In a new Q&A series, Business of Home asks leading designers to take us inside kitchens, baths and mudrooms that deliver—revealing the technical considerations, material choices and design decisions that make these hardworking spaces sing.
This week, we’re chatting with Jaimee Rose, whose eponymous design firm has been practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona, for nearly 15 years. Today, her 10-person team takes on a range of design work, from ground-up new builds and full-scale remodels to furniture-only projects. She walked BOH through a bathroom she recently designed for two teenage sisters.
What was the brief for this project?
The client wanted “something different” [for her daughters]. That was the word she kept coming back to—something different, something surprising. She is also very brave and daring, and we were struggling mightily with the floor plan. The architect, the client and I were going in circles, and I was like, “What if we literally went in a circle, and put the vanity in the middle of the room, and it was floating?” It just clicked together like magic: That worked with the floor plan that we had, and with the function that the client was seeking—she wanted it to feel like they were in a salon, like they were getting ready for a dance together. She wanted it to be a gathering space where girls could come together and celebrate the magic of being young and putting on your makeup and getting pretty to go out for the evening. With girls, the best part of going out is getting ready—that is the most fun part, invariably—so this really is a celebration of that.
What were some of the unique challenges of this space?
The house plans were finished, the architect did not want to make revisions, and we did not want to change the building envelope, so we needed to make this space work and accomplish all of her goals with the footprint that we had. We had to fit in a shower. We had to fit in the toilet. She wanted a freestanding tub. She wanted vanities for each of the girls, but she also wanted it to not feel like a bathroom with an ottoman in the middle of the room. It has a large dressing mirror in it, as well as hooks for towels and bags and all the little things that the teenage girls need to get ready.
We had to really look at the space that we had and get smart about how to manifest all of that. Typically, we are working with the architect on that; on this one, my team and I did it, so it was fun to take charge of that. We also wanted to have wood floors, because of the inimitable warmth that that lends to a project, but we also had a freestanding bathtub, and a freestanding bathtub sitting on a wood floor is not the best design solution for teenage girls who aren’t going to be careful. I had been staying in an apartment in Paris, where the kitchenette was next door to the bedroom and it all kind of flowed together, and they had done this hex inlay into the wood floor, so we pulled that detail into this bathroom, and it really worked to give a waterproof surface under the tub but also give the warmth of wood floor. It also lent a really interesting character in that jagged line where the marble meets the wood, tracing the tub.
Tell me more about the process of designing and specifying that island vanity.
When we were working on the floor plan, I said [to the client], “I think we can do this double-sided island in the middle of the room. Are you in?” She was 100 percent, and she loved the idea of it, but then we had to go back and add blocking from the ceiling to support a mirror that was obviously going to have to hang from the ceiling. We needed to figure out how we were going to have this island in the middle of the room and have the traffic flow around it, because it could get kind of cornery. It’s not a generous bathroom. We did have to make sure we had good aisle space, and clipping the corners on that vanity really changed our ability to accomplish it, because it softened those corners and it gave us an easy way to traverse around it. Then we had to have a long prayerful talk with our stone fabricator on how he was going to make the marble curve—that’s always a fun challenge. So that is many, many little pieces of stone laminated together to create that curve around that corner.
What about the decision to do those raised details along the edges of the island?
I thought that that would give it a little bit more architecture, and it would give it more of a place for the eye to stop. Also, it functioned as a punctuation mark, like, “Hey, look at me, I’m the middle of the room,” and it helps to contain the clutter of two girls covering a vanity with makeup and hair products. It was a solution that was rooted in both function and form—we liked the idea of how it would look, but we also liked what it would do. It was really hard to make it out of marble. The fabricator was like, “Jaimee, this is one for the books. Thanks for this.” It’s a Calacatta Gold marble, and we worked with a stone fabricator named MJ Stone here in Arizona—and interestingly enough, he, the client and I all went to high school together.
