Mountain House Reveal: The Upstairs Guest Bath That Used to Be a Closet (and a Peek Into the Bedroom)

MOUNTAIN HOUSE REVEAL #5. We’re in the home stretch now, having revealed the living room and entry, the downstairs guest bed and bath, the upstairs loft, kids/hall bath and now…

Welcome to the upstairs guest bathroom (with a peek into the bedroom that isn’t quite finished yet). This bathroom is the smallest, but boy do I love it, with only two things that I would have done differently (keep reading). Let’s get into it:

First, to place you in this house, here’s a floorplan of where we are:

Originally, this bathroom didn’t exist at all. It was a massive closet, which we felt would be better used as a bathroom. How lovely is it that each guest has their own bathroom? VERY.

The Goal of the Room:

Well, it was to create an en-suite bathroom with some luxuries for our guests. Since it’s on the smaller size, I wanted to keep it bright, simple and quiet. You won’t see it in today’s reveal, but for anyone wondering, yes we replaced the closet as I wouldn’t leave a room without one. Because this was always intended to be used for guests, there was no need for such a large walk-in closet, so instead, we built out a smaller more traditional “reach-in” closet on the wall next to the entry door of the room (more on that to come in future posts).

If you want all the process and the story behind each decision, read this process post. I REALLY love how it turned out and it’s far more “me” than the sexy black bathroom downstairs (which I also love). Here’s how we went about this redesign.

We Chose the Materials First:

The stone slab tile floor from Bedrosians felt so “mountain” without it being slate (which we used in the master). It’s so warm and yet modern, with an amazing colorway and texture. The countertop is Sky White slab marble from Bedrosians that we had leathered because it was polished (but honed would have been great in here, too).

HOT TIP: If you want more of a “modern rustic” feel, opt for matte surfaces. In general, that’s what we did in this house (including the window frames from Marvin, all flooring/cabinetry and all stone). While I’m NOT opposed to shiny surfaces (I love how they bounce the light around), it just reads as more “glam” and sometimes that’s not what you’re going for stylistically.

We complemented the floor stone with this incredibly special handmade tile from Pratt and Larson that we installed in the “double stacked and staggered” pattern (thank you Julie!). It’s a super simple 1×8 matte white, but how we applied it makes me so happy. I’m really proud of this tile because it accomplished exactly what we wanted in this house: simple but special. It has so much movement, reflects the light beautifully but is so quiet. We went for it and did it on the entire vanity wall and shower surround. We even rotated it on the bottom half of the shower to be horizontal, under the wall to wall ledge (which we opted for over a traditional shower niche). I think these kinds of details make this room feel so custom. Will everyone notice these details? NOPE, but as a design team, we are really proud.

The faucet suite might be my favorite in the house (and my favorite modern faucet in general). It’s the Purist line from Kohler in their flat black finish (but you can get it in several other different finishes). I love a cross handle and always will. And I know that the wall-mount faucet/under-mount sink combination was something I hadn’t seen that much around so I was nervous that it wouldn’t work, but GUESS WHAT? It’s GREAT. It’s so minimal and feels so modern and fresh.

For the vanity, we chose the Tresham 36-inch because I liked that it gave this room more of a clean country vibe, contrasting the modernity of the rest of the pieces. It warms it up a bit and had a Scandi vibe to me.

You might notice that there are no handles in the shower. Before you jump to the conclusion that we made a terrible mistake (ha), let me talk about why. We used the smart line from Kohler that uses a remote prompt to turn them on called a DTV panel. We put one in easy reach in the shower and another outside the shower, which lets you turn the shower on and get to temperature BEFORE you step into it. It’s very impressive to our guests and works great. You can set the exact temp that you like and of course adjust if you need while in the shower. If you’re interested in all the features of the DTV, we outlined them in this process post.

The DTV panel requires that you put the electrical components in the bathroom so we used this as an excuse to build a custom cabinet that houses them on the bottom (like 8″ deep and 12″ wide, so not very big).

We commissioned Ross Alan to make it (they did all the custom woodwork throughout the home) and Julie executed the design. It’s BEAUTIFUL. We house all our extra backup soaps/paper towels for the whole house here.

I love the glass panel breaking up the heaviness of the wood, and the simplicity of the hardware. Great job team!!! Ross Allan obviously did a wonderful job constructing it. The wood seriously warms up this room.

No bathroom is complete without a toilet, so here is the other side of the room. We chose Kohler’s simple Corbelle toilet because I think it has a timeless design, with flat sides for easier cleaning. We also used this in the hall bath upstairs and the powder bathroom downstairs. Honestly, “cool” and “toilet” typically are not words that go in the same sentence, but for real, this is a pretty great piece. It’s one of Kohler’s newest toilets and has something called ContinuousClean technology (this fights germs, stains and other yucky stuff) and CleanCoat technology which together actually and visually keeps the toilet cleaner longer. Every time you flush, ContinuousClean dispenses a small, consistent dosage of your toilet bowl cleaner tablet of choice that’s housed in the tank away from kids and pets. Because it’s special and optimized, each tablet can last more than a year (instead of dropping one into your tank and running through them within weeks).

What Would I Change?

Now, I’m not sharing all the things I’d change in every room to seem dissatisfied. I LOVE this house and how things turned out, but there are little things here and there I think would be smart for me to share with you in case you go into your own projects and it could be helpful. Here, we didn’t realize that the mirror hanger (by Moebe) and the light fixture (from Allied Maker) would hit each other, visually.

