A Masculine Bathroom Renovation
This summer, I’ve been hard at work conjuring up schemes for two very different bathrooms. The first new loo, which I’m sharing details of today (see above), is a his-only bathroom attached to a home office. It’s not a man-cave – mostly because that’s the worst term ever – but rather a grown-up space for a gentleman to escape when he needs to get a little work done.
I posted the styleboard for his study earlier this summer – scope it out here – and now I’ve turned my attention to the full (albeit petite) bathroom that’s being built en suite. Since the office is a layered mix of traditional and textural details, I wanted to do the same for la toilette.
When I was on a scouting trip at Walker Zanger, I stumbled across their new Sterling Row collection. The whole premise of the range is taking these classic patterns like herringbone and argyle – many of which are used in bespoke haberdashery – and translating them into tile. This concept really guided my design of the room.
The “Rattan” in charcoal stood out to me and was the very first piece of the puzzle to fall into place. I’m using this on the shower floor and the bathroom floor; because the space is small, I don’t want too many competing patterns. On the walls, I’m doing crisp, clean Asian Statuary marble in a herringbone motif.
Ralph Lauren’s textured Alexis Sconces felt like the perfect complement to the architectural patterning of the floor tile, so I snapped up a pair of these in natural brass. An openwork gilt pendant will dangle from the vaulted ceiling while a weathered gray vanity, polished brass wall faucet and a porcelain vessel sink anchor the room. I haven’t yet chosen the slab, but I’m thinking I’ll do a quartzite countertop and a bracketed wall shelf with gray and gold veining.
I plan on keeping accessories to a minimum, but I’m picturing something like Bemelmans’ “Fox Hunting” propped on top of the shelf and a thoroughbred bath mat on the floor (I can’t help myself with the horses).
The bathroom is landlocked so I had a skylight installed to brighten things up, but the space still felt a bit dark. The rest of the office has lovely leaded glass windows, so to create the illusion of windowed light, I purchased a paned glass mirror in oil-rubbed bronze. It’s funny which details trip you up, but the mirror had me sweating. I searched for weeks before finding the right fit for the narrow space…at Pottery Barn, of all places.
The trims and fixtures are slated to arrive next week, so at long last, this bathroom will be put back together. I’ll share more once it’s up and running, but right now it looks like this:
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