How designer Madeleine Schmidt managed to incorporate colour in a 1920s master bath.

The owners of this newly expanded 1920s house on Vancouver’s west side wanted a master bathroom that referenced the period architecture of the original structure but also incorporated colour. “They are very vibrant people,” says Madeleine Schmidt, principal of Madeleine Schmidt Design, who oversaw the bathroom-design portion of the project. “We found that soft blue subway tile and played off of it, keeping the millwork a contrasting clean, fresh white.” The blue repeats in a coordinating accent tile chosen for the recessed his-and-hers shower niches and continues through to the wall colour—Benjamin Moore’s aptly named Ocean Air. Height restrictions in the shower area led general contractor Jon Pulice of Rain City Renovations to incorporate a skylight directly over the showerhead: all the better to see yet more shades of blue beyond. For the floors, Schmidt layered three patterns of classic Bianco Carrara marble, sourced through Ames Tile, to both delineate the zones of the room and keep the look authentic. “We considered doing a porcelain tile but decided the materials had to be true to the original feel of the house. The homeowners have lived here for almost 20 years. It’s their forever home and they didn’t want to take away from its character.”

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Rosemary Poole

Rosemary Poole