The loft bathroom’s big reveal
Remodeling our upstairs loft bathroom has been our biggest dream for the Farmhouse since we bought it just over a year ago. The room was carpeted, with a tub and no shower, and with lots of unusable space because of the steep, sloped roof on either side. I spent a year pinning and planning our favorite finishes, while Johnny worked on designing the layout of the room. In the meantime, we had a wedding at home, enjoyed our first year of marriage together, and life moved on - but our dream never left us, as we waited for the right time to start the massive project.
While we waited and planned, I made the odd space work, bringing in plastic toy storage bins and an old desk to house my embarrassingly large collection of beauty products. An Ikea floor lamp helped supplement the room's poor lighting, and the far corner beneath the low roof served as the perfect space for storage of my gigantic wedding dress. So it wasn’t all bad! Anyone lucky enough to see this hodgepodge mess quickly got the “yeah, we’re remodeling soon, haha...” explanation. It was quite a sight.
The construction phase was an intense two months, during which the roof was completely removed so that we could add a dormer, and the right side of the room was extended by three feet. Opening the bathroom door and finding myself suddenly outdoors, with no roof over my head, was the most unusual experience of the whole process. Thankfully the weather was good, and the new roof and walls were constructed in just a few days.
Bathrooms are important for girls. With all the work some of us (ok, I...) have to do to look presentable each morning, we need an arsenal of tools, mirrors, storage, and (most importantly) the right lighting. Having made due with my share of less-than-ideal bathroom setups in the eleven different places I’ve lived over the last ten years, the elements of a dream bathroom were well engrained in my mind.
In our search for a house to buy, Johnny and I found ourselves one day peering inside the windows of a property for sale that was in the midst of a renovation. We adventurously climbed up the exterior staircase leading to loft bedroom upstairs. From the window, we could see down the hallway into a large master bathroom, with an expansive countertop, wide mirrors, and ample cupboard space. “It’s your beauty studio!” said Johnny. We didn’t get that house, but it sparked a dream. The Farmhouse has every element we loved from that home and more - and now, thanks to Johnny’s meticulous design and planning, it’s got a beauty studio of its very own.
A 101-year-old Farmhouse with so much history and character tends to dictate its own sense of style. So in selecting finishes and decor for the room, the options that felt right were those that stayed true to the time period of the home. The ceramic wood-like flooring and black-and-white honeycomb tile on the shower floor fall right in line with the Farmhouse's look and feel. The walls are adorned with monotone fashion and beauty advertisements out of old magazines, a map of Los Angeles from 1937, and a drawing of a church once owned by the grandmother I never met, but whose middle name I share. And one of my favorite parts of the room, a 100-year-old baroque mirror, is just the kind of ornate piece I needed to make the beauty studio complete.
Today, I am beyond blessed to say that I have more bathroom storage than I can use, the perfect combination of skylights and well-placed, adjustable, LED lighting, and a spectacular view as the sun rises every morning while I get ready for work. I take care of that shower better than I take care of my car, wiping it down after each use and deep-cleaning it on the weekends. And to this day, I'm the only person who has ever used it. That's the girl shower. The beauty studio is just about a sacred space in our home, and it's definitely getting treated as such.
After a decade of bathroom dilemmas that have included sharing with 3+ girls, never having enough storage, and lighting better fit for a closet, I will never take my new bathroom for granted. The beauty studio is a place that makes my morning routine just work better, and my evening wind-down a pleasure. Most significantly, it was a room dreamed up by the design collaboration that Johnny and I shared. It came to life better than either of us could have imagined!
