Room to grow

As the bathroom is such an intimate area of the home, it's an opportunity to create a personal interior reflecting an individual's taste and lifestyle. However, in a children's bathroom, there is a need to ensure that the design is flexible enough to change as the child grows.

Interior designer Bill Cook created three bathrooms for a couple and their children. By using luxury materials, such as cherry wood, marble and limestone for the basic elements of each design, the rooms were given enduring foundations.

In the master bathroom, there is a subtle mix of light and shade, reflecting the homeowner's desire for a sleek, modern interior that is enriched by luxurious touches.

"This master bathroom has a spa-like luxury, without being antiseptic," says Cook.

The homeowners wanted a clean, uncluttered interior that wasn't aggressively minimal."

Natural light floods the bathroom through a skylight above the shower enclosure and a row of clerestory windows. Limestone on the floors, bath and shower surrounds reflects the light, contributing to a clean, spacious interior.

Providing a visual counterpoint, are wide horizontal stripes of dark marble that run the length of the bath. There are also dark marble strips across the shower wall, and dark marble floor tiles are diagonally placed to provide visual accents.

A dark-stained wooden vanity is built into an alcove. This echoes the bay window that houses the bath on the opposite side of the room.

"Cherry wood was chosen for the vanity because of its straight, clean grain. This adds warmth and prettiness to the design," says Cook.

Simple light sconces cast a soft glow across the room, blending with the recessed halogens above the vanity a lighting combination that ensures shadows aren't cast across the vanity mirror.

Wood Venetian blinds in the bay windows match the horizontal dark marble lines. This provides a visual foil to the room's high ceilings, which dictate a predominantly vertical composition.

It is the sloping angles of the roof in the sons' bathroom which helped inspire a theme influenced by the Arts and Crafts architectural movement.

Tobacco-green colored tiles of varying shades create a mosaic effect on the floor, walls and vanity countertop. A series of character tiles are used both randomly as decorative borders These tiles depict woodland creatures and are closely modeled on antique tiles.

Wallpaper features Jeremy Fisher the frog in the stories by Beatrix Potter sitting on a lily pad. This fishing theme is enhanced by the goose decoy beside the bathtub, and it matches the fishing and hunting theme in the boys' bedroom. When the boys are older this wallpaper can be easily replaced with another age-appropriate pattern.

Vintage Americana complements traditional English motifs, with the addition of a brightly colored floor rug featuring American pennies.

Opposite the boys' suite, their little sister has a blue-and-white bathroom, crowned with wallpaper depicting billowing clouds on the ceiling.

Again, Cook was careful not to shorten the lifespan of the bathroom's interior by creating a strictly juvenile theme.

White-painted cabinetry and doors provide a neutral background, enlarging the sense of space for an open and airy interior. The blue-and-white scheme ensures this bathroom is suitable for either boys or girls. Just a few feminine touches such as the shower curtain featuring a fairy tale motif indicate the age and gender of the occupant.

"Using accessories which can be easily replaced, ensures that the room will change as the child grows," says Cook.

Story by: Trendsideas