I love both of them so much, but the stem of the light is RIGHT in front. Also, I thought that we ordered the pendant in black, but nope, we went with gold and I wish it were black (FYI, this model is discontinued, but this is a similar one, plus we got it in a custom width and drop which they’re able to do). I might take it down and get it powder-coated, but it definitely doesn’t bother me enough to prioritize it into my life right now. Nor will I likely change out the mirror because I love it, and the hardware is white so literally no one would notice this except us. We put off sourcing the mirror until like two weeks before the shoot because it seemed to be an easy thing to find so we didn’t put it in the SketchUp rendering. Had we done that, we would have caught this.

But LITERALLY no one notices except me.

Lastly, the shower enclosure debate.

I LOVE this for the following reasons:

• It goes floor to ceiling. We don’t even have a dam or bridge at the bottom.
• It’s so simple and modern and reduces the number of lines that your eye sees (both on top and bottom).
• It’s fully encased in black steel which mimics the window, faucets and just looks so modern and edgy (plus by putting steel on the edge, you don’t see the green of the tempered glass which I don’t like).

Now, I haven’t personally taken a shower in here, but will predict the following issues: it’s likely cold because it’s not fully encased in glass. We knew this, we were amply warned by our contractor and chose to do it anyway because it’s a guest bathroom that wouldn’t be used THAT often and we wanted the look. And no, we didn’t heat the floor in here to save money. But you should know that not having a full enclosure might be cold. We did so much research to find a floor to ceiling glass track solution, but couldn’t. We could have done a door, and honestly, we know that this is something you can add later so we figured we’d do the half wall for now and if our guests complain in the winter, we could customize and add a door.

Additionally, if you are reckless with your hand shower, yes it can get the bathroom floor outside the shower wet. I LOVE how it looks without the bridge, but yes, it can be slightly messier. The flooring slopes down to the linear drain in the middle so if you are a sophisticated showerer, you’ll be fine, but without a full enclosure or a bridge, you have a couple of risks.

But enough about that stuff…I LOVE this bathroom. It’s so quiet and modern, but it really does feel customized and so intentionally designed.

On to the bedroom…

For the House Beautiful shoot, we ordered this bed from Thos. Moser (my favorite bed ever) in a king, but it wasn’t going to arrive in time so we borrowed the queen.

The problem is that to center the queen bed to the room properly, it would hit the windows super awkwardly so we only shot 1/2 the bed, cheating it over. That’s all to say that the full reveal is coming soon as we just got the king bed and it looks soo good. In fact, as of right now we have both beds in there and it’s going to be the most gorgeous bunk room ever. That sconce by One Forty Three is awesome, that bed is a dream and all the bedding and chair is from Target’s new fall line that’s being released August 25. The window treatments are Hunter Douglas (and on remote, it’s wonderful) through Decorview and that vase is by Sheldon Ceramics.

Stay tuned for the full reveal.

And finally, I’ll end this with some satisfying before and afters.

Bathroom Resources

Finishes:

Pure White by Sherwin-Williams | Vanity Countertop Sky White by Bedrosians Tile & Stone | Flooring in Allure Marble by Bedrosians Tile & Stone | Wall Tile & Surround in Custom 1×8 in PUWM by Pratt & Larson | Grout Color 

Lighting:

Brass Pendant by Allied Maker (similar)

Furniture & Decor:

Reclaimed Beechwood Cabinet by Ross Alan Reclaimed Lumber | Mirror by Moebe | Gray Oil Diffuser by Target | White Vase by West Elm | Towels by Parachute | Ring Cone by Muji | Soap Dish from Urban Outfitters | Wire Baskets from Target | Canisters by CB2 | Unisex Perfume by Target | Body Wash by Native | Pumice Stone | Loofah Pad | Art and Apothecary Jars (vintage)

Fixtures by Kohler:

Vanity | Faucet | Sink | Shower Head | Toilet | P-Trap | Handshower | Ceramic Valve | Thermostatic Valve | DTV Prompt Digital Shower Interface

Hardware:

Toilet Paper Holder by Kohler | Towel Ring by Kohler | Towel Bar by Kohler | Robe Hook by Kohler | Vanity and Cabinet Knobs by Schoolhouse | Cabinet Pull by Schoolhouse | Pocket Door Hardware by Rejuvenation | Switches and Outlets in Antique Bronze by Forbes and Lomax | Glass Shower Wall (custom)

Window:

Matte Black Fiberglass Ultimate Casement Narrow Window Frame by Marvin

Bedroom Resources

Finishes:

Pure White by Sherwin-Williams | Treemont Stria Carpet in Linen by Stark Carpet

Lighting:

Potence Style Otis Light by One Forty Three

Furniture & Decor:

Bed by Thos. Moser | Side Table by CB2 | Ceramic Bowl by Ben Medansky | Vase by Sheldon Ceramics | Sherpa Chair by Target (coming soon) | Beads (vintage)

Bed Linens:

Duvet Cover by Target | Shams by Target | Sheets by Target | Velvet Quilt by Target (coming soon) | White Lumbar Pillow by Target (coming soon) | Pink Lumbar Pillow by Target (coming soon)

Windows & Doors:

White Oak Ultimate Casement Narrow Window Frame by Marvin | Window Treatments by Hunter Douglas through Decorview

Thanks again to my incredible design team—Julie, Velinda and Grace de Asis. These spaces were styled by me with Emily Bowser and Erik Staalberg. Our contractor was Jeff Malcolm and our architect (that we used at the beginning of the project) was John Lyles.

***Photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

Check out the rest of The Mountain House reveals here: The Kitchen | The Kitchen Organization | The Kitchen Appliances | The Powder Bath | The Living Room | The Downstairs Guest Suite | The Loft | The Hall Bath | The Kids’ Room | The Dining Room | The Family Room