Completed client project. The owners came to us with a two-story, 3,753-square-foot house built in 2026, with concrete construction, six bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. They wanted the bathroom they used most to feel calmer and more considered, while keeping the work contained and the stair route usable. The stair connected the floors the family moved between every day, so we treated its landings as part of the bathroom project, not just the way to carry materials. Our design decisions followed the documented details of this house; the portfolio photographs on this page showed finishes, not this house.
The photographs on this page are from the Designed & Curated portfolio and show finishes we have used on other projects. They are not photographs of this house.
My first question was which bathroom they wanted to change, and what they wanted to feel different when they used it. Once we had that answer, we walked the room and the route from the stair to its door. We found a concrete perimeter foundation, consistent with the house’s recorded foundation, and a two-story structure rather than a single-level home with an easy, direct route for every service. That was a useful reminder not to assume fixture moves were simple. We traced the existing bathroom services and kept the main fixture locations, which let us focus the work on the room rather than create a new drain route through the house.
The stair and the bathroom route
We organized the work around the stair’s two landings. At the lower landing, we kept the path from the entry clear and protected the stair as materials moved through the house. At the upper landing, we kept the approach to the selected bathroom open, so the bathroom door did not become a pinch point in the upstairs circulation. The house had an attached two-car garage, a covered front porch and a central entry, but the stair remained the route that mattered most once the bathroom work began.
The house’s concrete construction and concrete perimeter foundation informed our decision to retain the existing fixture arrangement. We checked the plumbing connections at the bathroom before settling the layout, then kept the toilet, bathing area and vanity in their established positions. That choice reduced disturbance to the floors and kept the project from becoming a broader plumbing reconfiguration. The house also had a concrete tile roof, a heat pump and multi-zone cooling. Those existing systems stayed outside the bathroom scope; none needed to change to make the room work better.
The vanity wall and the bathing area
With the fixture locations settled, we changed the surfaces and fittings that shaped the room day to day. We installed a new vanity and mirror, renewed the tile at the floor and bathing area, and replaced the visible plumbing trim and lighting. We chose a warm wood tone for the vanity that nodded to the wood panels on the home’s facade, then paired it with quiet, light tile and restrained dark accents. The exterior already brought together light-cream stucco, warm wood and black-framed windows, so the bathroom materials echoed that palette without repeating the facade indoors.
We kept the visual lines simple and gave the mirror and vanity lighting clear roles. The new light made the face-level task area more useful, while the room’s quieter tile kept the bathing area from competing with the vanity. The owners had asked for a room that felt more settled, not a more elaborate one, so we avoided adding another finish simply to create contrast. The room’s new materials and fittings made the bathroom read as a coordinated space, while its original plumbing positions kept the work connected to what we had found on site.
The drain route and the permit check
Because we retained the fixture locations, we did not design a new sewer connection or a modified sewer lateral. The sewer guidance we reviewed required Cupertino Sanitary District authorization for a new lateral or a modification to an existing one (Cupertino sewer guidance). That guidance made the drain route a firm boundary for our layout: we kept the fixtures where their existing connections served them, rather than moving them and adding sewer work to the project.
We checked the bathroom scope against the City of Cupertino Building Division’s remodel policy. It required a permit for a bathroom remodel unless the work was limited to cabinet installation or countertop replacement without changes to electrical, plumbing, mechanical systems or existing walls (Residential Kitchen/Bath/Laundry Remodel Policy). Because our work included plumbing and electrical changes, it did not fall within that limited exception, and we treated the permit requirement as part of the completed scope.
If you are considering a bathroom remodel in a two-story home, get in touch with Amy.
