Name: P. Kenneth Cross
City: Washington
State: DC
Country: USA
Comment:
Bonjour Monsieur Wolf,
I recently bought a ground floor apartment in an Art Deco building in Washington,D.C. Built in 1930, the lobbies were once decorated by Dorothy Draper and many of her ideas still permeate the building and its apartments.
I am renovating my bathroom and, like all the bathrooms in the building, the wall tiles are black, a favourite colour of Dorothy Draper. I want to retain the Art Deco look and was thinking of keeping the black wall tiles, re-grout in black, install wall-to-wall mirrors above the black tiles, black and white floor tiles on the diagonal, and lots of high quality polished chrome light fixtures (Heath) and towel bars (Dillon) from Restoration Hardware. Would you agree or suggest something else?
My big problem: I have a full window in the tub/shower while the other apartments have openings into an air well. Can you suggest a way to keep the window, its frame, the light, while making the window ‘waterproof’ and sufficiently opaque to avoid silhouettes when the tub or shower is in use.
Thank you for your kind advice.
P. Ken Cross
Vicente Responds:
There are films that you can apply to the window glass that will allow for complete opaque-ness.
Why not think of something a little more exciting for the floor? They sell stainless steel floor tiles which would be very dramatic with the black walls and would still read very art-deco. You could also think of a mosaic pattern on the floor – they’re expensive, but beautiful. I like the black grout idea.
Buy a Dorothy Draper book and you’ll see a lot of different ideas on how she approached spaces.
#1 by barbara on August 31, 2009 - 10:01 am
Consider removing the existing window surround/trim and replacing with a custom corian surround over a waterproof membrane — I do this on many of my bathroom jobs, and if installed properly it’s waterproof. Also, you can have the window reglazed with white laminated glass which is strong and allows for total privacy. As for the stainless steel tiles on the floor, make sure your supplier guarantees that they won’t rust!! Stainless steel does — especially if it’s from a second-rate supplier!
#2 by Sara Baldwin on September 12, 2009 - 12:42 pm
i am going to now be shamelessly self-promoting, but check out our new black and white line (from New Ravenna)–here’s my blog post about it…http://sarabaldwindesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/ive-been-through-desert-on-horse-with.html
i can see that black and white acanthus leaf design looking dynamite on the floor! in fact, we have a nyc architect blowing it up to twice it’s size for a more modern drama.