Triple Threat
For 35 years, the tiled space where Marilyn Coxon began and ended her day was a master bathroom in name only. Too small (husband Al showered and shaved in the guest bathroom down the hall) and too open (the toilet was exposed), it was far from a room fit for two. Add the fact that Al and Marilyn were already into their retirement years and looking for increased accessibility—no more stepping over a tub wall to get into the shower—and it was time to flush and start fresh with all three of their bathrooms. "We had an investment that was deteriorating with age," Al says. "And it's a neighborhood where people do a lot with their homes," Marilyn adds. Having remodeled the Coxons' kitchen several years earlier, John Bick of Karr-Bick Kitchens & Baths says he "had a very good idea what they wanted before I walked into the house." After addressing accessibility concerns by widening doorways and installing a walk-in shower in the newly minted master bath, Bick turned to aesthetics, incorporating a "craftsman" design with the cabinetry. "It has a very honest, straight-line look," he says. The Coxons endured the expected knocks of remodeling during the three-month project—even taking their showers at the community center up the street—but it was worth it in the end. "You have a tendency when you live someplace for a long time to keep living with it," Marilyn says. "But then you look at it from a different perspective and realize, 'Maybe we should do something different.'"
Geometry Lessons
If you stand in the southwest corner of Jim and Karen Kaiman's master bathroom—and crane your neck a little—you can see to the opposite corner of the house. It was that sense of openness that Chuck Schumacher wanted to maintain when he undertook their bathroom remodeling project 18 months ago. Unhappy with their small shower, poor lighting and a wall that nearly cut the room in two, Jim and Karen enlisted Schumacher Kitchen & Bath Studio to spruce up the space. Chief among Jim's concerns was the shower: "It was pretty small"—try 2-feet-by-5-feet small—"and I wanted all the nozzles and gadgets." He got them. After relocating the shower to the other corner of the room, converting it to a glass-block enclosed walk-in and more than doubling its size, Schumacher outfitted it with three bodysprays, a handheld shower nozzle and a standard showerhead. Thanks to a restrictive existing floor plan, the rest of the privy pieces fell into place: the vanities wrapped around the unusual 135-degree corner, and the tub (now an air tub) and toilet stayed put. Schumacher was even able to keep the toilet private without sacrificing a sense of space: a half wall of glass block discreetly separates the seated from the standing.
Wide Open Spaces
Linda and Fred Berger's master bathroom used to be the place where light beams went to die. The only sources of illumination in the spacious-yet-choked room were fixtures above the his-and-her vanities, but what little light they provided was swallowed by the painted paneling on the walls, the massive brown Jacuzzi in the middle of room and the dark cabinetry throughout. Even the shower—fully enclosed and trapped in a corner—seemed to rain gloominess. The Bergers grudgingly endured the darkness and avoided the dreary bathroom whenever they could—until they discovered the colony of bees nesting in the walls. "We had to do something," Linda says. "We couldn't have lived here much longer." The first thing Dan Glidewell of Glidewell Building and Development did after prescribing a gut rehab—termites and leaks were wearing away the rest of the 27-year-old home—was raise high the roof beams in the bathroom. A larger shower complete with three bodysprays, handheld and standard showerheads and steam capabilities was next, followed by strategically placed recessed lights above the new furniture-style double vanity. The room is a virtual prism now: natural light streams in from the window above the tub and glances gently off the walls, which have been painted with a faux finish to mimic an Italian villa. Most importantly, though, it's a room where the Bergers can relax.
Light Years
What didn't Roberta Feinstein like about her master bath? Everything. Cast off into a dark corner of her sprawling Ladue ranch, it felt almost like an afterthought. "It was too small, there wasn't enough light—it wasn't attractive," she says. (She didn't even mention the sunken shower/tub combo.) Ann Kelleher doesn't pull any punches when describing her first impression of the room: "Very dated, poor use of space—awful." With a sense of what Roberta wanted ("I told them I wanted a bigger, more beautiful bathroom"), the designer from Cutter's Custom Kitchens & Baths drew up a shotgun space that would make better use of wasted square footage in the master bathroom. By knocking out a wall and extending the bathroom, Kelleher not only doubled the space but took advantage of an atrium squandered in an alcove in the bedroom. At the other end, she ditched the sunken shower/tub, installed an air tub and tricked it out with a flat-screen TV. "She got a new TV for the bedroom, and found this little one, too," Kelleher says. "That's on the list for a lot of people but the question is where to put it." The project lasted more than six months, but after waiting 25 years to take the leap, Feinstein wasn't complaining. "I wasn't really in a hurry," she says. "I was just so excited to have it done."
