A primary bathroom expanded and rebuilt in Atherton — skylights, exposed wood beams, custom walnut cabinetry, a freestanding soaking tub, and natural stone throughout, designed around a Colorado-inspired aesthetic that manages to feel both grounded and genuinely luxurious.
The owners of this Atherton home knew what they wanted: a primary bathroom that stopped feeling like a utility room and started feeling like a place they actually wanted to be. They were drawn to a Colorado aesthetic — warm, natural, unhurried — and they wanted the space enlarged into a real retreat. A soaking tub, walnut cabinetry, stone, wood, and as much natural light as the room could hold. That's where we started.
Enlarging a primary bathroom in an existing Atherton home means working within structural constraints that weren't designed with spa ambitions in mind. Introducing skylights and a transom window required careful coordination with the roof structure and framing while maintaining weather integrity. Sourcing and installing exposed wood beams in a wet-adjacent environment demanded proper sealing and support without hurting the rustic aesthetic. And blending the warmth of walnut cabinetry and rough-hewn wood with the precision of natural stone and a floating marble vanity required a design hand that could hold those two worlds together without one overwhelming the other.
With the expanded footprint, we positioned the freestanding soaking tub directly beneath the new skylights — natural light lands on it throughout the day, which was the whole point. The transom window pulls in more light without giving anything up in terms of privacy. Custom walnut cabinetry with hand-selected grain runs the length of the vanity wall and anchors the space in warmth. The marble floating vanity gives the powder area a clean, modern edge — a deliberate contrast against all the organic texture surrounding it. Exposed beams run across the ceiling, properly treated and installed, carrying the Colorado aesthetic through the whole room. Natural stone ties every surface together. The bathroom feels refined, personal, and nothing like the utilitarian space it replaced.