Bathroom Tour: An Open Feeling in 50 Square Feet

A white palette, a smart layout and floating elements expand the visual space in this New Jersey common bath

Becky Harris 9 April 2020

Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe as "collected." I got into design via Landscape Architecture, which I studied at the University of Virginia.

Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe... More

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Squeezing everything her clients needed into this 50-square-foot common bathroom presented a challenge to kitchen and bath designer Alison Griffin. The designer used her skills to make the once-cramped space feel more open and airy – even though she lost a few square feet in the process. And she gave the New Jersey homeowners the clean and modern European hotel style they wanted for the space. Here’s how she pulled it off.

Before Photo

“After” photos by Whitney Kidder Photography

Bathroom at a Glance
Who uses it: A couple’s two sons and occasional overnight guests
Location: Summit, New Jersey
Size: 50 square feet (4.6 square metres)
Designer: Alison Griffin of Griffin Designs
Contractor: Adam Seelig of Hacklebarney Contracting

Before: The home was built in 1912, but the bathroom had been renovated since then. The homeowners hired Griffin to make it function well for their two sons and overnight guests.

“My clients are all tall, and this old standard tub was too short and shallow for them,” she says. “And there was not enough clearance between the toilet and the radiator.” The designer and contractor Adam Seelig did some architectural archaeology and found that there was an original toilet stack elsewhere in the room, which allowed them to change the layout. “Moving a toilet can be a logistical nightmare,” Griffin says. The discovered stack allowed her to more easily create an open and airy room.

Griffin Designs

A long soaking tub was on the tall homeowners’ list of must-haves. While this bathroom is mainly used by the couple’s sons and guests, it has the only bathtub in the house. Griffin fit a new 72-inch-long air tub along the back wall. “This is a true soaking tub,” she says. The new layout opened up the view from the door into the room, making it feel larger.

The homeowners also loved the look and quality of Thassos marble, so Griffin gave the tub a Thassos surround and covered the walls in 6-by-12-inch Thassos marble tiles. “Standard 3-by-6-inch tiles would have looked too busy,” she says. “But because it’s such a monochromatic room, we did need some interest from the grout lines. This tile size gave us just the right amount.”

The shower surround is clear glass that includes a 36-inch-wide door. Griffin replaced the old window with a new awning window that provides more privacy. The window is trimmed in marble and has a slightly pitched sill for water runoff.

The soffit over the tub was a design choice. “I didn’t want to tile the whole ceiling, and this transition gave it a good stopping point,” Griffin says. “And it made the area outside of the tub look close to a square.” The non-tub area of the room is 5½ by 6 feet.

The shower has a rain shower head and a mounted handheld shower head. The towel rack has a warming element. The shower niche is an unusual material: brushed stainless steel. “We had all this shiny metal with the shower heads, towel-warming bar, faucets and flush panel,” Griffin says. “And the mirror has a shiny metal look to it. I wanted to pick up on those elements with the niche.” The niche is 18 by 18 inches, which worked out nicely with the 6-inch height of the tile.

Before: The bathtub placement and the relationship between the toilet and the radiator were awkward and made the room feel cramped.

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After: To make the room appear larger, Griffin opted for a wall-mounted toilet, a floating vanity with wall-mounted faucets and a recessed medicine cabinet. This meant making the wall behind these elements 7 inches thick to accommodate the toilet’s hidden tank, the plumbing for the faucets and the medicine cabinet’s recess.

Although pushing the walls out resulted in the loss of a few square feet, floating the toilet and vanity cleared up floor space, created an uncluttered look and overall made the room feel larger. Griffin made up for some of the lost space by replacing the radiator with radiant-heat flooring.

In progress: The reason Griffin lost a little space around the tub was because the Thassos marble surround was heavy and needed support. “The tub itself could not have accommodated the weight of the marble slab, so we had to create a superstructure on three sides to support it inside the walls,” she says. This pushed the walls into the room 1¼ inches around the tub.

Architectural inspiration: The home’s architectural style is Arts and Crafts. “My clients felt that the Arts and Crafts movement was a rebellion against Victorian style and that it placed importance upon craft and materials,” Griffin says. “So they feel that the style departure in the bathroom was done in the spirit of their home’s original architecture.”

One detail that ties the bathroom design to the rest of the home’s style is the floor tile. “I was inspired by the unique detailing along the top of the railings, and the horizontal rectangles in the mosaic tile reminded me of it,” Griffin says.

Griffin Designs

The vanity provides each son with a drawer, and there’s additional storage in the large medicine cabinet. The medicine cabinet also has a built-in Bluetooth speaker, which replaced a small speaker used in the old bathroom. It also has a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlet inside, as well as LED lights integrated in the mirror. Using integrated lights saved wall space and maintained the uncluttered look of the room. “I was careful with the LED temperature with the cabinet and the ceiling light,” Griffin says. “2,700 degrees Kelvin provides nice soft light that is similar to incandescent bulbs.”

The floating vanity is a ready-made model in a deep midnight blue by The Furniture Guild. Griffin customised it with a Thassos marble countertop, made from the cutout in the tub surround’s slab. “We used mitered edges to build it up so that it looks like it’s two inches thick,” she says.

Medicine cabinet: Robern

Before Photo

Renovating an old house usually brings surprises that can present design challenges, but some of the surprises are fun. This message from 1938 was written inside the walls and signed by a builder. “I actually looked him up and he was a longtime resident of Summit,” Griffin says.

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jaimeebright

Fabulous article and especially impressed with Griffin Designs generous use of her time to respond to so many detailed questions. GREAT job on this bathroom and use of space. Love it! Very well designed.

2 Likes 23 May 2021 at 10:09pm