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Today’s Spotlight newsletter is presented by Fireclay Bath, but all thoughts and editorial content are our own. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Sight Unseen!

From Tile to Tap: Fireclay Translates its Statement-Making Aesthetic to the Bath

Fireclay — the brand that makes hand-crafted tiles in a large palette of hues — has launched an equally colorful bath collection that includes faucets, handles, and showerheads in metal and ceramic.

In our mind, there’s almost no room in the house that’s more fun to renovate than a bathroom — its miniature scale and spatial isolation make it a place where your imagination can truly run wild. A Japanese soaking tub tiled with the names of your grandchildren? A fully carpeted David Hicks–style situation? Walls covered in shells like a seaside grotto? All ambitious examples, but this week a brand entered the bathroom space that makes it easy for anyone to take the personalization factor up a notch: Fireclay Bath, the new fixtures arm of California-based Fireclay Tile, launched with four collections marrying cast brass, machined in the USA, with the more expressive character of hand-crafted clay. The new line includes 16 metal finishes, 16 colorful glazes, and two ceramic knob styles that can be mixed and matched with Fireclay tiles, affording designers endless opportunity for creativity.

Of the four collections — the more traditional Emerson, the geometric Flatiron, and the fluid Contour — Foundry is the most revelatory. The line includes simple metal spouts and faucets, but it’s where Fireclay was able to have the most fun with handles. The Groove (above bottom) is a perfect cylinder with a subtle indentation, while the Pebble (above top) is unlike any piece of bathroom hardware you’ve seen; its squat curves are giving mushroom cap in the best way.

To develop Pebble’s organic form, Fireclay’s vice president of brand and product Jamie Chappell, also an artist, got behind the potter’s wheel herself, trying to get the shape and feel just right. Then Fireclay’s team had to get to work reformulating their existing glazes. “Glaze behaves differently on a curve than on a flat tile,” Chappell explains. “The way the glaze pools at the edges and comes off the sides — it’s totally outside our normal process.”

The versatility of the Foundry collection is what makes it so fun. We could imagine using the deep burgundy–hued Pebble knobs with a Rosso Levanto marble shower enclosure for an elevated monochrome effect, or the cobalt Azul knobs on white porcelain for a poppy, primary-colored kids’ bath. And there’s more to come: Fireclay is already developing additional glazes, and will even work with your team to R&D something custom if the project is right. Dream big, friends.

These Five Modernist Bathrooms Prove You Can’t Go Wrong Going Big on Color

The Hemingway House in Key West, Florida. Photo: William Jess Laird

Our favorite aspect of the new Fireclay Bath collection (not to mention the brand’s existing tile line) is its very diverse, very chic color offering — an antidote to the HGTV-era black, white, and grey bathroom we’ve all seen a million times. To celebrate that, we decided to put together a little inspo board of our favorite colorful bathrooms from the past. These five bathrooms were all designed in the previous century, but are still in tact and aspirational today, proving that you can’t go wrong committing to an adventurous palette.

1. Pictured above: Ernest Hemingway’s former home in Key West, Florida, built in 1851 by architect Asa Tift and occupied by the famed writer in the 1930s. Now a museum, its yellow bathroom is one of its most famous rooms, lined in Cuban Art Deco tile laid down during a 1931 renovation. Photo: William Jess Laird

2. Arne Korsmo’s 1939 Villa Stenersen in Oslo is a white, flat-roofed, functionalist structure built from reinforced concrete. But inside, it boasts corrugated walls, glass bricks, a free-standing columnal fireplace, and exceptional color-blocking that extends to this green and yellow bathroom. Photo: Michael Schneider

3. If you’re an Art Deco fan you might know the 1937 Villa Philbois by Pierre Petit outside Paris, with its swooping, peach-lacquered, mural-backdropped entrance staircase. But do you know its bathrooms? This one features mint green pedestal sinks, pink triangle mosaic walls, and an epic pink glass-block divider. Photo: Adam Štech

4. The glass-walled, wavy-roofed Buhrich house was built in 1972 in Sydney by WWII refugee Hugh August Buhrich. In the house’s statement bathroom — a hidden surprise situated between two simple, all-white bedrooms — a red molded-fiberglass wall cascades outwards to encompass a sink and bathtub, all in a single organic form. Photo: Adam Štech

5. In the Paris apartment where Le Corbusier lived for over 30 years — which he designed in the early 1930s with Pierre Jeanneret — there’s a jewel box ensuite with walls and bathtub painted a muted baby blue. The apartment occupies the top two floors of the Molitor building, which was recently renovated and opened to the public for tours. Photo: Courtesy Antoine Mercusot

Shopping for… Bathroom Accessories

Even if you’re locked into a bathroom design that, architecturally speaking, is mostly neutral, there’s no reason you can’t introduce some color after the fact. Start with Fireclay Bath fixtures in your favorite shade — we chose Tempest, Sweet Pea, and Garnet, shown in the center of each image below on the brand’s ceramic Pebble and Groove handles — then bring in accessories that complement them. Here are some recommendations to get you started.

1. Teal green striped bath mat by Tekla, $110, teklafabrics.com
2. Toothbrush holder by Madam Stoltz, $28, smallable.com
3. Bottega leather tissue box by Ekaterina Borovkova $175, artemest.com
4. Sama toilet brush by Ferm Living, $69, fermliving.us
5. Santal Cream hand wash by Nonfiction, $35, fwrd.com
6. Support serum by F. Miller, $59, fmillerskincare.com
7. Flo tray in emerald by Anastasio Home, $285, anastasiohome.com
8. Nautilus comb by Sophie Buhai, $1,050, sophiebuhai.com

1. Sceptre toilet brush by Trone, $296, troneparis.com
2. Stoneware soap holder by 2222 Studio, $89, oblist.com
3. Folia mirror by Ferm Living, $705, fermliving.us
4. Simple Terry bathmat by Hawkins New York, $65, hawkinsnewyork.com
5. Carousel towel by Mosey Me, $88, garmentory.com
6. Block roll holder by Block Shop, $325, petrahardware.com
7. Ood toothbrush holder by SIN, $48, virginiasin.com
8. Green botanical body oil by Activist, $75, activistmanuka.com

1. Vera sconce by In Common With and Sophie Lou Jacobsen, $1,800, lightology.com
2. Beppu bathmat by Baina, $75, shopbaina.com
3. Seven-Ball Tray 1 by Jessi Burch, $900, darling-studios.com
4. Gentle body wash by Sisters, $34, mociun.com
5. Linen Check shower curtain by Quiet Town, $215, quiettownhome.com
6. Walnut wastebasket by Saito, $166, tortoisegeneralstore.com
7. Turin comb by Sophie Buhai, $1,250, sophiebuhai.com
8. Gelato towel by Magniberg, $62, magniberg.com
9. Soap dish by Hay, $17, finnishdesignshop.com