THE TAKAYASU MASTER BEDROOM/BATH RENOVATION
In 2013 I undertook a large and extensive renovation project for a Japanese client. Due to the scale of the project, I partnered with Roehm Renovations and basically shared general contractor duties. The job entailed the total demolition of the existing 70's era bathroom which was L shape with five doors and an adjacent walk-in closet. The master bedroom was quite large at about 600 sq.ft. As the project designer I chose to convert the walk-in closet into a dressing room and install a window at the end of that room providing some much needed natural light. One of the client's major wishes was to have a walk-in tub installed. Beyond these needs I was free to spec the job at my discretion and was given total design freedom. I designed and built the bedroom cabinet with sliding shoji doors as well as the bathroom medicine cabinet, bed end tables, and dressing room lighting and desktop boxes with sliding doors. The cabinets in the dressing room and bath were built by Prairie Woodworks of Leroy, IL.
My client’s other wish was to have an ergonomic work space at the further end of the bedroom. Instead of opting for the more usual convention of building the desk facing a wall or window, I designed and built a work center that visually partitioned the large bedroom space. This gave the client a lovely view across her newly designed bedroom.
The large family heirloom step-tansu in the corner of this end of the bedroom served as a reference for the work center design. Using the stair step theme, I cantilevered three shelves above the desk, and continued with the stair step theme in the cabinet above the right side of the desk. Since the tansu was so overpowering in the room it was quite important to visually integrate the work center.