Bathroom Interior
The room was eight feet by nine, had no window, and had been fitted out twice since 1990 without either attempt addressing the fundamental problem. There was no daylight and no way to add a wall opening without looking into a neighbor’s bedroom.
The move
We went up. A single flat rooflight over the shower zone brought in more usable light than any window on that elevation could have, and it looks at sky rather than at anybody’s property.
Specification
Everything in the room was chosen to work with a light source that moves across the ceiling over the course of a day.
- Honed limestone on the floor and the wet wall, in one slab run with mitered corners
- Micro-cement to the remaining walls, which takes the light softly and has no grout lines to discolor
- A wall-hung oak vanity, three feet six long, with a single drawer and an open shelf below
- Unlacquered brass fittings, chosen specifically to darken
- Concealed linear drain set into the stone, falling away from the door
Waterproofing, which is the actual job
Two thirds of the drawing set for this room was waterproofing. The tanking membrane runs up the walls six inches above the showerhead, returns across the floor in one piece, and is pressure tested before a single tile goes down. The rooflight upstand is detailed with a separate flashing that does not rely on the membrane at all.
A bathroom is a small room with a large capacity to ruin the ceiling below it. We spend more drawing time per square foot here than anywhere else in a house.
Outcome
The room now reads as considerably larger than its measured size, mostly because the eye follows the light up rather than stopping at a wall. The brass has begun to darken around the tap handle, which was the intention and which the client had to be persuaded about twice.
Work took nine weeks, including three for the rooflight opening and its structural framing.
Heating
The floor is electrically heated under the stone, on its own thermostat and a timer. In a room with no radiator and no window, it is what makes the stone usable in winter and what keeps the micro-cement dry. It added very little to the cost and it is the element the client mentions first.
