Just Add Water

These gorgeous bathroom designs are made for long soaks and plenty of me time.

By Kerri Donaldson, Alyssa Hirose, Stacey McLachlan and Anicka Quin

Black and White and Bold

Wenge works well in black and white bathrooms because of its naturally dark colour, and because the wood has a tight vertical grain with natural flecks of black within it.

Custom Colour

The Victoria and Albert bath is a solid-surface tub that’s high-gloss on the inside and matte black on the exterior, but can be ordered in just about any colour. The volcanic limestone construction really holds heat well, too— perfect for a night in at the home spa.

There’s no question that the striking porcelain tile in this Saskatoon bathroom—the Floor Gres collection in Pebble from Stone Tile—is a showstopper. It’s highly patterned without overwhelming the space, and that’s thanks to a few smart design tricks from the team at Atmosphere Interior Design . The room is warmed up with accents of richly stained wood—the white oak screen behind the tub, the wenge millwork on the vanity—and, on either side of the excellently deep soaker tub, a pair of charcoal grey smoked-glass doors bring a hotel spa vibe. “Originally the plans had one door going into the water closet on the right side of the tub,” says Atmosphere’s Curtis Elmy. “But we pushed to get matching glass doors on either side to play up the symmetry. The dark grey tinted glass offers privacy, but also brings a moodiness to the room we really wanted.”

Respect Your Elders

“Older

Despite the major renovation that this Vancouver character home was slated to go through, knocking down the bathroom walls was a structural no-go. So Negar Reihani, founder and principal designer at Space Harmony, instead focused on making the original square footage feel larger. She and her team chose a vintage-vibed penny tile as a nod to the home’s history, and extended the dreamy blue material all the way up to emphasize the bathroom’s sloped ceiling. An all-glass shower and slender pedestal vanities ensure that the view is uninterrupted. “The material lets the eyes roam around and allows the room itself to talk, not the finishes,” says Reihani. But this space still offers plenty of smart storage: recessed medicine cabinets hide behind the vanity mirrors and wall-to-wall cabinets are nestled in the short end of the slope.

Penny for Your Thoughts

Penny tile is most often seen in blacks, whites and browns, but this bathroom looks modern and serene thanks to the light blue hue of the Madrid penny tile from Creekside Tile. “The glaze has a watery effect—it’s a pretty, pretty penny,” says Reihani.

Organic Materials

 Max out natural light to make a space feel larger.

For this ensuite in Cadboro Bay, B.C., designers Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds of Falken Reynolds Interiors had one clear direction from the client: when she was standing in the shower, she wanted to be able to see the ocean view. And so the space planning started from there: the shower is on one wall with a view to a corner window, and a sculptural soaker tub—the Spoon M from Agape—allows for bathers to glimpse the shoreline, too. Skylights were oriented toward the walls rather than the centre of the room, and the mirror above the custom sink soars all the way up and into one of those skylights. The result is a room that’s flooded with natural light—and when paired with warm, organic plaster and cool green marble, it’s a welcoming retreat that appears much larger than its 160 square feet.

Hand Finished

The client wanted a low-maintenance room, so the design team went with plaster throughout the space—even on the millwork. Applied by hand, it’s a warm and inviting surface that has an organic depth to it, and it’s totally water resistant. Best of all? There are no grout lines to scrub.

 “Black and black” can be a dynamic colour palette.

In an eight-bathroom house, it’s only natural that the design choices start to push the boundaries—how many times can one designer get excited about white subway tiles, after all? So by the time Katie Rioux and Candice Arcuri of Calgary’s DWK Interiors got to this space (an ensuite attached to the family’s collegeaged son’s bedroom), they were ready to get bold, with an arresting black-on-black design. The trick to keeping the room from feeling like a black hole is subtle texture. Here, the walls are lined with a mix of textured and solid black tiles from Ames Tile, which run from behind the tub all the way to the back of the vanity. The shower, too, is decked out in this moody black-on-black-on-black palette, and the fixtures here are matte black to match. But amid the darkness, one thing pops: an egg-like ivory tub that seems to almost glow beneath a Cartwright Lighting pendant lamp.

Mixing Metals

Allowing the metals to clash gives this bathroom a lived-in, not-so-perfect feel to counterbalance the coastal, traditional look. “We’ve got brass on the hardware but we’ve also got polished nickel on the plumbing fixtures themselves. So it kind of creates a little bit of playful contrast here,” says designer Jenny Martin. “It’s nice to mix the metals as it can very quickly start to look spec when everything is the same.”

Forever Home

The homeowners were looking for a design that would allow for aging in place—and details like undercounter lighting, motorized blinds, a stylish shower bar and large doorways help ensure that the home is stylishly up to the task. “The market is adapting and giving us more options for finding beautiful things that we can use that are also very functional for aging in place,” says the designer. “The options are getting much nicer, too.”

 Make a bold statement with the bath.

There’s classic elegance in a clawfoot tub—but there’s also always room for improvement. In designing this new home, Jenny Martin and her team at Jenny Martin Design were focused on bringing in modern accents along with traditional nods to the past. By opting for a bold tuxedo-style graphite grey on the exterior of the tub, Martin created an accent piece that would draw both admiring gazes and plenty of baths. “It picks up on some of the accents in the tile,” says Martin, “and creates a statement on its own.” Painted on site, the darker bath brings the design of the bathroom together while honouring that transitional coastal feel that’s carried throughout the home. And while the look is timeless, it doesn’t have to be forever. “It’s just paint—if down the road they want to change the colour, they can change it to whatever they want.”