Can you walk me through some of the other design decisions in the space?
The client was very specific. She was like, “I need room for a chair—I want a stool. They need to be able to sit down and put their makeup on, but they also need to be able to stand up.” The mirror is actually wide enough so that you could be seated to put on makeup, and you also can see yourself from the sink.
We had to get creative with lighting too. We wanted pendants to punctuate, but they had to come down or they were going to fight the chandelier that was also over the tub. We had to choose something that was more diminutive and let the chandelier be the leading actress in the space. It’s always hard when you’re going to have multiple lighting moments in a small space. We had a pendant over the bathtub, but then we also needed more pendants at the vanity to provide functional task lighting. We had to work hard to choose something that worked together, but we didn’t want it to match, so those Lostine pendants that are hanging by the mirror have a little wood shade, and then of course we have the Palecek leading actress pendant over the bathtub. We were happy that we were able to find something where those all worked together and didn’t compete. We also knew we wanted draperies to soften all of the hard edges, so we had to make sure that we were thinking about that and had room for the stack.
What went into the decision to use wallpaper?
Interestingly enough, it is vinyl, which I think is important in a bathroom where teenage girls are getting in and out of a bathtub. I’m in a very dry climate—when you put wallpaper on the walls, it stays forever—but vinyl is obviously a great solution, especially when you’re looking for something that’s in a wet or steamy area.
We used a Designers Guild wallpaper that is an ombre, tie-dye effect. The client and her daughters’ favorite word is funky. They were very into tie-dye when we designed this a couple years ago, and they loved it. We brought it over, we held it up and it was a slam dunk. We loved the way that it made [the space] feel youthful and not so serious—less like a primary suite and more like this could be the lair of two very beautiful and fun teenage girls. They’re young, they’re silly, they’re getting ready with their friends, they’re taking 800 selfies, they’re making TikToks in the mirror—they need a cute backdrop.
How did you approach the design of the shower?
We started with that black-and-white striped liner that you can see tracing the top and the bottom of the shower. We knew we wanted to use a fairly simple tile, but we didn’t want it to be flat, so we went with a terra cotta–pink zellige in a high gloss. That felt a little too boring [on its own], so we were able to input that liner, which is hand-painted, just like a little bit of mascara, a little bit of eyeliner—something that says, “This is special, this is considered,” and gave a little bit of that funk that [the client] kept asking for.
When you’re working with any material that’s gold that isn’t polished unlacquered brass, there is a wide variance of what that looks like. We started with the Purist line from Kohler and based all of our other gold finishes off of that. The cabinet hardware is from CB2—these fun little marble half-moons. They added a lot of playfulness, and then we matched the shower frame to the Kohler fittings.
What other design challenges did your team encounter during this project?
Once we clicked onto this idea of the freestanding island in the middle of the room, we had to saw-set the concrete to get the plumbing into the middle of the room. We had specified for blocking in the ceiling for the mirror, but then it didn’t get put in, so then the ceiling had to be opened and we had to have the mirror retrofitted. The mirror was very heavy, and very hard to find—you can’t buy a mirror that’s the right size in a format that works, so we had to have that custom made, and it was expensive.
And really, the biggest thing was figuring out how to get the corners clipped around this island so that the girls wouldn’t impale themselves on four corners of this heavy furniture piece in the middle of the room. The stone fabricator literally was like, “Jaimee, marble isn’t curved. How am I supposed to do this?” We had to work hard together to accomplish that curve in the marble.
This room on one side feeds into one girl’s room; on the other side it feeds into the other girl’s room. There’s stuff everywhere all the time—these girls are busy, and they’re running to dance, they’re running to school. The clipped corners were a solution that our cabinet vendor presented, and we were so grateful to her for her study of that, because it really informed the way that we were able to do this. The tub we had chosen, which was also from Kohler [also] had the clipped corners, so we kind of lucked into this beautiful rhythm.
