Denise McGaha Interiors

Rohl

MCGAHA MAKEOVER BEFORE & AFTER – PART 2

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In my last post, I shared the before images and our design plan for our bath remodel.  I hope it wasn’t too traumatic for you!  Today, I want to share the marvelous partners we had in bringing my design vision to reality.  As a designer, we have access to every beautiful product imaginable and it can be daunting to make decisions with so many options.  Even for a designer.  We are often our own worst clients.

In true fashion, I spent about 3 hours making selections for the entire bath and then never looked back.  I have learned over the years that my original ideas are the ones I end up going back to, so I trust my gut now.  It took years to get there, but I am still so happy with our bath design.

For plumbing fixtures, I chose Rohl and the designs of my super talented friend, Michael Berman.  The Graceline collection was the perfect mix of classic, masculine and modern I was hoping for in our bath.  We chose a hand shower for the tub deck, as well as a hand held shower on an adjustable rod for a shower.  It has been the perfect solution for cleaning the shower, bathing my dogs and offering adjustable height for both Scott and I (and the kids when they want to use our shower).

 

The beautiful porcelain wall and floor tiles, as well as the marble mosaic on the shower floor and ceiling, as well as our closet, are by Crossville.  The Statuario Venato, unpolished, 12 x 24 porcelain is extremely durable and offered the bright and classic look we were wanting.  The Yin + Yang, 1″ x 3″ mosaic in Black Dragon is soft to the touch and the shape felt modern as well.

We also turned to Rohl for their Allia porcelain sinks made in France.  I wanted a rectangular sink with rounded corners for easy cleaning and Rohl had the deep option I had been searching for everywhere.

In the photo above, there are so many wonderful product partners shown.  In addition to the beautiful Rohl plumbing, you can see the blush cabinets I designed.  The paint is Sherwin-Williams Blushing (SW 6617).  I love using Sherwin-Williams in all of our projects and our entire home is painted in SW.  The hardware on the cabinets is by Addison-Weeks and I love the long, acrylic rods with polished nickel to match the plumbing finishes.

We also installed my dream medicine cabinets by Robern.  These have built-in, dimmable lighting that is PERFECT for applying makeup and shaving.  We love them!  They also have wonderful storage and have electrical plugs inside for charging toothbrushes, electrical razors and iPhone chargers.  We love how they are dimmed by touching the sensor and we can control how bright we need them.  Scott prefers dim light while I like them on high.

Next up – Currey & Company tole pendants over our sinks offer the perfect directional lighting.  The metal finish holds up to moisture in the bath and the black and white finish was the perfect for our color scheme.  It doesn’t hurt that they are part of the Bunny Williams collection with Currey and I love everything she designs.

I also added an original oil painting that Scott and I purchased on our second trip to Paris in 2007.  It was the jumping-off point for the color scheme and a perfect reminder of our first trip to shop the flea markets of Paris many years ago.  I love looking at it each morning when I am getting ready and it brings such energy to the space.  Scott often goes to bed long after me, so I leave the art light on above it as a night light for him when I turn in early.  I also use it when waking for my early morning workouts so I don’t wake him with bright lights.

The countertops are from Cosentino and are the Et Marquina in Eternal Quartz countertops.  I also used them on our tub deck and created panels for the front of the deck.  This is one of my favorite features and the one that gets the most questions when people see the bath.  We carried the slab into the windowsill and I love the black and white pattern against our wallpaper and fabric.

Last but not least, is the wallpaper and roman shade fabric from my collection with Design Legacy.  The Array pattern in Cinder was the perfect artistic addition to the space.  I not only included it on walls, it is on the ceilings, the roman shade over the tub and even in the water closet.  Our bath is oddly shaped and the pattern helps blur the edges of the room and is a statement to my love of layering patterns.  Adding pattern to our bath took it from basic to dramatic immediately.

The most important addition to our remodel was the Mr. Steam steam unit.  This was the surprise that I kept from Scott for the entire remodel process.  He had NO idea he was getting a steam shower, which now gets daily use.  If you don’t have a steam shower you NEED one!!  The essential oils we use in the steam include Eucalyptus which has been wonderful when allergy season is in full swing in Texas.  We also have speakers in our steam unit and are able to play our favorite relaxing tunes while experiencing a therapeutic steam.

I use the steam after a workout (I personally love Lavender oil in my steam) and cannot tell you the difference in my recovery.  I feel healthier, breathe better and start my day with a relaxed mindset before heading to the design studio.  I also have found that my muscles heal faster and I have less soreness after a long workout when I steam afterward.

