Bathrooms · Seattle and the Eastside

Small rooms, and the least forgiving work in the house.

Primary baths, hall baths and baths added where there was not one. Tile, glass, cabinetmaking and everything behind the wall.

A Ballard primary bathroom seen from the door, with a freestanding tub, tiled shower and double walnut vanity — Ballard/*Primary bath addition*/2025

Everything that goes wrong in a bathroom goes wrong behind the tile, and nobody sees it for four years.

Water finds the one joint that was rushed. So the part of this work we are most careful about is the part you will never look at: the slope of the pan, the membrane taken up the wall rather than stopped at the curb, the blocking behind the drywall for a grab rail somebody may want in twenty years, and the extractor ducted outside instead of into the loft.

Every bathroom we have finished

A primary bathroom with a freestanding tub, green painted walls and a patterned gray tiled shower — Green on the walls, gray tile on the rest

A shower in pale green stacked tile with brass fittings, a brass rail and a glass screen — Brass on the valve, the rail and the handset

A bathroom with a wall of stacked black tile, a freestanding white tub and a wood stool — Black tile behind the tub, and nothing else on the walls

A bathroom with a freestanding tub, a glass shower and a large window — Green glass in the shower, and the tub under the window

A bathroom with terracotta arched tile, a freestanding tub and a wood vanity — Terracotta on the tub wall, and the rest left pale

A freestanding white tub set beneath a window with gray patterned tile behind — The tub went where the window is, and everything else followed

The bath and shower with an arched mirror and walnut vanity beyond — One room, doing three jobs

The freestanding tub with a wood stool and a plant on the gray floor — A stool, a plant, and the floor running under the tub

A shower lined in green glass tile with a brass handle on the glass door — Green glass, which is never the same color twice

Scalloped terracotta tile behind the tub, with a brass faucet — The tub under the window, with the filler on the floor

The full primary bathroom seen from the door, with tub, shower and vanity — The whole room, from the door

A walnut vanity with a white sink and an arched mirror in a bright bathroom — The vanity is raised, so the floor runs underneath it

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Three things worth deciding early

01
Tub or no tub

A freestanding tub wants a window and floor space; a wet room wants neither. Deciding this late is what forces the plumbing to run the long way round, as it did in Ballard.
02
Where the light comes from

Light behind the mirror flatters. Light above it does not. In Kirkland the mirror is backlit and there is nothing on the ceiling above the sink.
03
How much stone

One stone floor to ceiling reads calm and costs more in slab and in labor than tile. It is the single biggest lever on a bathroom budget.

Adding a bathroom where there is not one is usually a question of three feet.

Three feet from a bedroom, a landing or an oversized cabinet, plus a wall that a waste pipe can reach. The Ballard project was exactly that: a bedroom gave up its back corner and the new window went where the tub is.

See how that one was built

A small Magnolia bathroom in walnut, marble and brass with an arched mirror — Magnolia/*Bathroom renovation*/2025

Small rooms, and the least forgiving work in the house.

Tub or no tub

Where the light comes from

How much stone