Look who won a design excellence award!

The American Society of Interior Designers Wisconsin Chapter recently held their annual Design Excellence Awards for 2020, and we are so proud to announce that Karen Lee Johnson Interiors earned a Silver Award for the design of their client’s new Master Bath. The annual ceremony was presented virtually and included building and remodeling project submittals in the categories of Residential, Office/Corporate, Senior Living, Healthcare, Retail, Hospitality/Entertainment, Education, and Historic Renovation.

Our winning Master Bath project was for a client located in the Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area, so all the design planning and specification work had to be done through virtual technology due to COVID-19 restrictions. As with most businesses last year, Zoom and FaceTime played a key role in keeping consistent communication on the project. We were so thankful for the wonderful collaboration that took place with our tech-savvy clients and their prompt decisiveness in keeping the job on track.

Congratulations goes to everyone who worked on this project!

New Master Bathroom

Our clients were looking to remodel their small, outdated master bathroom and utilize the adjacent hallway space to increase the size of the bathroom, but still, maintain a closet for clothes storage. The existing bathroom footprint only allowed for a (3’x3’) shower, a single vanity, toilet, and a narrow linen closet. The clients wanted to incorporate the following elements into the new bath space:

• Transitional design featuring stone accents
• Larger shower stall with rain shower head, body spray, and frameless glass surr with zero clearance threshold
• A double vanity with plentiful storage
• A self-standing soaking tub
• Tile walls and flooring

Master Bath Vanity Before

Master Bath Shower Before

The biggest challenge of this remodel project was to produce a floor plan that would enlarge the bathroom but include a usable space for a closet. Essentially, the best route to take was to extract a small portion of space from the amply-sized master bedroom. This would entail changing the location of the north bedroom wall by moving it forward, thus converting the existing closet space from a vertical to a horizontal orientation to the bathroom. The wall relocation allowed for the former hallway and closet space to be used in the new bathroom.

Master Bedroom Hallway and Closet Before

To lessen the need for multiple door clearances along the north wall due to the new closet and bathroom entrances, a sliding, barn door with opaque window lights was installed for the bathroom. The door’s black finish distinguishes it as the bath entrance, and plays off the room’s decorative hardware accents, while the window lights allow light and give dimension to the door plane. The new closet entrance features white French doors that coordinate with the master bedroom’s architectural woodwork and allow more access to the closet interior.

Master Bedroom Hallway and Closet After

Lighting in the former master bathroom was minimal, producing shadowing and low light levels at the vanity. The interior of the narrow linen closet, located behind the small shower, had to utilize the low ambient light available from the vanity fixture, making it hard to see in the back of the shelves. A combination of new recessed and decorative fixtures provide the much-needed lighting improvement, with the grand custom LED vanity mirror offering several color temperature settings to enhance lighting levels for the various hygiene and grooming tasks.

Master Bathroom Vanity – After

Linens, grooming products and equipment, and cleaning supplies are now stored in the new double vanity storage cabinets. A make-up desk was also integrated as part of the lavatory countertop and allows the client a seated position and space to layout cosmetics.

The clients requested places in the shower and near the soaking tub that provided storage of shampoo and bathing products, so decorative niches were created to not only house those items but to produce a visual focal point among the large format wall tile. The niche accent tile is also used as an aesthetic surround to highlight the functional LED vanity mirror.

Master Bathroom New Soaking Tub

A warm wood palette in the porcelain floor tile serves as a soothing complement to the timeless purity of the classic white marble-patterned wall tile, and the white cabinets and bath fixtures, while the dove gray quartz countertops and light spa gray paint hue add color accents. The mix of matt metal finishes in stainless and charcoal black for the faucets and decorative hardware add the final touches in creating the clients’ desired design aesthetic.

Being acknowledged and honored by our fellow industry peers for our design work generates such an outstanding sense of accomplishment. However, as with this Master Bathroom project, the larger success comes from the immense joy and satisfaction of our clients whose lives have been changed from the exciting and beautiful new spaces we’ve created for them!