Good morning Lacquered Lifers! Hope everyone had a good weekend, and I hope everyone enjoyed last week’s interview with Bunny Williams. If not, you can check it out here. Today I thought I would share one of my favorite designs that I recommend to clients all the time, and one that I will most certainly be using at New Street … the bathroom pedestal sink in front of a window.  Understanding that this is an option in bathroom design can be very handy, especially when renovating an historic home where spaces are never ideal. I think often when people are designing a bathroom they avoid putting a sink in front of a window because they worry about the location of a mirror. However, as you can see from these photos – there are several ways to solve that problem. In the first photo, at Christopher Spitzmiller’s Clove Brook Farm, Spitzmiller mounted a small mirror to the frame of the window. This allows the guest to experience the beautiful view and be able to apply makeup. In the photo above, the mirror has been mounted in front of the window, without completely blocking the window, so one still gets all the benefits of the natural light. In this photo I took at an 18th century house here in Charleston, you can see that this homeowner took their paneled plantation shutter and placed mirrors in the inset panels. What I love about this is that you can have the mirror when you need it, and then you can open the shutters and look out into the garden when you don’t. 
Finally, in this Caribbean bathroom, these windows aren’t even paned, they’re louvered, so the simple mirrors are mounted directly to the casing of the louvered shutters, which allows the louvers to still operate despite the mirror mounting.

So next time you’re renovating a bathroom, don’t look past the window as an opportunity for sink placement … and frankly, I much prefer a sink in front of a window than a toilet, don’t you?

photos via Architectural Digest, Veranda, Lacquered Life, and Elle Decor.