I hope you can see that our remodel was so much more than just creating a beautiful bath.  It was creating space where Scott and I could retreat from the world, relax, rejuvenate and find peace in our hectic lives.  We both work long hours and have the stresses of owning two separate businesses.  I would have embarked on this remodel years ago had I known the difference it would make in our lives.  Let me know in the comments what your favorite part of our remodel is?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

xo

Denise

MCGAHA MAKEOVER BEFORE & AFTER – PART 1

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I am so excited to FINALLY share the story behind our recent bedroom, bath and closet remodel.

The next few posts are going to tell the story behind the McGaha Makeover of 2018.  I try to do one project a year in our 20 year old home either because of necessity or design updates.  If you followed along on Instagram, you saw the demo and the progress…….and then I never shared the reveal because we were waiting to see if it would be published.  Luckily, Luxe Magazine loved the photos and it came out in the January 2019 issue.  I was so happy to be in the national section and it made its way across all issues of Luxe.  But this is the rest of the story.  It’s a long one, so I want to tell it in several parts to let you know the transformation that occurred.   And also share all of the AMAZING partners who played a big part in our makeover.

So here we go……..one July morning in 2017, we awoke to water puddling in our closet, which backs up to our shower.  We could hear a hissing water sound, but until the plumber arrived and let us know a pipe had a leak, we didn’t know what that meant.  My life was going a million miles an hour, and luckily we have two shower heads in the shower.  So we capped the pipe and showered while looking at a wall covered with a trash bag.  Oh – you thought our lives as designers were glamourous??  HA!!

I also need to preface this story with the fact that I couldn’t stop long enough to deal with our ugly, dated bathroom.  I hated it every day I walked in and left as soon as I could to get out the door.  I saw the leak as a path to finally being FORCED to stop long enough to remodel the bath.  Sadly, that didn’t happen until the following April in 2018….a full 9 months later.

THE BEFORE’S  – I seriously can’t believe I am showing these, but you need to know how soul crushing it can be to live in a less than beautiful space.  Looking back at it now, I can’t believe we used this bath for 20 years without changing anything but a paint color over 12 years ago.

I had several big goals for the changes I wanted to make:

  1.  Create a space that promoted health and wellness and a spa like environment
  2. Provide better cabinetry storage and reconfigure the cabinet and plumbing layout accordingly
  3. Keep a tub deck and install another undermounted tub.  We both love taking baths, so a pretty free standing tub was out of the question as we use the tub deck as an additional seat in the bath.
  4. Get rid of two shower heads on the wall and add a rain head.
  5. Add a glassed in shower – we had a walk in shower for 20 years and I froze to death in the winter while showering.  It also made the room small and the shower dark.
  6. Add wallpaper of my design to the space (I had a plan to create a space that was exciting and classic)

BEFORE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were at it, I decided our closet also needed a makeover.  I can’t bring myself to show you what that looked like, but suffice it to say the space is challenging to use, at best.  We made a plan to completely reconfigure the space and install a closet system.  Here it is with all of our clothing removed.  There was a floor safe that was full of water from the leak (oh the smell – ugh) and we also had seagrass carpet in the space.  Are you getting the picture now……?

 

 

 

 

 

When embarking upon a project of this scale, I recommend the following::

  1. Plan to be out of your space for at least a month longer than your contractor suggests.  There will always be challenges and delays that extend your timeline.  You can count on it.
  2. Use this time to organize, purge and plan for a new organization of your space.  We did a full closet clean out, organized our toiletries and makeup and bought new bath linens and bedding for our master suite.
  3. Be flexible.  There were several items we had planned for that didn’t come to fruition.  We had to change our design selection and pivot to a new plan.  Its all part of the territory.
  4. Remodeling a home while living there can be super stressful.  Trust me, we lived in our guest room and shared a single bath for 4 months.  We got dressed each day in our living room/dining room, which was basically our closet.  Nothing like waving to the contractors in your robe each morning.  But I wouldn’t trade our new master bath for anything.  It was worth the pain!!

In the next post, I will share the details of our partners and tips for making your bath a wellness retreat.  I can’t tell you what a transformation this has been for Scott and I.  Oh and I almost forgot the best part!!  I wanted to surprise Scott with the design and not show him anything during the process, so I insisted that he not enter the construction zone until we could reveal it to him.  And he complied.  For four months, he didn’t set foot in our bedroom or bathroom.  At the end of this blog series I am going to share the reveal video…….it’s probably my favorite project to date.  So please leave comments and ask any questions you may have about our bath.  It was the most transformative of my career.  Can’t you tell by all of these ugly before pics I posted above!?!

xo

Denise