A Dark Spanish Tile Bath in Happy Valley

This Happy Valley bathroom is built around a single contrast. The walls are light, the marble floor is light, the vanity is warm white oak, and then there is one deep dark alcove holding the tub and shower. Everything else in the room stays quiet so that one element can carry it.

The tile from Spain

The tile is handmade in Spain, and that is the whole reason the alcove looks the way it does. On a handmade tile the glaze pools thick in some places and pulls thin in others, so the color travels from charcoal to slate blue to nearly black across the same wall, and the surface catches light in a way a machine pressed tile never will. Stand in front of it and no two pieces read the same. We carried it up the walls, over the arch at the top of the alcove, and around a niche set into the shower wall. Running small handmade tile around a curve is slow work, because every piece on the arch has to be cut and eased to keep the joint lines running true.

A tub with a tiled face

The tub is a deep soaking drop in model set into a tiled surround, and we tiled the front face as well. A drop in tub usually gets a painted panel or a plastic apron across the front, and that is the detail that gives most tubs away. Tiling the face instead means the tub reads as part of the same dark mass as the walls, one continuous block of glaze and stone with a white basin cut into the top of it.

Kohler fittings

The fittings are Kohler throughout, the shower system and the faucets both. We chose a dark finish so the trim recedes into the tile rather than punctuating it, which keeps the alcove reading as one surface. The quality shows in the parts you actually touch, and the hand shower hangs on a hose within easy reach of the tub.

Heated floors in three marbles

Under all of it, the floor is heated. We laid it in three different marbles and alternated them in a repeating pattern, so the floor has movement without a pattern that shouts. From the doorway it reads as one soft field of pale stone. Look down and you can see the three tones trading places. Heated tile is the detail clients notice every winter morning, and it costs far less to build in during a remodel than to wish for afterward.

The vanity

The vanity is white oak, custom built for this wall, with a linen closet worked into the end so the storage belongs to the cabinet instead of hanging somewhere else in the room. Quartz tops it. The tile backsplash runs full height, all the way to the ceiling, and the mirrors mount over the tile rather than butting into it, so the field of tile stays unbroken behind them. Sconces sit on the wall beside each mirror, which throws light across a face instead of straight down onto it.

Our crews were meticulous with the handmade tile, which forgives nothing, and delivered exactly what the client wanted: light walls, a light floor, a warm vanity, and one dark quiet alcove that makes the whole room work.