A carpenter at work in the atelier workshop

About us

A fourteen-person shop that only builds bathrooms

Founded in 2009. Bathrooms only since 2013. Our own millwork shop since 2019, two miles from most of the projects we build.

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Founded: 2009, Chicago
Team: 14 people
Finished baths: 640 and counting

Why bathrooms only

In 2013 we turned down every kitchen we were offered

Nadia had been building bathrooms inside bigger renovation contracts for four years and kept noticing the same thing: the bathroom was the room that went wrong. It is the most technically demanding space per square foot in a house, it is the one room where a mistake is invisible until it is expensive, and it is almost always the room the general contractor sublets to whoever is available.

So we stopped taking anything else. Revenue dropped for eight months. Then it doubled, because we were the only firm in the conversation who could describe a waterproofing assembly without looking it up.

Thirteen years later the whole business is organised around one room. Our crews have built the same assemblies hundreds of times. Our warehouse holds bathroom parts and nothing else. Our estimators can price a Chicago high-rise ensuite from a floor plan and a photograph of the stack, and be close.

2009
The shop opens
Nadia takes a lease on a 900 square foot shop on Hubbard Street and builds bathrooms for four clients in the first year.
2013
Bathrooms only
We stop taking kitchen and basement work. Revenue drops for eight months, then doubles.
2016
The warehouse rule
After one stalled project we adopt the rule we still run on: no demolition until every item is received and inspected.
2019
Our own millwork shop
Ezra's cabinet shop comes in house, which takes six weeks out of a typical ensuite programme.
2022
The River North showroom
A by-appointment showroom opens with real slabs, real metals and the lighting rigs we design with.
2026
640 bathrooms
The atelier passes 640 finished bathrooms across Chicago and the North Shore, with fourteen people on the team.

A carpenter cutting timber in the atelier workshop

The shop

We build the millwork ourselves, two miles from your bathroom

Bringing the cabinet shop in house in 2019 took six weeks out of a typical ensuite programme and gave us control of the one component that is always late when you order it.

Vanities, linen towers and mirror cabinets are drawn, built, sprayed and dry-assembled in our shop before anything travels. Ezra scribes them to your walls on site, and adjusts them again at the thirty-day visit.

Shop drawings approved before a board is cut
Catalysed lacquer sprayed in the shop, not brushed in your home
Drawer boxes notched around the trap so you keep usable depth
Hardware adjusted at handover and again after thirty days

Millwork and storage

Shelves of material samples and timber in the atelier warehouse

The warehouse rule

Nothing starts on site until everything is in the building

In 2016 a project stalled for five weeks because one vanity top arrived cracked and the quarry had sold the rest of the block. We changed how we work that month and have not changed it since.

Every fixture, slab, panel and piece of hardware is delivered to our warehouse, unboxed, inspected and photographed before we open a single wall in your home.

Long-lead stone and glass ordered first, tracked on a shared log
Every delivery inspected and photographed on arrival
Damaged items replaced before your start date, not during your build
No demolition on a partial order, without exception

How a project runs

By the numbers

Seventeen years of bathrooms and nothing else

We stopped taking kitchen and basement work in 2013. These are the numbers that followed.

640
Bathrooms finished
Chicago and the North Shore since 2009
14
People on the team
Including our own millwork shop
4.9
Average rating
From 168 reviews across three platforms
10 yr
Waterproofing warranty
On the assembly we install and flood test

The people

Six of the fourteen, and the ones you will actually meet

You get a designer, a project director and a lead carpenter. The same three people from the first visit to the one year check.

Nadia Okonjo
Founder and principal designer
Trained as an interior architect in London, moved to Chicago in 2006 and spent three years building bathrooms for other people before deciding they could be built better. Nadia runs slab selection personally on every Commission project.
Picks the stone, draws the room, and is the person who tells you when an idea will not work.
Founded the atelier in 2009
Bogdan Petrescu
Head of construction
Twenty-six years on tools, the last fifteen of them exclusively in wet areas. Bogdan wrote our waterproofing protocol and inspects every flood test himself before tile is allowed to start.
If the membrane is not right, nothing happens that day. He has never once been talked out of it.
With the atelier since 2011
Grace Lindqvist
Project director
Came from high-rise construction management, which is why our building paperwork, elevator reservations and insurance certificates are usually in before management asks for them.
Owns the schedule, the order tracker and the weekly look-ahead you receive every Friday.
With the atelier since 2016
Ezra Whitfield
Lead carpenter
Cabinet maker by training. Ezra runs the shop where every vanity, linen tower and mirror cabinet is built, and he sets the tolerances the site crews work to.
Builds the millwork, scribes it to your crooked pre-war walls, and adjusts it again at thirty days.
With the atelier since 2014
Marisol Duarte
Materials and procurement
Formerly at a Chicago stone yard, so she knows which blocks are worth buying and which suppliers actually hold a reserve piece when they say they will.
Tracks every order, inspects every delivery and chases every replacement before you hear about it.
With the atelier since 2019
Thea Raines
Client care
Handles the first conversation, the showroom diary and the aftercare visits. Thea is the reason the thirty-day adjustment actually gets booked.
Answers the phone, books the showroom, and shows up at thirty days with a screwdriver.
With the atelier since 2021