Vanilla Swirl Bathroom

A Love Letter to the Not-so-Basic Neutral Bathroom

Photography: Elias Blanton | Styling: Emily Flaxman

Sometimes the best thing a room can do is make your life easier.

Before we renovated this bathroom, it was doing the opposite. It was dark, dated and surprisingly cluttered for a client who is decidedly not cluttered. A bulky bathtub ate up precious square footage. There wasn’t enough storage. And, most offensively, a poorly placed vanity drawer regularly collided with our client’s knee.

At Flax Interiors, we call these details design friction, those tiny annoyances built into a space that you eventually accept as part of daily life. Our goal was to get rid of every last one.

And so, the Vanilla Swirl bathroom was born.

The Art of the Neutral

Our client wanted her windowless bathroom to feel warm, luxurious and calming. Not sterile, and definitely not like a white box.

Instead of adding more, we ruthlessly edited. The bathtub came out, replaced by a curbless walk-in shower. We installed a glass enclosure to the shower, one of our favorite windowless bathroom tricks that we come back to again and again. The shower tiles are installed all the way up to the ceiling, drawing the eye upwards to make the space feel larger, while penny rounds in the niche add just enough texture to keep things interesting.

The palette is intentionally quiet: warm whites, creamy stone, textured terrazzo and brushed metal. Think vanilla ice cream with all the good bits swirled in.

Because there is no natural light, lighting became especially important. Layers of dimmable light, including the standout Cedar & Moss Venus sconces, let the bathroom shift from bright and functional in the morning to decidedly more spa-like at night.

Hide Everything

The real luxury in this bathroom? Nothing is on the counter.

We paired a beautiful prefabricated Vinnova vanity with a Robern medicine cabinet to create a surprising amount of storage without going custom. The vanity’s soft-close drawers keep everything organized and tucked away, while a hidden outlet inside the drawer means cords, chargers and hair tools can disappear too.

It’s the kind of detail you barely notice, which is exactly the point.

Underfoot, speckled terrazzo from Concrete Collaborative brings texture and dimension to the otherwise quiet palette.

For the plumbing, we chose Graff’s MOD+ collection. The substantial proportions and chunky round knobs give the otherwise restrained room a little swagger, while a rain shower and hand shower bring home the spa fantasy.

The Case for Quiet Luxury

There are no wild gestures here. No statement wallpaper. No look-at-me marble. Instead, the room relies on great materials, texture, proportion, and incredible execution to do the work. And that’s what we love about it.

Vanilla Swirl is calm without being boring, minimal without feeling cold and luxurious without trying too hard. More importantly, it functions flawlessly. No design friction here.

Clear counters, warm whites, can’t lose.

xx

Emily

Thank you!

Thank you to our client and the Flax Interiors team who pulled it all together. A very special thank you to Orlando Morales of Arisalva Construction. He is a joy to work with and is as meticulous about the details as we are. With any design, execution is everything, and Orlando and his team nailed it. Thank you, Orlando!

Sources

Vanity — Vinnova
Medicine Cabinet — Robern
Lighting — Cedar & Moss
Outlet Covers — Forbes & Lomax
Plumbing Fixtures — Graff
Floor Tile — Concrete Collaborative
Wall + Niche Tile — Ann Sacks
Towels — Baina
Artwork — Sam Still
Accessories — Anthropologie
Paint — Benjamin Moore