A preplanned Surprise
Well the title of this post in an oxymoron…but in some ways that's how designers work. We are always planning things and coming up with the very best designs in hopes to not only impress clients with the first impression, but continue to impress them as they use their space on a daily basis.
Here is a picture of a cute cabinet we included in a bathroom renovation we did.
The bathroom reno was not a complex redesign as most of the fixtures stayed in the same place. It was well planned and well though out. The after is completely different than the before. The cast iron tub and tub surround were replaced. Not an easy task but well worth it.
The before: it took care of some storage, but it felt cluttered, crowed and overwhelming to be in. In addition to that it was dated.
The after:
One of the things I love in a bathroom is hanging towels on hooks instead of on a towel bar. There was not a lot of space in this bathroom and hooks take up less space. It gives a casual / relaxed look. The best part, the towels get hung up, there is no fussing to make sure they look right on the towel bar. If you are wondering whether they dry? They dry just as fast as on a bar if not faster as they are not folded over themselves.
A lot people have this idea that you must use a light colour in a small room…..you will notice we used charcoal grey on the walls. Not a light colour at all, but it works! You know why? We made sure we had enough light to accommodate this dark colour, we also balanced this with light colours. This was planned from the beginning before the demolition started.
Over all this bathroom has a very neutral colour scheme. This makes changing up small accessories easy and fun. A new shower curtain or towels will give this room a whole new updated feel.
The pre planned surprise I am talking about is this little bathroom cabinet. When designing this tiny bathroom that needed to service a family of four, we had to consider all storage options possible. A lot was being asked of this space and there was not a lot of square footage. There was also not another bathroom to spread out in.
This pretty white cabinet looks nice on the wall and doesn't stick out too far into the room (like the one in the before shot) However, when you open it up, you will notice it doubles in depth allowing for a lot more extra storage. This is a perfect example of how pre planning can make a huge impact on the design's function. During the construction stage, we needed to make this possible by properly creating a cavity for this to sit in. The cabinet was then custom made by G. Visser Custom Homes, to my specification to fit into the cavity. This had to be well thought out, and well built, so it looks proper from the outside as well as the inside. This was not something that could have been done at the end of the project, even though it was the last thing to be installed.
It's a hard working little bathroom, complete with storage. Over all, it's a large improvement! For a few pictures check out the project gallery.