Fern Hollow Bath — Woodinville, WA
Overview
A couple planning to stay in their home long-term wanted their primary bath ready before a fall or a diagnosis forced the issue. We rebuilt the space with a curbless entry shower, a comfort-height vanity, and blocking for future grab bars — accessible without reading like a clinical retrofit.
The challenge
Curbless showers require the subfloor to be lowered or the drain relocated to eliminate the lip, and this bath sat directly above a finished dining room ceiling. Any structural change to the floor had ripple effects one story down.
Our solution
We recessed the shower drain and built a gentle sloped mortar bed rather than lowering the entire subfloor, avoiding any change to the dining room ceiling below. Large-format tile with minimal grout lines keeps the floor slip-resistant without looking institutional, and every wall got blocking for grab bars whether or not they go in today.
It doesn't look like an accessible bathroom — it looks like the bathroom we would have chosen anyway. That's exactly the point.