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Pardon Our Dust
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PARDON OUR DUST
Sunday, June 10, 2001
A Clean Break With the Past
Taking hammers to the original bathroom was a high pointt in this remodel.
By KATHY PRICE-ROBINSON, Special to The Times
From the year it took David Shall and Susan Corzilius to
design and remodel their home's master bathroom, one moment stands out
as especially gratifying.
It was the August evening last year, after five months of planning, when
Shall, a lawyer, and Corzilius, a physician, took sledgehammers to their
old bathroom tile.
"It felt so good," Shall says, recalling the destruction of
the cream-colored tile with terra cotta trim that a designer would later
decry as "so 1970s."
"We hated the old bathroom so much, we wanted to take the first swings,"
Corzilius adds. "It was hideous."
The couple bought the traditional two-story home in 1998. It was spacious
enough for them, their three young daughters and two dogs. Best of all,
its pool and wide decks overlooked a verdant canyon thick with wildlife
and, beyond that, the Santa Monica Mountains.
The sturdy wood-and-brick home was custom-built in 1979 and sits along
a winding road in a quiet Westlake neighborhood of other upscale custom
homes. But though the general quality and layout of the house were exemplary,
the master bathroom missed the mark.
Most egregious was the bathroom layout, which had three major flaws. First,
except for a small corner window, the only view of the canyon came from
a window over a large bathtub. So unless one enjoys baths--Corzilius and
Shall do not--the view was squandered. Second, the shower, which the couple
did use, was of miserly dimensions despite the generous 250 square feet
of bathroom space the original designer had to work with.
The third design mistake was the placement of the toilet and bidet. They
were situated, correctly, in a small room behind a door. Unfortunately,
that same room functioned as the entryway to the shower to the right and
the sauna to the left.
"It was really awkward," Shall recalls.
The couple might have endured the bathroom even longer than they did,
but the shower pan was leaking to a patio below and they feared that rotted
floor joists might give way. Then, the final insult: a large mirror tumbled
off the wall at 3 a.m. one morning when, as Shall points out, there was
"not even an earthquake."
Though the couple had never done a remodel before, Corzilius says they
knew this one would require some "significant structural changes."
And so they wanted to hire a top-notch contractor, even if that meant
paying more for quality and peace of mind. "Your time is worth something,"
she notes.
They found what they were looking for in Matt Plaskoff, a Tarzana contractor
known in Southern California for producing a large volume of upper-end
homes and remodels. He was recommended by a colleague of Shall's whose
husband is a former contractor.
Once the couple decided on Plaskoff, they interviewed a few designers
his company recommended. One of them, Toll Hammerschmidt Design, had done
design work on a sleek, modern building constructed by Fox Television,
Shall's employer.
The designers, Heidi Toll and Velvet Hammerschmidt, were surprised at
the contrast between the rest of the house and the bathroom.
"Where did this come from?" Toll wondered at the time. "It
didn't fit the house or the couple."
Shall and Corzilius gave the designers equal measures of direction and
freedom to create.
"We knew what we didn't want," Corzilius says. "It was
claustrophobic. We wanted it opened up."
They wanted the toilet in a separate room, one not used as a hallway to
the shower. As for the bidet, Shall says, "It was history."
For colors and materials, they handed the designers photos of a maple-and
granite-infused bathroom they found in a magazine.
Working closely with the contractor to make sure the design ideas were
cost-effective and compatible with what was possible to construct, Toll
and Hammerschmidt began in March to solve the bathroom's problems.
The biggest change would be moving the toilet from the far end of the
bathroom to a new water closet closer to the bedroom. As Hammerschmidt
points out: "You don't want to walk the furthest distance to use
the toilet in the middle of the night."
The nook would include the existing corner window, for air and light,
and a textured-glass door.
Perhaps in reaction to the former use of the space, Toll and Hammerschmidt
suggested making the entire bathroom open, except for the toilet room
and the existing sauna room and closet. The vanity, bathtub and a giant
tiled shower would be in one open area.
The change was almost too much for Corzilius.
"I was uneasy with it," she recalls. "It's pretty open.
That design had to grow on us."
It did.
By August, the plans were finalized and the contractor was ready to send
in his demolition crew to take the bathroom down to the floor joists and
framing studs. First, though, a demolition setup crew laid panels to protect
the wood floors leading from the bathroom, through the master bedroom,
across the hall, down the stairway and out the door.
Plaskoff's company is a "very well-oiled machine," Shall says,
adding that he could contact the project supervisor, Chris Richards, via
a "full-blown office staff," by pager or cell phone. The company
sometimes gives homeowners pagers to facilitate communication. Indeed,
the company claims that project supervisors will return calls and pages
within five minutes.
Once the sub-floor was removed, an unfortunate fact was discovered: the
floor joists ran opposite the direction designers had anticipated, making
it impossible to run the drain pipes along the sides of the joists from
where the toilet was to where they wanted it to be.
And there was not enough room to run the pipes between the joists and
the first-floor ceiling below. After some delay in working out a solution,
the drain pipes were run outside the house, in a specially built box above
the patio cover. With siding and paint to match the house, the box is
barely discernible.
The window, once centered on the wall, was moved to the far left, drenching
the shower with sunlight and affording stunning mountain views. Once the
rough plumbing and electrical were in place, the maple cabinet and bathtub
were installed. The green slate tile on the floor and walls took three
weeks to lay out and install, with spacers used for uniformity. The green
color, the designers said, accents the view.
Dark green granite was chosen for the counter, topped by above-the-counter,
bowl-type sinks. Identical granite was used for a small shelf in the toilet
room. Chrome lights hanging over the sink area "have attitude,"
according to the designers.
By December, Shall and Corzilius were able to start using their new bathroom,
but it took a few more months for details to be finished. Since then,
they have been enjoying the serene, Zen-like room, especially the dual
shower heads that send wide streams of water straight down like rain.
If he had it to do over again, Shall would put a window over the sink
area.
But his wife disagrees.
"I love the bathroom," she says. "I wouldn't change it
for anything."
* * *
After—The new bathroom is open and sunny.
After—The toilet is now in a small room, behind the glass door.
Before: The couple were thoroughly tired of the old tile and awkwardly laid-out bathroom when the remodel got started.
Before: The shower was dark and small, tucked into a corner behind the bath tub.