09 Nov Eight Reasons to Work with an Interior Designer on Your Bathroom Remodel
You may think that working with an interior designer is a luxury you can’t afford. But, perhaps counterintuitively, working with a designer on your bathroom remodel has many benefits, and in some ways can even save you money. How can this be? Read on to learn:
1. An interior designer can save you money and resources.
We will be using a recent bathroom remodel we completed here in Philadelphia to illustrate how working with a skillful designer can save time and resources. In this case, we reused cabinets and gave them new life by painting and selecting new hardware, thus saving time and preventing perfectly good cabinets from going to a landfill. We also saved our client money by extending our trade discount on lighting, plumbing fixtures, and tile. This is an unusual practice in our industry, but one that we believe in because we think it fosters more transparency.
A before (R) and after (L) of the bathroom cabinets. After photography by Rebecca McAlpin.
2. An interior designer can brighten your outlook.
It may have been a trend maybe 20 or 30 years ago to hide lighting in a heavy wood header above a mirror, but we find that it creates a clunky appearance. Simply removing the header which closed in the ceiling makes the space feel more light and airy. We enhanced that further by selecting white backsplash with white grout and removing a heavy shower door and replacing it with an almost frameless one.
Vanity before (R) and after (L). After photography by Rebecca McAlpin.
3. An interior designer helps you gain storage space.
The homeowner didn’t need a second shower head but would really benefit from a large niche for storing shampoos, etc. Sometimes good design is identifying what are the best tradeoffs. Losing something nonessential to gain something very important was better for the client, in the end.
Photography by Rebecca McAlpin.
Here you can see the limited storage the old shower offered.
4. An interior designer helps you visualize before you spend.
We knew we wanted a black and white feature wall in the shower. After coming across this stunning tile from Red Rock Tile at Devon Tile we knew it could be “the one.” Though it was not shown in black and white, as interior designers we understood the potential it had in that classic combination but needed to use the tools at our disposal to make a compelling case to the client and ourselves that it could work.
Here at d2e, we were able to mock up what we wanted in a moodboard. This rendering allowed the client to visualize the pattern before we went down the road of having this tile produced in a custom color combination for us, as shown below.
Example of a moodboard.
Another crucial function that this rendering step accomplishes is that we help the homeowner visualize the final product so clearly that they avoid making decisions that they wind up hating and that are very costly to fix. In that way, working with an interior designer can save you money on your bathroom remodel.
5. An interior designer makes it personal to you.
Not only is the tile wall in the shower a one-of-a-kind feature, we also chose art that speaks to the owner’s heart. The designer and homeowner alike have a soft spot for the 80’s, and the roller skate art over the toilet and the vintage Bowie poster in the dressing room reflect that.
Photography by Rebecca McAlpin.
6. An interior designer makes sure you get every detail right.
The vein of the countertop needed to line up perfectly between the two sinks. To ensure a good result, the designer went to stone yard and mocked up the slab so that the pattern would shine.
7. An interior designer saves you time.
Could you drive out to the stone yard yourself and mock up the sink locations? Possibly, but that takes time! Working with an interior designer lets you do what you do best, and we are able to make the trip to work out those details for you.
8. An interior designer knows how to give it that extra finishing touch.
It’s the tiny details that go a long way. See that tiny stripe that caps off the tile at the midpoint of the wall? That’s called a Schluter strip, and it’s a method we use to cap off the raw edges of tile. Sometimes the tile offering doesn’t come with a bullnose option and even it if does, sometimes the more contemporary look a Schluter strip provides is more appropriate. Whenever I shop with clients for their bathroom and we get to the part of the conversation about finishing off the edges, the homeowner without fail asks, “what’s a Schluter strip?”. But your designer will know what it is and how to embrace the power of a little detail like this.
Photography by Rebecca McAlpin.
Facing a bathroom renovation of your own? If you’re in the Philadelphia area, we’d love to save you time, money and help you think through all the details. Visit our Talk to Us page to complete the Client Contact Form and we’ll be in touch!
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