The Real Deal: 1940
By the mid-1940s, wartime
shortages and the ascendance of International Style dictated a return to the spare white bath. But most 1940s homeowners were not ready to forgo all color. They enjoyed a cheerful pop of green or blue first thing in the morning. Also, they had absorbed a decorating tip broadcast by design magazines during the early 20th century: You can give a tiny room the illusion of more space by running a horizontal band around the middle of it.
That’s the case in a first-floor powder room (above left) in a 1940 house in Burlington, Vermont. “It is very cozy; the door just barely makes it by the sink,” says Susan Dorn, a software engineer and entrepreneur who until recently lived in the house with her husband, Michael Rooney, a farmer. The half bath features white 4”x4” tiles to wainscot height, topped by a border of bright ocean-blue bullnose tiles. These make their way around the window and the round, mirrored medicine cabinet. The built-in soapdish, toilet-paper holder, and toothbrush holders are all in matching blue, as is the towel bar. A narrow band of blue tile underlines the composition; the blue flooring tile finishes the crisp blue-and-white scheme.
A larger bathroom upstairs uses the same blue tiles to describe a line around the room and its architectural elements (opposite). But here, the ocean shade partners with light-green tile on the walls and floor. Here, the only white to be found is the painted wall above the tile wainscot. All the fixtures are deep blue, including the sink, bathtub, and toilet, which are matched by the soapdish, cup holder, and toothbrush holder. This floor has a starring role, its green tiles edged with a blue border and interspersed with small blue diamonds.
In both bathrooms, the toilets are later replacements for the originals, but otherwise, all the original elements remain. Upstairs, the blue of the tiles and fixtures is a color that never lost its appeal, and that replacement toilet is a close match. A third bathroom (above right) has burgundy fixtures and accent tile.
“I just loved walking into that blue and green bathroom,” Susan Dorn says. “The coloration is so wild that, even if you don’t like it, you know it was special.”
although plenty of black and white or grey and white baths were built in the first decades of the 20th century, originals from the period tend to be more fanciful than “revival” baths are today. More recent retro bathrooms—designed by architects working in Arts & Crafts, Spanish Revival, and Art Deco or Moderne idioms—tend to use white or nature-inspired colors tempered with wood. Some new revival bathrooms are pretty wild, however, designed around brilliant, decorated tiles. Once again, architectural effects include a shaped opening, a tiled ceiling, a deco-tile border or insert, and an in-thewall niche.
For those creating the look today, four-inch-square and other popular 20th-century tiles are readily available. Many art-tile types available in the 1920s and ’30s have been revived; the selection, in fact, is bigger than ever before. Choose among patterns influenced by Hispano–Moresque design and Art Deco motifs.
Pick bath fixtures with a streamlined silhouette—no neo-
Victorian details. Both angular geometry and clean curves work. Classic white fixtures have always been in style, so that remains an option, as does the reuse of salvaged fixtures. You can still get bath fixture suites in ivory or bone, some in beige and grey. Kohler makes a black toilet. Some manufacturers offer select fixtures in pastels, red, or navy.
Adding some sparkle is a shortcut to a Jazz Age look. The spare lines were energized by dramatic lighting and reflective surfaces. Use chrome, not nickel or dark metal finishes. A round, frameless mirror always makes a statement. Another option is a vertical mirror flanked by with cylinder sconces. Frosted-glass “slipper shades” and shell- or fan-shaped sconces are romantic. Then again, the plain porcelain “hospital” fixtures of the early Twenties are appropriate. Accessories from towel bars to hardware can be chosen for their retro look.