2 Ensuite Renovations

Everything else in this Torbay house had already been modernised. The two ground-floor ensuites were the exception, still looking about 25 years old next to a current kitchen and living area. The owners didn't have a set look in mind. They wanted ideas to react to, and a result that was designed without tipping into grand. Our designer Cici Zuo worked through options with them and they landed on contemporary and understated. Texture does the work instead of colour. Large 600x600 matte grey porcelain from Tile Depot covers every wall and floor, the vanities are dark Southern Oak against white stone-cast tops, and chrome tapware adds a little shine. The bigger ensuite had space for a bath, so we built an open wet area: bath and shower behind a single frameless glass panel with no door. Your eye runs straight to the back wall and the room feels larger than it is. Leaving the shower open puts more of the floor and lower walls in the splash zone, so the membrane under the tiles runs continuously up the walls and into the drain. The smaller ensuite has no bath. It gets a diamond-shaped corner shower with a tiled niche, in the same tile and timber, so the two rooms read as a set. Open wet area with Charlton back-to-wall bath and Aleo dual shower column (Reece) Frameless single glass panel, no shower door Southern Oak double-height vanities, 1200 and 900 wall-hung (Reece) Broadway LED demister mirrors and Aleo wall-mount mixers Custom diamond-shaped shower with tiled niche in the second ensuite Underfloor heating in both rooms Full design, demolition, trades and project management Cici Zuo designed both rooms and Jacob ran the site. When the owners flagged some tiling and a vanity that weren't right, Jacob looked at them on site and had both fixed by the following day. Completed December 2024. Full case study: Contemporary Ensuite Renovation in Torbay, Auckland