The bathroom the thank-you letter was about. Large-format stone, walnut panelling and a vanity made to the millimetre for the wall it sits on.
The decisions
Large-format stone means fewer joints, and fewer joints is most of why an expensive bathroom looks expensive. Where a slab cannot avoid a join, the join is put where you do not stand.
The walnut is there to stop the room going cold. Stone and glass on their own read like a hotel; a warm timber at the height you actually touch things makes it read like a house. It is panelled full height and the grain runs vertically, which lifts the ceiling.
The vanity is a single stone trough cut with the basins formed in it, rather than two basins dropped into a top. It costs more and it is the thing everybody notices without being able to say why.
Lighting
A recessed line in the ceiling, a continuous glow behind the mirror and nothing pointing down at your face. The mirror light is the one that matters. Lit from behind at face height, it flatters; lit from a downlight above, it does the opposite.
Details that matter
- Bespoke double vanity, cut from stone with integrated basins
- Brushed gold brassware used consistently, including the concealed cistern plate
- Wall-hung sanitaryware so the floor runs unbroken underneath
- Vertical walnut panelling to lift a room with an ordinary ceiling height
