Room of the Day: Revising History in a New Orleans Bath

For Machi Medrzycki, owner of the construction company MLM in Metairie, Louisiana, learning about history while working on the fabled old homes in the New Orleans area is half the fun. “You find out how the people who came before us lived and what they liked,” he says. “The old houses have real character.” While he was working with the owner of this early 1900s dwelling to convert it from two townhouses into a single home, construction laid the place’s history bare and, deciding it was beautiful, they left it for the family to enjoy.

The room was once a bedroom with a tiled floor.


AFTER: Although the 6-inch-wide barge boards remain, albeit cleaned and sealed, the room has been recast as the bathroom for the master suite. Medrzycki says these old planks were brought into New Orleans on Mississippi River barges and are not to be confused with the decorative panels that act as fascias on the gables of older homes. The homeowner found their rustic good looks irresistible and chose to leave them exposed.

Medrzycki points to the darkened plank on the right as an example of what he appreciates in old houses. “This was caused by a fire sometime in the home’s history,” he says. “Judging by the burn pattern, and because there had never been electricity in this spot before now, I am guessing it was a candle fire.” Now, the remnant of what must have been a heart-stopping moment of panic is a badge of honor.


Medrzycki built the vanities to the homeowner’s specifications and detailed and stained them in a way that makes them look like vintage furniture pieces.


“Most old homes in New Orleans will have a fireplace in the bedroom,” says Medrzycki. This one is no exception.

But instead of taking out the very old, inoperable fireplace, the owner and the contractor decided to leave it and celebrate its ruin-like beauty. “We had to clean the bricks and repair them in spots,” says Medrzycki. “We cleaned and sealed the chimney and bricks.”

The patina and age of the building are also celebrated in the lath ceiling. When work started, it was covered with what Medrzycki jokingly estimates at 30 coats of paint. Recognizing the appeal of the old construction material when the paint was removed, the homeowner decided to leave it bare, and Medrzycki sealed it.

Although the vintage chandelier isn’t original to the house, it looks like it could have been hanging here since the occupants abandoned candles. (And after the fire scare, who wouldn’t want to move on?) Medrzycki went to great lengths to make sure another near-disaster doesn’t occur. “The chandelier, like any other light fixture, is mounted onto an electrical box. The box itself is mounted between ceiling joists with a load capacity of up to 25 pounds. Since the weight of the fixture is no more than 5 pounds, there is no threat of the light falling down.”


A by-the-letter restoration this is not. Modern intrusions are noticeably present in the shower, where striated marble tiles make an of-the-day statement. The look is carried over to the hearth. “We wanted to save the bricks there, but they were just too damaged,” says Medrzycki. “This is a nice way of uniting the elements.” The tub looks new, but it’s a reproduction of a turn-of-the-century model. Although it had to be patched with a few salvaged boards, the pine floor that lay covered by ceramic tiles for untold years is original.

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