Custom Bathroom Design in Minneapolis

Custom bathroom design is deciding the layout, the materials and the finishes before anyone swings a hammer, and at Top Notch Floors that planning is done by the same crew that will build the room, so nothing gets drawn that cannot be framed, plumbed or vented.

That is the whole difference. A plan drawn by someone who has never opened a wall in a 1925 Minneapolis bungalow will put a drain where a joist runs, a vanity where the door swing lands, or a niche in the one stud bay carrying the vent stack. We look at the framing, the pipe runs and the ceiling below while we plan, and you get a design that survives contact with the house.

Most of our design work happens inside an existing footprint. A five-by-eight hall bath is not a lot of room, and the wins come from small moves: a pocket door instead of a swinging one, a shallower vanity, a curbless shower that visually borrows the floor, a larger tile with fewer grout lines, and a mirror placed to catch the window.

Moving a drain is sometimes worth it and often not. Shifting a toilet a foot or two along the same joist bay is straightforward. Moving it across the room means cutting and re-venting, and if the ceiling below is finished you are also repairing that. Moving a shower drain in a basement bath means breaking concrete. We price the move and the version that leaves the plumbing alone, and you decide with real numbers in front of you.

Storage is the thing people miss until the room is done. We plan it early: a recessed medicine cabinet between studs, a linen tower in dead corner space, drawers instead of doors under the sink, a shower niche sized for the bottles you actually own, and a spot for towels within reach of the shower rather than across the room.

Material selection is where a room comes together or falls apart. Tile, grout color, fixture finish, vanity color, mirror and paint all have to be chosen against each other, not one at a time. A warm white tile and a cool white paint look like a mistake on the wall even though both looked fine in the store. We bring samples into your bathroom and look at them in your light, at night and in daylight, before anything is ordered.

Lighting works in layers. One fixture in the middle of the ceiling puts shadows on your face at the mirror. We plan overhead light for the room, sconces or a bar at the mirror for a face lit from the front, a damp-rated can in the shower so it is not a cave, and a dimmer so the room is livable at six in the morning.

Different rooms want different plans. A primary suite gets a double vanity, a big shower and real storage. A powder room is small and seen by guests, so it can carry bold tile or wallpaper. A basement bath has concrete, low headroom and drainage constraints that dictate a lot of it. We design each one for what it is.

The process starts with a free in-home consultation. We measure, look at what is behind the walls where we can, ask how you use the room, and talk through the options and the tradeoffs. You get a written plan and a line-item estimate from that visit. No charge and no obligation.