Flax Interiors In the Press.

A cloud-like bathroom with bespoke fixtures — Photography: Vivian Johnson | Styling: Rachel Forslund

I’m thrilled to share that this Flax Interiors project was featured in The Wall Street Journal, written by Antonia van der Meer, Real Homes and Homes & Gardens.

Constraint breeds creativity. I love the challenge of taking a space that most people think has no potential and turning it into something unexpected and magical. Just because it’s small -- or windowless -- doesn’t mean you have to skimp on design!

The bathroom in question is a 38-square foot full bath with a walk-in shower. And yes, it is completely windowless. Below are a few tricks I used to convert this dark, damp closet into a magical sanctuary.

Proprioception

The design of a space can affect your awareness of and how you move your body, which can affect how you feel. Take the negative, for example. When a design restricts how you move in an uncomfortable way, the space can make you feel…icky. Maybe you need to stoop, your knee hits a cabinet, you bump your head. I call this “design friction.”

In the case of this windowless bathroom, what this bathroom lacked in square footage, it made up for in vertical height. The ceilings are 12 feet high! I used that design element to implement strategies to encourage bathroom visitors to look up.

When you look upward, you have no choice but to stand up straighter and taller. There are lots of studies that prove that when we do that, we feel better. When we stand tall, studies show that we have more positive associations, we are more confident, we have a sense of “clearing our heads.”

In this bathroom, everything is designed to draw your eye upward and encourage you to stand taller: cloud-like wallpaper on the ceiling, vertically-stacked shower tiles and sconces, a proportionally tall mirror.

Photography: Vivian Johnson | Styling: Rachel Forslund

Visual weight

In order to make the walls seem less foreboding, I selected a visually light wallpaper, Cole & Son Nuvolette wallpaper, which mimics the feeling of light and air. Your eye sees through the pattern, tricking you into thinking the room is bigger than it is. To enhance this feeling further, I decided not to use baseboard or ceiling trim, and I wallpapered the ceiling. When you walk into the bathroom, it feels as if you are stepping in amongst the clouds.

Additionally, I designed a custom wall-hung vanity with no legs. This allows your eye to travel under the vanity and to the open spaces in the room. It helps make it feel like we haven’t crammed too much furniture into this very small space.

Lighting

As the only bathroom on the lower level of my client’s house, this bathroom served two purposes -- the powder room and the guest bathroom for visitors, so I included a variety of lighting types + temperatures.

For recessed lights, I usually select 2700K, a warm dim temperature. In this case, we used 3000K, a slightly cooler tone that mimics daytime natural light. It helps it feel less windowless, and is better for “task” lighting (read: great for putting on makeup).

To balance this cooler light, I also lined the vanity mirror with sconces by Apparatus Studio. They are ceramic, which brings in a bespoke, handmade feel, and they have a sexy, warm light. If my client is having a dinner party and wants the light in there to feel dim, warm and welcoming, she can turn these on instead of the overhead lights.

Glass

I opted for a glass shower door instead of a curtain. Glass does a great job at tricking the brain into thinking that there is a window, even when there is not!

Ventilation

The technical aspects of the room are as important as the design elements. We battled the swampiness one often finds in a windowless bathroom with a powerful, yet quiet, ceiling fan. Additionally, steam removes wallpaper, so we had to be *very* careful to make sure a long, steamy shower wouldn’t ruin the walls and ceiling. While a room this size would normally only need a 50 CFM fan, we pumped up the power to 110 CFM. I highly recommend the Panasonic WhisperCeiling model.

The devil is in the details

In a small space, the small details matter. I often call the finishing hardware the jewelry of a room. We used Waterworks faucets, shower fixtures and hardware, the Forbes + Lomax invisible switch plate, and a tiled-in infinity drain in the shower for delight and surprise at every corner. No detail was left unturned.

Lastly, a huge thank you to Modern Times Custom Builders, who flawlessly brought this vision to life. I appreciate your collaboration, expertise, and obsessive attention to detail. Thank you for bringing my designs to the next level.

I truly enjoyed the challenge of turning a “room you hate” into one my client absolutely loves.

xx

Emily