Loose End
The guest bathroom features a curved 1/2-inch-thick tempered glass shower wall fabricated in California then shipped to the site. “The challenge was that it should look clean, unattached, simple, and floating,” Amnon says. Created as one-quarter of a circle, the enclosure is 8 feet high and 8 feet long with a 22-inch opening in lieu of a door. A 6-inch gap exists between the glass and the ceiling.
Amnon’s crew installed the Corian saddle (the step into the shower) first. “It’s the anchoring point,” he says. To keep the glass stable it is set into channels in the Corian and along one wall, held in place only with silicone. The walls are covered in 5/8-inch-by-2-inch “tutti frutti” uniform brick red Crystile blends glossy glass tile.
A white Corian vanity floats above the floor, connected by brackets to the wall.
Feeling Glazy
To bring in light from the back of the house, Amnon’s crew demolished a 38-foot-wide section of the existing concrete foundation and replaced it with a glazed wall with sliding glass doors.
Since the wall was load-bearing, demolition was done in three parts. The concrete “was almost a 12-inch-thick wall and took more time than normal to demo,” Amnon says. His crew cut small sections first, then installed jacks under temporary steel columns to support the main floor joists and shore up the home. Then using a vertical wet-saw they cut the main pieces of foundation concrete and installed the permanent columns, which are buried behind drywall between the rooms and are connected to plates in the concrete subfloor and to a new I-beam above.
Take Aways
Remodelers and designers are, ultimately, problem-solvers, and their work can change people’s lives.
At first, homeowners Hallie and Mark Wachen were a little wary of designer Joe Eisner’s plan, which called for subtraction. Though they wanted light in a basement that Mark describes as a “fall-out shelter,” friends and neighbors were adding on and were asking, “You’re taking a room away?”
“But it really worked out,” Mark adds. “It opened up the whole house and changed the dynamic. You didn’t want to hang out down there unless you wanted to be depressed. Now it’s colorful and full of life.”
Having the additional space, and especially the wall storage boxes, has helped the children to be more organized. “It’s easier for them to put things away and find things,” Hallie says. “It makes them more independent.”
