Timeless Design Continues Historic Rhetoric

Story by Judy Goppert / Photography by Craig Keene

The Union Hill neighborhood in Kansas City is richly populated with homes built in a simpler time. Tom Stumpff, Stumpff HomeWorks, respects this history, and lent his expertise to adding a bathroom in the home that gives a nod to the well-built bones of the house.

“This home was built in 1911, and actually had three bedrooms upstairs. We did some trouble shooting and design work to turn one of those bedrooms into a larger bathroom with walk-in closet,” he explained. “We really love working on these old homes. We were actually designing the family’s kitchen and were originally going to remodel the hall bathroom along with the kitchen. The client suggested we do an ensuite upstairs after crunching numbers for the hall bath scope, which lead to the design of the new bathroom space.”

They also turned the hallway that housed the washer and dryer into a linen closet and water closet. He noted that it was a bit tricky when you have two bedrooms side by side, so he decided to make a six-foot walk-in closet so there is now a nice open way to walk from bedroom to bathroom.

“With two pocket doors, you can look right into that nice shower. The giant window is about six feet tall and three and a half feet wide providing plenty of natural light,” he continued. “You have western exposure there, and another south-facing window shines into the shower area. From mid-morning on you have really nice light in the bathroom.”

The walk-in shower was custom built, with their signature custom shampoo niche. The custom bench with engineered quartz adds more personality and ease of use. Tom noted, “It is a remnant we found that matched the porcelain and wainscoting on the tile.”

The makeup area is a furniture piece with nice deep drawers with mirror and magnifying mirror. The drawers mean items are not strewn about. All that natural light is ideal.

“We wanted the bathroom to still look old yet be new, so used larger 4-inch hex tile. We put in the furniture piece design because it is something they would have seen back then,” he smiled. “We took quite a bit of time situating the mirrors and sconces for perfect placement.”