Cascading. Floating. Clean.
Those three words perhaps best describe Pam Enstad’s new master bathroom in Edmonds.
Water cascades not only from a fancy chrome fixture in the shower, but also from two simple, specially selected faucets over twin white vessel sinks.
Then there’s the large white soaking tub with curvy edges awash in natural light.
Stone flows freely here, too, in the form of honey-colored slate that starts high on the walls around the soaking tub and continues in diagonal lines all the way down to a porcelain tile floor.
In the shower, small pieces of tumbled river rock spill from the chrome water controls to the shower floor, where the irregular-shaped stones offer a light foot massage as well as an elegant contrast to the porcelain walls.
“It’s wonderful,” said Enstad, who bought her 1986 home in 1993 with her late husband, OClaire. “It’s such a pleasure to use.”
Enstad and her husband had done some remodeling in the 1990s, but last year Enstad decided it was time for a serious update. While the soaking tub they had installed back then was still in good shape, almost everything else in the bathroom had to go.
Enstad, who partnered with Gary Hartz with Kitchens for Cooks of Everett, and Josh Peters with Top Level Contracting of Snohomish, actually embarked an a large-scale remodeling project, including the kitchen, a powder room and other updates.
Part of what Enstad wanted in the bathroom was an extra-high vanity, another facet of the original bathroom that she wanted to preserve.
While the standard bathroom vanity height is 30 inches, more homeowners, designers and contractors are going for 36-inch or “kitchen height” vanities for easier use, Hartz said.
Enstad’s ceramic white vessel sinks by American Standard rise dramatically out of fine-grained black galaxy granite. Though it took her a while to find faucet fixtures that would work just right with the slightly tipped, open-faced basins, she doesn’t regret her choice.
“It’s just great,” she said. “You don’t splash out at all.”
But that’s not all that’s special about the vanity.
Hartz designed the piece without legs so it would look as if it were floating. Peters reinforced the cabinets with a steel beam for extra support. Under-mount lighting accentuates the dreamy, spalike effect below the cognac-stained cherry cabinets.
Hartz also requested a slight bow in the vanity countertop to soften the lines of the space.
“Gary was very creative with this,” Enstad said, adding that the tumbled river rock embellishments in the shower also came from his drawing board. “It’s beautiful.”
Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037 or sjackson@heraldnet.com.
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