Bathroom Design Tips

If you’re a frequent Internet visitor you are familiar with the wonderful world of “tips.”  You can find tips on how to do just about anything.  Many of these tips could be characterized as quick and specific tips, as opposed to more thought-provoking and general tips.  Most tips are of the quick and specific variety, like this one on the topic of bathroom design:  use special mildew resistant paint.

Most bathrooms today don’t have windows and even a good exhaust fan does not always remove moisture quickly enough to prevent mildew from forming.  Many paint manufacturers today make a special paint for bathrooms and other high moisture areas, available in low luster finishes as well as old fashioned higher gloss finishes.  Good tip, but it doesn’t help when it comes to the big picture of what you want out of your bathroom.

Here’s another quick tip:  avoid using marble, granite, or glazed ceramic tiles in a bathroom as they can be slippery.

Once again this is a great tip.  Getting out of the shower or bathtub and stepping on a glazed floor can lead to dangerous falls.  Inevitably people who don’t follow this tip will have to place a small scatter rug for standing on the floor with wet feet.  However, this tip only applies if the big picture is full bathroom renovations.  What about powder rooms where there is no combination of bare feet and water on the floor?  What exactly is a thought-provoking, big picture tip?

Start with the function of a room, not its form.  This is a basic principle of architecture:  form should follow function.  The form of a structure is its physical appearance while the function is how the structure will be used.  So paint and tile are decorating, or form issues, which have little to do with how the bathroom will be used.  The top tip for bathroom design is to start with creating a list of all the things you want to be able to do in your bathroom.

Some people see bathrooms as simple in their function:  you wash there and you relieve yourself there.  That’s it.  Others, however, like to relax in their bathrooms.  We start and end every day in that room so why not enjoy being there a little more.  For example, some people get a sense of internal warmth and emotional well being from a long hot shower, while for others a shower is a quick way to clean up.

Those functional differences should lead to a different form the shower will take for each homeowner.  The owner who gets more than just cleanliness from his or her shower should consider installing a Body Spray Shower System – where you’re engulfed by warm water bathing you from all sides.  The clean-up only people would never consider this form.

So you can find plenty of quick tips about finding discount bathroom fixtures and lighting and installing shower curtains in oddly shaped bathrooms, but you won’t know how these good ideas about the form your bathroom take fit into the big picture:  how do you want to use your bathroom.  You have to answer that question for yourself.