Rumsey Project
- Space: Bathroom & Laundry
The Rumsey Project is a main bathroom and laundry renovation in Canberra, designed and delivered end to end by NEWR. Two of the hardest working rooms in the home were reworked together rather than as separate stages, which allowed the joinery, tiling and tapware finishes to be resolved as one set of decisions.
The bathroom is quiet. A single tile carries the walls and floor, which keeps the room calm and lets the vanity wall do the work. There, Homey Stripes from Rivoland catches the light across its ribs, the only moment that asks for attention.
Two round basins sit on a timber vanity beneath a pair of arched mirrors, a small thing until you share a bathroom on a weekday morning. Brushed copper carries through the tapware, shower and towel rail, warm against the stone and the one thread holding the room together.
The laundry carries the same thinking in a lighter palette. Custom joinery runs the length of one wall, with the bench uninterrupted above the machines so there is always somewhere to fold. A stacked cream splashback echoes the texture of the bathroom without repeating it, and a slim timber pull ties the two rooms together.
The door to the garden is the best thing about the room. Light moves through it all afternoon, which is rare in a laundry.
Two rooms, finished at the same time, with one palette running through both. The bathroom now works for two people at once without feeling crowded, and the laundry holds what used to sit on the floor. Neither room asks to be noticed, which is the point of both.
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