I spent a potion of the day trying to think through and resolve a problem that hasn’t been resolved with our restroom partitions as written about in a previous entry.

As a recap, the sub contractor – stone and tile supplier – didn’t bid out stone partitions per our drawings. When they submitted their shop drawings we caught that the heights of the partitions were 5″ too short. We directed them to refab (re-fabricate/manufacture) the stone slabs at the right height but in an effort to be a team player, we said we would look at a mock up of adding 5″ of stone epoxied to the bottom of the panels. This meant that we had to do something to cover the seam between the slabs.

They didn’t want to do the stainless steel shoe and kept ignoring the request to look at that option. They wanted to just leave it alone and try to hide the seam. However, the Owner rejected this mock up.

The next suggestion that came from the sub (sub contractor) was to add a stone base around it.

The Owner and I felt this was overly heavy design solution for the  aesthetics of the restrooms and cut into all the limited door opening’s floor space.

We rehashed other ideas we had previously explored:

1. The wood door into the partitions – that is coming from another trade – was going to be too tall. We can’t mount the door lower, because ADA code requires you to have to keep the toe clearances a certain height. We also can’t cut off the bottom of the door, because they are paneled, so the doors would have to be all remade.
2. The panel height was 5′-10″. With them coming in now at 5′- 5″ tall they would not only be too short for the 10′- 0″ height ceilings, but they would now be at the average mans eye-site level.
3. Though we looked at adding a 5″ tall wood cap on the stone partitions – embracing the seam and making it seem like we are emphasizing different materials, in the end most people would look at it and think, “why?”

After some thought and bouncing ideas off of another designer and both of us pondering about it through the morning, he suggested the most obvious answer that we kept missing.

 

Add a reveal joint – a shadow line to celebrate the seam and make it look like it was done on purpose. After sketching out all the possible options I could think of I opted to go with the raised, half round raised trim, that matched our general building design better. In fact this will improve the panels and add a layer of detail.

When all is said and done, no one will really catch that there was a problem here and know about all the time we put into trying to find a solution (besides you, who read this.) This will also save the contractor time and money in resolving the problem, which means the Owner doesn’t have to lose more time or money. All done without weakening the design aesthetics. Design at its finest!