The Most Instagrammed Bathroom in Lexington
When The Morris Book Shop in Lexington, KY, moved 4 years ago, they had a choice to make. “We had only had one bathroom in the 1st store,” says owner Wyn Morris. “Here we had two bathrooms. We had to decide: Men & Women? or Them & Us?”
They decided on Them & Us, creating one for customers and one for staff.
Morris says his wife (and co-owner) Vicki Sword has a great eye for design, so she and their artist friend, Blake Eames, designed the store and the bathrooms.
“This building was constructed in the 50s, and it’s just a big cinderblock rectangle,” says Morris. “We gutted it, but the bathrooms were already in place. They felt very institutional, with cinderblocks painted that industrial tan color. They were not warm at all. Vicki and Blake wanted to turn this cold prison bathroom into something warm.”
Morris says that the bathrooms are small, but the ceilings are as high as those in the store. So they decided to put a mirror on the ceiling. “And because of the layout of the room, we have the world’s tiniest sink,” he says. They painted bands of color on the wall that continue in the reflection as you look upward. “We were going to put some prints on the wall,” Morris explains, “but we ended up liking it the way it is.”
The combination of the mirror on the ceiling, the bands of color on the walls, and the “world’s tiniest sink” make the bathroom at The Morris Book Shop an attraction of sorts. Morris says, “We have the most Instagrammed bathroom in Lexington.”
