Luxury Bathrooms for Every Design Style

A vintage oil painting adds to the Italian-meets-art-deco aesthetic. The honed four-by-twelve-inch marble floor tiles from DiscoverTile match the marble countertop from Cumar.

The hand-rubbed brass ceiling fixture from Visual Comfort & Co. offers a pretty gleam at the top of the room.

The niche tile is a one-centimeter broken-joint mosaic.

Old World

When interior designer Cecilia Casagrande proposed an unexpected color combination—luscious plum and two sylvan shades of green—her clients swooned. Casagrande, who was tasked with turning the neglected third floor of her clients’ Brookline, Massachusetts, Victorian into a primary suite with a luxurious bath, had her starting point.

Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke unites the walls and angled ceiling while echoing the canopy of the leafy neighborhood. Farrow & Ball’s Studio Green defines the window and baseboards and anchors the existing vintage clawfoot tub under the slanted ceiling while preserving the room’s original art deco vibe. The walk-in shower’s glossy hand-glazed ceramic tiles sport a plum tone that perfectly matches the vanity’s Farrow & Ball Brinjal paint.

On the floor, honed white marble tiles with lively purple and black veining, along with a mix of green, purple, white, and cream mosaic tiles in the shower, infuse more Old World feel. “The effect is very Italian artsy,” the designer says. “It’s like an old Italian villa.”

Project Team
Interior design and builder: Casagrande Studio
Photography: Sean Litchfield

Designer Sarah Scales chose petal-shaped Carrara and Thassos marble mosaic tile by Genrose Stone + Tile for the floor. “The feminine motif complements the Visual Comfort & Co. butterfly chandelier, but when you stand back it feels quite graphic,” she says.

The wall-hung vanity with gilded wood legs is painted Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue and has petite acrylic knobs that impart a bit of glam.

Since natural stone is a no-no in a steam shower—steam elicits rust—Scales chose a glazed ceramic tile in similar tones as the vanity’s backsplash for the walls and a glass mosaic tile for the shower floor.

The Kravet armchair next to the tub is upholstered in Christopher Farr | Cloth Carnival linen.

Residential Retreat

“Sometimes having too much space can be as hard to navigate as not having enough,” designer Sarah Scales says. Her solution for this vast primary bath situated over a multi-car garage in Milton, Massachusetts? Adding architecture that highlights the room’s key features. A robin’s egg blue vanity nestles under a fanciful arch. That the enclave is lined with Carrara marble offers a sense of semiprecious mystery, like finding a pearl in an oyster shell. By extending that same wall to the window, Scales created privacy for the toilet, which was out in the open before.

Drapery with delicate embroidery softens oversized windows and sets off the modern tub, where a plush armchair both cozies up that corner and lends a spa-like feel. Built-in storage supplies a second touch of robin’s egg blue and obscures the burgeoning pitch of the ceiling.

Finally, the walk-in shower lies beyond another arch. Here, the sloped ceiling and cloud-like tiles beckon one to enter the steamy escape. “I love the idea of a portal in a traditional home,” Scales says. “It echoes classic architecture.”

Project Team
Interior design: Sarah Scales Design Studio
Builder: Cambridgeport Construction
Cabinetry: Custom Home Interiors
Photography: Jared Kuzia

Designer Tyler Karu points out that cherry is not an obvious wood for a vanity these days, but she appreciates its inherent qualities and deviation from the norm. “It’s an interesting wood that is warmer than white oak or walnut,” Karu says.

Karu played with scale on the floor, using two-inch penny tiles with a matte finish

Placing the window in the shower allowed room for a double vanity. “It pulls a tunnel of light into the shower and creates a nice mood,” Karu says.

Natural Inspiration
Although this primary bath is graced with only one window, its connection to the outdoors is its most defining feature. “The design marries the home’s midcentury modern architecture with the nostalgia and natural environment of Sebago Lake,” designer Tyler Karu says. Karu, who reimagined the interiors of this 1969 lakefront home in Maine for a Boston family who uses it for summer and wintertime fun, took inspiration from both the site and the style of the home.

Handmade cement tiles, their skinny two-by-eight-inch profile and stacked installation channeling the midcentury era, line every wall. The tiles’ moody green-meets-blue hue suffuses the space, cocooning occupants in the colors of the outdoors, while their matte finish accentuates the kinship with nature’s raw beauty. So does the soapstone countertop and shower trim. “I didn’t want contrast,” Karu explains. “This from-the-earth element keeps it in the mood.” The vanity’s cherry wood, a lake house-inspired species that complements the tile, furthers the vibe.

Project Team
Interior design: Tyler Karu Design and Interiors
Architecture: Ben Miller
Builder: Mayer Builders
Photography: Justin Levesque