Royal Oak, Michigan | Primary Suite Bathroom — Designed for a Growing Family
Some of our favorite projects don't start as a single renovation. They start as a relationship.
We first worked with this Royal Oak family on the ground floor of their home — a kitchen remodel and guest bathroom that gave the main living areas the refresh they needed. The work was done, the spaces were beautiful, and we thought the project was complete.
A year later, they called us back. Their family was growing. A baby was on the way. And the upstairs — still untouched — suddenly needed to work differently. They needed a primary bathroom that could sit between their bedroom and the new nursery. A space that would feel calm in the early mornings. Peaceful during late-night routines. A sanctuary tucked between the two most important rooms in the house for the next chapter of their lives.
This bathroom is the result.
The Story
Renovating in Phases — What It Looks Like in Practice
This project is a perfect example of something we see regularly with Oakland County families: the whole home renovation that happens over time rather than all at once.
Phase 1 — the kitchen and guest bathroom — gave the family livable, beautiful spaces on the main floor while they figured out what the upstairs needed to become. A year later, with a clearer picture of how they were living and what was coming next, Phase 2 took shape.
Phased renovation isn't a compromise. It's often the smartest way to approach a home. It allows budgets to recover between projects. It allows families to live in the updated spaces and understand what they actually need next, rather than making every decision about the whole house at once. And it builds a relationship with a contractor who already knows your home, your taste, and how you make decisions — which makes every subsequent project smoother than the last.
We've worked with families across Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Royal Oak on multi-year phased renovations, and the results are consistently among the most personal and cohesive work we do.
The Design
The brief for this primary bathroom was clear from the first conversation: serene, spa-like, and finished with a pop of color. Not trendy color — meaningful color. The kind that anchors a room and gives it personality without ever feeling like it needs to be updated.
They chose green. And we made it the star.
Green Zellige Tile
The emerald green zellige tile that wraps the shower and tub surround is the heart of this bathroom. Zellige is a handmade Moroccan tile with natural variation in color, texture, and finish — no two tiles are identical, which gives the surface a depth and movement that machine-made tile simply cannot replicate. The green shifts from deep forest to soft sage depending on the light, the time of day, and the angle you're viewing it from. In the morning light it's warm. In the evening it's rich.
It's the kind of tile that makes a room feel collected rather than decorated — like the family found it somewhere meaningful and built the bathroom around it. Which, in a sense, is exactly what happened.
The Plaster Walls
The zellige tile needed a counterpart that was equally tactile but quieter — something that would let the green tile speak without competing with it. We chose plaster.
Hand-applied plaster walls wrap the rest of the bathroom in a soft, warm, slightly organic finish that grounds the space and brings the spa quality the family was looking for. Plaster has a warmth and depth that paint cannot achieve — it absorbs and reflects light differently at every hour, and it ages beautifully rather than showing wear. In a bathroom designed for the long term, it was exactly the right choice.
Custom Built-in Sink
Rather than a standard vanity, we designed a custom built-in sink — a concrete-style vessel that integrates directly into the plaster wall with a floating wood shelf beneath it. It reads as architectural rather than furniture — part of the room itself rather than something placed inside it.
Custom Toilet Paper Cubby
The toilet paper cubby is a small detail that says everything about how we approach design. Rather than a freestanding holder or a surface mount, we built a custom recessed cubby directly into the plaster wall — sized perfectly, finished in plaster to match the surrounding surface, and positioned exactly where it needs to be. It disappears into the wall when empty and feels completely intentional when full.
This is the kind of detail most contractors don't think about. It's the kind of detail we always do.
Natural Wood Ceiling & Warm Texture Throughout
The wood plank ceiling — warm, raw, and beautifully imperfect — ties the bathroom to the natural, organic quality of the zellige tile and plaster walls. It brings the outdoors in without any artificiality, and it gives the bathroom a warmth that a painted ceiling could never deliver. The rattan pendant lights that hang from it complete the picture — natural material, warm light, and a slightly unexpected touch in a bathroom that rewards looking up as much as looking around.
River Rock Shower Floor
The shower floor is finished in small river rock — a natural, textural surface underfoot that continues the organic, spa-inspired palette of the whole bathroom. It feels grounding in the most literal sense: standing in this shower, with the zellige tile surrounding you and river rock beneath your feet, feels genuinely like standing somewhere peaceful. Which was always the point.
Designed Between Two Rooms
The placement of this bathroom — between the primary bedroom and the nursery — shaped the design in ways that go beyond aesthetics.
We thought carefully about sound. Plaster and natural materials absorb rather than reflect, which contributes to a quieter, calmer acoustic environment — important for a space adjacent to a baby's room. We thought about the flow between rooms. The bathroom needed to feel like a transition point rather than a barrier — accessible from both sides, easy to move through at 3am without feeling disoriented or overstimulated.
And we thought about what this space would mean to this family in the months ahead. The tired evenings. The early mornings. The quiet moment in a warm shower that becomes the only quiet moment in a day with a new baby. We designed for that. We design for that in every room we touch.
The Results
A primary bathroom that feels like it was always meant to be there — tucked between a bedroom and a nursery, finished in green tile and warm plaster, and designed around the specific life of the family who lives in it.
This is Phase 2 of a renovation that will likely have a Phase 3 someday. We'll be there for that too.
Project Details
Location: Royal Oak, Michigan
Project Type: Primary Suite Bathroom — Phase 2 Whole Home Renovation Phase 1: Kitchen remodel and guest bathroom (year prior)
Scope: Full primary bathroom build — plaster walls, zellige tile, custom built-in sink, custom cubby, natural wood ceiling, river rock shower floor, freestanding tub
Key Features: Emerald green zellige tile shower and tub surround, hand-applied plaster walls, custom built-in concrete sink with floating wood shelf, brass fixtures, custom recessed toilet paper cubby, river rock shower floor, natural wood plank ceiling, rattan pendant lighting, frameless glass shower enclosure
Services: Bathroom Renovation, Custom Millwork, Plaster Application, Tile Installation, Design-Build
Context: Part of multi-year phased whole home renovation
Photography: Shelby Dubin Photography