Previously-cramped bathroom transformed in Lake Oswego remodel.
The Portland region’s recent spate of gray, rainy weather drives home the point: the more light and airiness we can capture in the rooms of our homes, the happier dwellers we’ll be.
Your typical small bathroom, with its constricted space and often-limited windows, can be among the darkest, most closed off spaces in the home. But this isn’t necessarily so. The compact WC needn’t induce gloom. That’s why small bathroom remodels can be a happy mid-winter investment here in the NW.
This was definitely the case for our recently remodeled Lake Oswego Bathroom, overseen by Hammer & Hand’s Christopher “Coop” Cooper and Patrick Conrad, and designed by Amy Griffith of Broken Box Designs.
photography by bright designlab
“The client brought us in there to liberate her bathroom,” said Coop, “to open it up, modernize it, and make it bright and cheery.”
The pre-existing bathroom felt cramped and dark. A stand-up fiberglass molded shower unit with obscure glass closed off the volume of the shower space from the rest of the bathroom. A soffit encroached down over the window of one end of the sink area, creating an “eyebrow” that constricted space near head level. And a second soffit descended down behind the toilet.
The project team, which included Hammer & Hand carpenters Jason Woods and Andrew Williamson, started by rebuilding the shower: widening it by 4 inches, finishing it in tile, and enclosing it in a pair of transparent glass doors (see above).
Through a clever framing solution we removed the soffit that had hovered over the window pictured above, and eliminated the second soffit that encroached on the toilet area (where the linen cabinets, pictured below, are now), making a major spatial impact on the small bathroom.
“We were able to open up this small bathroom by freeing up vertical space and creating more transparency with the glass shower doors”, said Coop.
Both the sink vanity and linen cabinets were built by Neel Briggs at Big Branch Woodworking. The tile came courtesy of Mid-Valley Tile.
One challenge was the mirror.
“The client had a clear idea of what she wanted, something with simple lines that matched the sandy hues in the tile,” said Patrick. “After lots of looking, she just couldn’t find it. So ultimately we said, ‘hey, let us build you one.’ It became a small token of our appreciation to her.”
Jason Woods built the simple, elegant solution pictured above that melds easily with the overall bathroom design.
Gloom removed. Airiness added. Unity achieved.
– Zack (Connect with me at +ZacharySemke)
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