Interior designers bring luxury to lavatories

When you think about sprucing up your home, areas like the living room, kitchen and bedroom usually come to mind. But what about the lavatory? The restroom, as the name suggests, is a sanctuary for relaxation. Functioning as a powder room for the beauty queens, it is the ultimate man cave for those kings seeking to reign on their throne. And, who doesn’t love taking a long shower or drawing a bath after a hectic day? So, if you’re looking to renovate your bathroom, or this conversation has sparked interest in remodelling, then KOHLER Signature Store by Title City & Home Centre might be just the place for you.

On the heels of the recent grand opening of its signature store on Constant Spring Road, Saturday Living spoke to the all-female design cast responsible for innovating the bathroom beauties beyond the store’s doors.

Visual artist Deon Simone was honoured to provide the first focal point for persons entering the creative space. The idea behind her vibrant installation was to show the beauty of Jamaica’s landscape. “From the rich flora to the high mountains, water and sun, everything is captured in this piece. For the sun, I used a 30-inch Kohler mirror. From there, I go into the mountains using a Kohler basin; and inside that lies a hummingbird, the island’s national bird. The bathtub also captures the hills of the Blue Mountains. Once you go around the mountains, you will see beautiful flora within,” she explains.

Simone also created an abstract painting of an ackee woman, which remains true to her signature artistry, highlighting the country’s national fruit. Choosing not to use Jamaican colours, the artist decided to instead focus on portraying the vibrancy of the culture, in a subtle yet powerful way. “I feel like that speaks to us as Jamaicans. We are very bold and imaginative; we ‘likkle but we tallawah’,” she added.

Newcomer Karina Matalon explained that for suite one, since it’s the showroom’s storefront, her goal was to echo the same sentiment of the classic colour palette illuminating the building’s exterior.

“The small square tiles are really trending right now. So it was a great opportunity to use something from Tile City that we’re seeing a lot. I wanted Kohler’s black hardware line to really stand out, which is also why I chose the matte white tiles,” she explained.

In addition to the first suite, she also brought light and dark notes to her designs for the woman and man’s bathroom. “I wanted the men’s bathroom to be reminiscent of a cigar lounge. And then the desire is to keep the women’s bathroom very feminine. I used vintage Kohler posters in both bathrooms and in suite one, instead of traditional artwork.”

If Walls Could Talk designer and transformation specialist, Joelle Smith, was next, demonstrating a three-in-one lavatory ‘inspo’ with lavish feels.

“I wanted customers to feel inspired when they entered the showroom and think outside the box. There are infinite combinations of finishes and materials that can personalise a bathroom. And the purpose of my vignette was to display creative ways of utilising Kohler fixtures under the Purist and Enivo line of products,” Smith said.

Opting for bold combinations of black fixtures with wood-look tiles, she explored the brilliant use of colour to convey a bohemian aesthetic, creating a more contemporary look with mirrored wall tiles, while highlighting how one could infuse textured tiles and wallpaper to create a modern space.

An interior designer for two decades, Rochelle Thwaites revealed that she drew inspiration for her stunning international and coastal bathroom set-ups from the Kohler fixtures.

“For suite three, the Kallista faucets and the artefacts freestanding bathtub had a New York loft feel to it. So I created a space reminiscent of that using a multidimensional wood tile as the backdrop and paired it with an oil slick finish the glass tile to give it a rich modern look,” Thwaites shared.

For her suite four design, she created magic behind the Kohler faucets and fixtures, which boasted a rich traditional element to them, “I decided to use the Jamaican Plantation-style Great House as my inspiration. I incorporated design features of that era, such as the black and white floor tiles, finishing it off with a vibrant tropical wall finish.”

Vanessa Paisley-Clare of Clare Designs was excited to bring the brand’s beautiful vanities, faucets, shower fixtures, toilets and bathroom accessories into the spotlight.

“The style of the fixtures in each suite were the starting point for the design process. In suite five, the vanities have a vintage glam vibe. The detailing on and the colours of the vanities were the inspiration for finding tiles that would imitate the curves and elegance of the vanity doors, but also play on the soft curvature that is a feature of all of the accompanying fixtures. The marble detail and taupe colours in the mosaic tile also pick up on these details in the vanities, making the tile pairing seem like it is a part of the entire suite rather than a secondary selection,” Paisley-Clare highlighted.

She also made special mention of the material choices, which played an important role in the design process. “I wanted to expand the range of options that people consider when designing their spaces. You don’t have to use only tiles in a bathroom space, but can also consider wallpaper, panelling, or a combination. I wanted the viewers to walk into the spaces and think, hmmm I would never have thought about that, but it is beautiful!”

krysta.anderson@gleanerjm.com