Baths that Make a Splash

His Fish Tank Spillith Over
Nathan Ham is a pretty creative guy. The Topeka photographer makes a living using his artistic eye and knowledge of light, color and balance to create beautiful photographs. But when it came to designing his bathroom, he and everyone else in town was fresh out of ideas. After meeting with contractor after contractor, Ham’s expectation level on a 10-point scale dropped from about a 12 to a 3, he says. He was ready to go with what he knew worked — white tiles and glass blocks — when he met Steve Smith, a ceramist and owner of Fired Earth Designs in Lawrence, Kan.

“He had the perfect formula for this situation,” Ham says, the “situation” being a Caribbean-themed loft area above his studio. Wall murals, a boardwalk, a hammock, plants, trophy fish and more decorate the space, yet the bathroom posed a blank.

“When I started thinking about this space, we were having a baby and I thought in terms of ‘One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish’ but then all I could think about was the eight billion hours it would take to glue down tile,” Ham says, exasperated. Smith had a better idea: cutout tiles in the shape of sea creatures and other marine elements. He began scribbling ideas that Ham immediately latched onto. “I found someone who’d give me my 12,” Ham says.

Smith and Ham conjured up the idea of a broken fish tank with sea creatures captured in tile spilling over the edge and onto the floor. The details are incredible. Cartoon-like lobsters, crabs and fish are playful and wide-eyed. The shark’s back forms the soap dish. A fish’s mouth widens around the showerhead. A yellow submarine with a periscope features three portal windows with the images of Ham, his wife, son and cat looking out. Ham, shown a second time, is forever portrayed in scuba gear falling over the side of the tank — the image meant to show the breaking of the fish tank. The partial glass enclosure’s curved edges represent the broken tank. (Originally, Smith used tempered glass but it actually shattered on the first installation.) For the vanity area, Smith made a faucet of a mermaid holding a conk shell. With the pull of a smaller conk shell, water pours out.

Muralist Missy McCoy painted the two tiled walls and ceiling for coherency; the rest of the walls are plastered yellow. Turquoise shutters on the window and tropical fabric over the glass-paned door offer privacy. A thatch roof over the vanity gives the appearance of it belonging to a boardwalk shop; a Surf Shop neon sign placed above the closet furthers an indoor/outdoor feel. Thin plaster shelves above the toilet display seashells and starfish. Rope hanging from the ceiling secures the towel bar.

Finally, the bathroom meets Ham’s expectations and complements the space on the other side of the door. There was some initial sticker shock as Smith’s tiles are hand-made not store-bought. “It’s not a rubber stamp. If I’d wanted that I would have gone to Home Depot. I paid 30 percent more for the creative, and it was worth every penny,” Ham says.

The Motion of a Notion
As it goes with most remodeling projects, Suzie Aron’s and Joseph Levin’s idea for updating their bathroom started with a desire to change just one thing and exponentially expanded into redoing the entire space. Ripping out the plastic, one-piece shower and tiling it instead got them thinking about replacing other plumbing, like their sinks. “While we’re at it,” they thought, “we should add a skylight.” And since they were already retooling the roof, they would redo the stairs to the rooftop deck, thus necessitating new floors because of removed walls. So the contemporary Fairway home that was used to receiving periodic remodeling, between the kitchen two years ago and the living room addition 15 years ago, was once again getting a makeover.

The bathroom of the house (the house numbering less than 2,000 square feet) required large ideas for its small space. The couple, quite partial in their choice of architect, hired David Dowell, a partner in the firm El Dorado Inc., who also happens to be their son-in-law.

“David talked a long time with us on how we use the space,” Aron says. “We talked through the functionality, aesthetics and things we wanted to include.”

First, they had to have their own lavatories and plenty of cabinet space. Second, they wanted it to be bright white to match the rest of the interior. Bumping out was not an option but reconfiguring certainly was.

The original exterior wall ended at the edge of the shower, with the wall angling not at a 90-degree angle but more like a 120-degree angle. A sliding glass door opened to a balcony, overlooking a brick patio and a veritable jungle. “We don’t see our neighbors until winter,” Levin comments. They decided to keep the view but nix its function. Most everything else went too.

The tiled shower they always wanted finally made it in and they updated plumbing with a rain showerhead. Duravit vessel bowls top the plain white Corian counter, supported below by custom birch cabinets with minimalist metal pulls. Though taking the cabinets all the way to the floor would have offered more storage, the floating cabinet appears to increase the size of the room. Other space-enhancing measures include a cut out in the floor next to the shower for a laundry chute and the pull down ladder, much like the ones found leading to attics, which rises to the rooftop deck.

Between the beige colored glass tiles in the shower, the white laminate-front cabinets and the pickled oak flooring, the scene needed some color. To Aron’s initial wariness and later delight, Dowell painted the walls coming down from the skylight a light periwinkle, which with certain light, glows like a neon sign.

There’s slight color elsewhere in the bathroom, placed in the open-faced shelves that hold Levin’s neatly stacked and color-coordinated golf shirts. Levin has a quota, Aron says, “When a new one comes in, an old one goes out!”

It’s this straightforward philosophy of simple living that makes them so pleased with the update. “It absolutely plays on our personalities,” Aron says.

Hard Surface, Easy Decision
Brad and Monique Kalush, owners of a commercial and residential lighting company, knew their bathroom was ready for a change after visiting a home show in Kansas City last year. At one of the vendor booths, they met Mike Nichols, owner of Kitchen Tops, who uses concrete as a countertop material. The couple immediately bought into the idea for their 10-year-old Overland Park home.

“We’d like to do the kitchen eventually, but we thought we’d start here with the bathroom and see what we think first,” Brad says. “It’s always time for an update, but everything in due time.”

He hired Nichols and came up with a basic design that Kitchen Tops would pour and set offsite then truck over to install. Because a single slab of concrete would be too heavy, Brad drew up a three-piece section with a triangle in the middle. Nichols added thin stainless steel bars between the seams to give the design extra flair and notched the edges of the rectangular sinks to mimic the line of the triangle.

The center slab is tinted darker, a clay color as opposed to the lighter sand color of the main portion of the vanity. Both colors are based on a plate from Latin American Imports, displayed on the countertop. “We wanted to stay neutral, always for resale value,” Brad says.

Monique says the smooth surface tops are easy to care for. “It just takes Windex and water,” she says. Nichols sealed the surface when it was installed and the Kalushes resealed it soon after for extra protection. The process is simple, requiring a swipe of sealant on a paper towel once a year.

The concrete tops rest on white cabinets with boomerang-shaped brushed metal pulls. Originally, the Kalushes had colorful marble marbles for knobs, but those kept falling off and clattering in the middle of the night. The new knobs give the vanity area a transitional look that feels clean but traditional.

European faucets found on Ebay take a more modern approach, their stainless steel bodies shooting upward with a round glass backing for the water to flow over like a fountain. Monique’s is slightly taller because she prefers not to bend over as far. “They’re different, not everyone has them,” says Brad, who could say the same about his concrete countertop. “When you think of concrete, you don’t think of this. It’s smooth and we love it.”