "after" and then "before" of the window treatments I did in the kitchen remodel shown in my previous blog post. I thought that the old valance cut the room in half and didn't involve the volume of space above it. I tried to create a more open breakfast room and accentuate the height of the ceiling by adding a chandelier and doing vertical panels alongside the windows. The trellis pattern in the fabric relates to the garden outside and the dark bronze hardware speaks to the kitchen color scheme.

Kitchen Remodel - Before and After

After



After

Before

Before

Here are after and before photos of a kitchen remodel I recently completed. We kept some of the cabinets, replacing the doors, and did a new island and new wall of cabinetry along the frig wall. The homeowner didn’t like the white cabinets and the color scheme was very dated. A fresher, cleaner look was desired with a softer color palette. Existing floor tile remained to keep budget costs down.

I like the way it turned out with the contrast in the island, countertop, and glass front cabinet interiors. It’s a much slicker look and has a more updated appeal. I would have preferred a new darker floor, something halfway between the light and dark values to ground the space, but the homeowner preferred to keep their existing tile. It is a nice new kitchen that has added much value to the home and is much more enjoyable for the homeowners....and it doesn't look just like every other house next door! I'll post the window treatments we did in this space later in the week.

ASID Award Winning Project

ASID Award Winning Project

I won an award at the ASID Awards Gala last week! I had entered one of my master bath remodel projects and it won an Honorable Mention! Photos of the winning project are shown above.

My wheelchair bound client needed accessibility but did not want it to be obvious. A masculine feel with spa-like quality was desired. Walls needed to come down to provide a luxurious roll-in shower and side entry toilet. Direct access to the sinks was allowed when storage shifted to the side and the countertop was floated on the wall. A reddish toned slate, “painted desert” was used on the walls and floor to continue the exterior brick wall color into the bath and served to marry the indoor space with the garden. Dark mahogany was a rich accent and made beautiful cabinets and trim. The 3 ft. wide louvered mahogany doors added for ease of entry into the bathroom and closet, created a spa-like ambience. The glass block partitions provided some privacy while visually keeping the space open.

During the course of this project, I became interested in universal design and took a course through the GHBA to become CAPS certified. CAPS stands for Certified Aging in Place Specialist. My goal is to design projects that are accessible and beautiful.

Later Updates:

This project later won a national award from the NAHB Remodelers in 2010, the Homes for Life Award, single space.  I received this in Baltimore at their awards gala.  Such a thrill! 

I was really moved though when I found out through the next homeowner of this house, in the fall of 2011, that my client had lived in this home until he passed. The changes he had made to the property enabled him to be at home instead of in a hospital. 

My assistant, Sarah, and I, at our new office!

My assistant, Sarah, and I, at our new office!

We are ready to begin new projects. We love our new office and location and look forward to having new clients stop by and visit. Sarah Bourne has been with me now for the last three months. She is organized and technical and is a wonderful addition to Aston Design Studio. As a degreed designer and Allied Member of ASID, she recently passed her NCIDQ, the qualifying exam for state licensing of interior designers. While I sketch, she operates our CAD and we have double the skills to offer our clients. I'm very happy to have her on staff.