Rickmansworth: En-Suite

This en-suite is at the same Rickmansworth property as the family bathroom and en-suite documented separately, and it shares the same tile format: 1200 x 2800mm porcelain slabs at 6mm thick. Where the family bathroom is built around a single warm marble-effect material, this en-suite works with two. The main walls and surfaces are in Calacatta porcelain, a white and grey marble-effect slab with fine veining that gives the room its light and space. The Sahara Scuro Noir is a deep black porcelain with a dramatic gold vein running through it, and it appears as the feature wall behind the toilet, within the shower enclosure and as the border running around the perimeter of the floor.
The contrast between the two materials is the design of the room. Getting that contrast to work requires the setting out of both tiles to be planned together so the junctions between them land cleanly and consistently throughout. The floor border in Sahara Scuro Noir frames the Calacatta floor panel with a clean perimeter line in the darker material, a detail that requires precise setting out so the border width is consistent on all four sides.

Waterproofing was carried out as part of our scope before any tiling began. The shower niche was mitred on all four faces so the Calacatta slab wraps the recess without any trim or break. The window reveals were also mitred, which means the slab turns the corner of each window opening at 45 degrees and carries the wall surface into the reveal cleanly. Mitring a reveal on a 6mm slab requires accurate cutting and careful installation to hold the angle across the full height of the opening.
The bath panel, the sink unit top and the toilet feature wall are all tiled in the same slab material as the surrounding walls, so every surface in the room is resolved in one of the two materials without exception. The project sits alongside the family bathroom and en-suite as the third room at this property, all three rooms held to the same standard of preparation and execution. Three rooms, three very different palettes, one consistent approach to the work.