Welcome back to Apartment D, a one bedroom apartment based in Vredehoek, Cape Town, that we were tasked with transforming the bathroom from old and outdated, to contemporary and light. As part of the renovation process, we also had to makeover a small powder room and main bathroom, which also needed to include a laundry space.
Let’s show you where we started…
BEFORE
The Powder Room
First we have the powder room (or toilet cubicle, which seems like a more suitable description) – a small, rather unwelcoming space.
BEFORE
The Main Bathroom
Then we have the main bathroom. Again a relatively tight space, most of which was taken up by both a built-in bath and large shower box.
Our clients were after a contemporary setting in the apartment. Very light in feeling, light on colour with a preference for neutrals like greys and wood elements. The only colour they were leaning to was green, which we added in small doses throughout the apartment.
However since it is a small one bedroom, open plan apartment, they were looking for that feeling of spaciousness and lightness, as well as a cohesive feeling throughout the apartment. And while we were undertaking a full gut renovation in process, the budget was pretty tight, so we needed to focus on smart finishes at good budget prices.
Given that both bathrooms are pretty dark and don’t have any natural light, The Clients really wanted as much as white as possible in both of the spaces, without being clinical and cold. They also needed to keep a small laundry space in the main bathroom, as the apartment would be used for AirBnB purposes.
Our designer Claire set about creating the concept for the spaces, while I worked on the space planning and putting the layouts together for each of the rooms.
In the powder room we were dealing with a couple of curved walls and exposed piping. To help hide these elements, we created a half height wall at the back of the bathroom to square the room off and to hold the toilet. We also added the smallest sink we could find, into the very narrow space. The width of the powder room was only 900mm, so we had to be very careful with what was brought in. This was also one of the spaces we felt we could bring in some of the green colour, and choose to make a feature out of the back wall of the room.
In the main bathroom we opened up the shower box, raised the floor across the one side of the room (there had to be a raised floor because of the pipes, so we preferred to raise the whole one side of the bathroom for symmetry) and put up a glass panel to create a spacious shower box.
We then removed the bath and changed the position of the vanity and basins, giving ourselves much more space for the vanity area. We positioned the washer and dryer as a stacked pair in a cupboard (without doors to save costs) on the right as you enter the bathroom space. For both rooms we changed to sliding doors for space saving purposes.
We choose a glossy white subway tile for the shower box, to help with the light and reflection. A wood vanity and laundry cupboard stop the room from feeling cold and a light grey tile on the floor brings in a little contrast and warmth. The rest of the room was painted white.
AFTER
The Powder Room
AFTER
The Main Bathroom
To see more of our projects and to see our work in progress, visit our website and instagram page.
