Some bathrooms are designed around a tile. This one was designed around a conversation between materials: a glossy, hand-glazed ochre on the shower walls, a black-and-white floor that looks drawn by hand, warm brass, matte black, and a vanity with enough texture to hold its own against all of it. Allie Bruch of Studio Allie found that texture in White River tambour, a field of solid wood reeds that wraps the vanity's doors and drawer fronts and turns a piece of cabinetry into the room's anchor.

Allie Bruch

Studio Allie · Interior Design, Wallpaper, Styling

After years in San Francisco, including five as associate designer and buyer at Lotus Bleu Design, Allie founded Studio Allie in 2013 and brought her practice to New England. She holds a master's in interior design from San Francisco State, hangs wallpaper by hand, styles shoots and events, and designs interiors that are contemporary, colorful and built to function, with timeless materials at the core. Her favorite part of any project is walking the job site.

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The brief: Californian, vintage, mid-century and Mexican

Allie's clients gave her four words for the whole remodel and addition: Californian, Vintage, Mid-Century, and Mexican. Every room followed them, and this bathroom shows all four at once. The sunny ochre tile and hand-drawn floor carry the Californian and Mexican notes, the brass and glass knobs bring the vintage, and the vanity is where mid-century comes in.

“By choosing to introduce tambour into the design, it was truly my Mid-Century call-out. And it certainly adds some of that Old Hollywood glamour to the space!”

Allie Bruch, Studio Allie

Starting with the mix

Before anything was built, the room existed as a board. Allie pulled the palette together in one place: a cream penny tile for the shower floor, three shades of ochre glaze for the walls, the bold graphic floor tile, a brass finish sample, a matte black sconce, and a short length of reeded wood. Seen side by side, the tambour does quiet but important work. Its warm, linear rhythm bridges the graphic floor and the glossy tile, and its wood tone gives the brass something to glow against.

Working it out on paper

The layout came together in pencil. Allie sketched the elevation several ways before settling on one. An early version stacked a full-width row of drawers over three doors; her note on it reads simply that a triple track would be too thick. The keeper puts two 24-inch doors at the center, flanked by drawer stacks, with the sconces and rounded mirrors drawn in above. A margin note asks whether the height should change to float the vanity, and in the finished room it does: the vanity hangs clear of the floor, so the patterned tile runs all the way to the wall.

Allie's concept sketches, and the elevation that became the vanity. Sketches: Studio Allie.

Built by Westmont

The vanity was fabricated by Westmont, and Allie is quick to credit their craftsmanship. The build asked a lot of them. Allie wanted drawers, and she also wanted larger sink basins than a vanity this size usually allows. She was sure there was a way to fit both, and Westmont worked out the drawer boxes to clear the bowls. She also asked them to let the center lines of the doors, drawers and sinks fall where the design wanted them rather than forcing everything to line up. It was an unusual call, and it took some convincing, but Westmont followed her lead and the result reads as relaxed and intentional. They loved working with the tambour, too.

Left, the vanity in raw wood, sink cutout and all. Right, a stained drawer-front sample beside an unfinished offcut, with the chosen brass pull. Photos: Studio Allie.

Before: from shop floor to job site

Westmont built the vanity with tambour applied to framed doors and drawer fronts, each panel set inside a mitered border so the reeds read as an inset field rather than a wall of texture. In raw wood, the profile is crisp and pale. A stain sample, tested right on a drawer front next to an unfinished offcut, set the final tone: a warm, medium brown that leans toward the brass rather than away from it.

On site, the vanity went in early. Walls were still in primer, the mirror niches were open framing, and the quartz top had not yet arrived. Even then, the piece was already doing what it was chosen to do: give the room its warmth and its structure.

The same wall, mid-construction and finished. Photos: Studio Allie.

The details that carry the room

Up close, the decisions stack up. The reeds run vertically on every face, so the doors and the stacked drawers read as one continuous surface. The mitered frames give each front a crisp edge where it meets its neighbor. Brass T-bar pulls sit centered on every drawer, small enough to let the texture lead. Inside, clean maple drawer boxes keep the function as considered as the face. Open a drawer and it is clear this vanity was built to be used, not just looked at.

The reeds meet the window trim, the brass pulls, and the drawers open. Photos: Studio Allie.

Why tambour works here

Bathrooms are full of hard, flat, reflective surfaces: tile, stone, glass, metal. Reeded wood breaks that up. Each bead catches light on one side and holds shadow on the other, so the vanity shifts through the day and softens everything around it. It is a classic cabinetry detail with a long history, and in a room this bold it does something a flat slab door cannot. It gives the eye a resting place that is still rich, still warm, and still unmistakably crafted.