creativity
This dividing wall between the bedroom and the bathroom works much like the one in the kitchen. It has deeper grooves that make the boards appear to float, and holds the bathroom mirror instead of factory windows. “This layout was inspired by a trip to Thailand,” Brown says. “We wanted a hotel-like feeling in here.” The designer thinks he has the answer to whether or not to go with an open en suite (a growing trend that has caused a bit of a controversy here on Houzz lately). “Since my partner and I have similar schedules, it works just fine for us,” Brown says. “But if you’re on opposite schedules and waking each other up, it doesn’t work.” Also, a separate room for the toilet is key in this scenario.
Brown filled the dividing wall between the kitchen and dining room with vintage factory chicken wire glass he found at a local architectural salvage yard. “Originally I bought the factory windows thinking I’d use it in a shower stall, but when that didn’t work out, I had the idea to use it here,” he says. He had the metal shelves welded to the metal frames. The dividing wall adds an industrial element to the kitchen and works really well with the exterior sliding doors he used across the back of the house.
When the homeowners saw renderings of the new addition (seen here from the back of the home) done solely in stone, they felt it was too heavy, so they looked for another material. They considered wood, but they didn’t like how that looked either. They saw a photo on Houzz that used metal siding, and they liked the idea of wrapping and defining the more utilitarian parts of the home — the laundry, garage etc. — with it.
Shower in a barrel. Rustic, charming and certainly not for everyone, this may be the most creative reuse of a wine barrel we’ve ever seen. The homeowners must wipe out the interior of the barrel after each shower to keep the unsealed wood in good shape, but it’s worth the effort for its scale and unique good looks.
1. European-style wet bath. A wet bath is exactly what it sounds like: a bathroom where everything can (and does) get wet. This style of bath is quite common in Europe, where you will often see a tiny bathroom with the showerhead directly over the toilet, a small sink on the side and a drain in the middle of the floor. By forgoing a shower surround, you can really maximize square footage in a small space.
Pervious pavers commonly have joints filled with aggregate to allow water to penetrate between the pavers. Tabs are formed into each paver, providing the correct joint width and making installation easier. As with open-cell pavers, a sturdy base is required. Some ceramic pavers are actually porous themselves, allowing the water to pass through the surface directly, instead of through the gaps between. This means the gap can be narrower and doesn’t have to be refilled with aggregate as often — a common chore with other pervious paver systems.
What’s underneath the pavers is what really counts. A solid base is key to minimizing heaving and cracking. You will need a 6-inch subbase of 1½-inch clean rock topped with a 4-inch base of ¾-inch clean rock, to make the driveway stable enough for cars to pass over it. The paver system goes on top of that. A polyurethane liner should be used near any foundation walls or concrete that needs to be protected from water flow-back.
MIrrors on wall by bed, console table along wall
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