Wright, a Century College design student, took second place in the bath category.
By NKBA Staff
Catherine Wright, a design student at Century College in White Bear Lake, MN, earned a second-place win and a $2,500 scholarship for her “Private Retreat in Style & Function” project in NKBA’s prestigious Student Design Competition.
NKBA | KBIS honors six outstanding Student Design Competition winners — three kitchen winners and three bath winners — in the annual contest, which is generously sponsored by Fisher & Paykel. Awards include a $5,000 scholarship for first place, $2,500 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. Winners will be recognized on Monday, Feb. 16, during the Design & Industry Awards at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando during KBIS 2026.
Judges included Rebecca Sutton, CMKBD, CKBR, senior designer at Kitchen Design Concepts in Dallas; Jenni Russell, CMKBD, of Design in Perspective in Colorado Springs, CO; and Paula Kennedy, CMKBD, owner of Timeless Kitchen Design in Seattle and an educator at the Heritage School of Interior Design.
In the 2024-2025 competition, aspiring designers were tasked with renovating a kitchen and/or bathroom using floor plans and a client profile that described specific lifestyle needs. Their fictitious client was Lydia Bachman, an anthropology professor who recently retired to Colorado Springs. Lydia wanted to make the kitchen and bath areas more accommodating for frequent overnight guests, and the renovation needed to consider her two Labrador retrievers as well. A history buff, the homeowner wanted the space to be simultaneously modern, luxurious, and charming, updated but respectful of the 1895 Craftsman-style bungalow’s heritage.
The guest bathroom was small and cramped, so Wright’s primary challenge was expanding it to create a more spacious and luxurious room. She took space from a closet in the guest bedroom and reworked a hallway, thus increasing the bathroom footprint to install a larger, zero-threshold shower and more storage. The bathroom had to accommodate guests with mobility issues, so Wright applied universal design principles, such as increasing doorways to 30 inches, installing a fold-down seat in the shower, selecting a comfort-height toilet, and installing grab bars. She also specified easy-to-clean materials, including large-format porcelain tiles with minimal grout lines and quartz countertops, to make maintenance a breeze.
Aesthetically, she connected the exterior environment to the interior design. “Bringing the ‘outdoors in’ provides a calming feel of nature into the bathroom and is in keeping with the Craftsman style and in harmony with the kitchen design,” she wrote in her design statement. “The deep green vanity, linen closet, and vanity/floor tile are complemented by the wood walls of oak slat fluted tambour panels, and the creme/tan swirls on the quartz countertops and shower wall slabs bring the theme together.”
About the NKBA | KBIS Student Design Competition
The NKBA Student Design Competition allows emerging designers to showcase their talent on an industry-wide stage and gain invaluable visibility. Winning entries are recognized at KBIS, featured in NKBA editorial content, and awarded scholarships.
How to Enter
The competition is open exclusively to NKBA Student Members enrolled in an educational institution at the time of submission. Students may enter the kitchen competition, the bath competition, or both.
Entries must follow NKBA Graphics & Presentation Standards and include dimensioned drawings, renderings, a concept board, and a design statement between 500 and 1,000 words. Incomplete entries will be disqualified.
Projects must be submitted through Award Force, where students can upload, edit, and finalize materials, and the submission deadline is June 5, 2026, at 5:00 PM ET.
Winners also receive complimentary registration, airfare, hotel accommodations, and access to KBIS 2027 in Las Vegas.
Competition Scenario: 2025–2026 — “The Great Indoors: Texas Edition”
This year’s participants are tasked with reimagining the kitchen and primary bath of the Williams-Garcia family home in Dallas’s Preston Hollow neighborhood. The challenge invites students to design for a bustling household of five that values hospitality, family connection, and high-functioning spaces for cooking, gathering, and retreat.
Students must balance bold style, functionality, accessibility, and clever space-planning to create environments that support the family today — and adapt gracefully for years to come.
For more information, visit the Student Design Competition page at nkba.org.
