Textured Powder Room

See how a designer creates a textured powder room from unusual materials.

Designer Fu-Tung Cheng was given the formidable task of turning a small, dingy space into a textured powder room of stunning proportions. He created a textured masterpiece that is composed of some very unusual, yet durable materials.

"The powder room is one of my favorite rooms of the house to design because it can exhibit a real sense of simple elegance," explains Cheng. "In a powder room you don't have a lot of different functions, so can just show the form of perhaps a sink, a little shelf, and that's about it."

The design work started by laying down a solid concrete floor and then infusing it with pieces of real turquoise. The semiprecious gems were troweled into the concrete to give it a unique terrazzo-like look.

The room's main storage shelf is a translucent mixture of baked glass and polyurethane that has been melted together to give it a clear, almost ice-like feel.

The sink is a tour de force of craftsmanship and modern design. Made of part-dense commercial rubber and part sand-blasted glass, the sink is embedded with shards of coral imported from Puerto Rico. The sink is illuminated from underneath to give it a fiery glow.

The shattered-glass backsplash is made of tempered glass that has been cast into the concrete and then smashed. The glass is completely adhered into the concrete creating a unique, shimmering crackle-effect.

With all the translucent materials in the room, finding the right lighting was crucial. The large skylight bathes the sink and vanity with natural light.