Materials are carefully edited and the palette restrained in the spirit of modernist design; details are mostly in the construction—such as the exposed edge of the core alder and birch plywood and the cutaways for handles—rather than in added decoration. Floating cabinets provide a feeling of space.
Featured Homes
Saving Space
The first-place winner in SH&L’s 2008 Bath of the Year contest is a sleek and modern remodel with rich walnut, ample cabinet space and natural light
BY
Lisa Kennedy
PHOTOGRAPHY
Alex Hayden

 


The walnut-veneered pocket door that closes off the guest bath area when needed was built from scratch by Kerf to match the cabinets. It consists of a double thickness of plywood embedded with steel angle iron to prevent warping that could interfere with its glide.


A column that separates the two parts of the bathroom is embedded with back-to-back medicine cabinets outfitted with electrical outlets.


Extra storage is squeezed into a small tiled nook with floating shelves and a small three-drawer cabinet.

Design Details:
Architect
Thomas Schaer, Shed
1401 S. Jackson St.
(206) 320-8700

Cabinet design
Nathan Hartman
Kerf Design, Inc.
3635-A Thorndyke Ave. W.
(206) 954-8677

 

 

When Katherine and Josh Anderson bought their Seward Park house—sight unseen—from its original owners, the interior was gloomy and dated, but the midcentury bones were unmistakably good. Katherine, a landscape architect, and Josh, an investment banker, moved from Boston to Seattle and set about bringing the 1964 dwelling (designed by renowned Northwest architect Ibsen Nelsen) into the 21st century, while staying true to its modernist roots.

The dark, narrow master bathroom backed up to a powder room. Its redesign, by architect Thomas Schaer of Shed with cabinets by Nathan Hartman of Kerf Design, exemplifies the spirit of the home’s overall remodel. “We love midcentury style, and we wanted to stay in keeping with the original architecture but just improve on it,” Katherine Anderson says. “The emphasis was to work within the existing footprint as well as with the palette and style of the house,” Schaer says.

In a feat of ingenuity, the new design is a “convertible” bathroom that serves a double function. The powder and master baths are combined in one larger space that allows for closing off the toilet and a sink for use by guests. The designers maximized space by capturing an adjoining closet and eliminating the second toilet. “The idea was to make both sides of the bathroom work well separately and together,” Schaer says.

“We originally hired Nathan to build one piece of furniture, and it kind of snowballed from there,” Katherine explains. Kerf Design is a custom furniture and cabinet shop inspired by midcentury-modern design and committed to sustainable materials and honest building methods without artifice. “Our base line is that everything is green and local,” says Hartman, who did all of the cabinetry here and throughout the house.

The bathroom’s original skylight was reshaped to align with the shower door, and a high rectangular window running the full width of the bathroom was added on the shower wall to bring in air and light. A wood column now divides the long wall—on either side of it, the vanity walls are mirror images of each other, differing only in length. The highly engineered “unit” houses two back-to-back medicine cabinets outfitted with electrical outlets as well as the pocket door that closes off the guest bath area as needed.

Primary materials—walnut-veneered Europly cabinets, slab travertine counter tops and backsplash, and travertine floor tiles—were selected early on by the Andersons, who found inspiration in an original travertine-topped built-in teak cabinet in their dining room. Walnut, the darkness and richness of which was very much part of Northwest 1960s architecture, was also used for the trim.

Despite the tight footprint, the bathroom feels larger as a result of multiple space-enhancing features. The vanity wall mirrors are full ceiling height, creating the illusion of greater width (the room is only 2 feet 7 inches at its narrowest) between the vanity and the facing wall. The floating cabinets exude lightness. The absence of external hardware, a signature Kerf Design feature, is both aesthetically pleasing and functionally optimal in this instance: Without protruding handles, the cabinet profile remains thin. The walk-in shower, tiled in water-blue glazed Heath tiles, also visually enlarges the room with its long rectangular tiles and floor-to-ceiling glass enclosure held in place by simple clips to preserve a feeling of openness.

Details are in the cabinet construction and the finishes rather than in added decoration. Matte pumice-colored tile is vertically installed on one wall while reflective island-blue tile is horizontally installed in the shower, adding visual contrast without an excess of materials. A reveal between the wall and the ceiling gives the space a polished look.

Throughout the process, the owners made contributions that brought their own personal stamp to the design. The end result was pleasing to all concerned. “This was a great collaboration,” Hartman says, “because everyone did what they are good at.”

“In these days of the huge master bath, we really don’t need any more space than this bathroom provides,” Katherine says. “It is totally efficient and totally luxurious to us.”  

Lisa Kennedy is a Seattle-based writer and interior designer.