1996 Interior Design Awards: innovative ideas worth stealing from the West's 16 best kitchens, bedrooms and baths

Sunset, Oct, 1996 by Bill Crosby, Daniel Gregory, Peter O. Whiteley

During a period of three weeks, Caroline filled the 4-inch-tall band with an unlikely but colorful assortment of objects: buttons, marbles, dice, jewelry, glass beads, handles from teacups and coffee mugs, a fake Rolex watch, pieces of broken plates and tiles, and even a toy racing car.

In a bit of inspired adaptive reuse, the teacup handles now serve as toothbrush holders, and a larger mug handle in the tub area holds a hand mirror.

Experimental wainscot

"We were new homeowners, newly wed, and newly in debt," explain architects Susan Stoltz and David Kau. Obviously, the remodeling plans for their first home, a bungalow in Albany, California, were going to be driven by a do-it-yourself budget, and their first challenge was a cramped, dark, and deteriorating bathroom.

They reorganized and brightened the 40-square-foot room by adding a large, openable skylight, painting the walls white, using solid-color linoleum flooring, and installing a white claw-foot tub (found at a recycling yard). However, their most colorful and inventive touch was stained-redwood wainscoting.

Stoltz and Kau selected redwood for its natural rot resistance. Before cutting 3/8-inch paneling into various lengths, which ranged from 2 to 24 inches, they stained it with yellow, blue, red, green, and white interior latex paint that had been diluted with water. They added a top rail of clear redwood 1-by-4s, then coated all the wood with a clear, water-base sealer.

The jury applauded the simple ingenuity of the design.

DETAILS

* Stain: Fuller O'Brien interior semigloss latex diluted about 4 to 1 with water

* Sealer: Deft Safe & Easy water-base