Prolonged gazing into one's bathroom mirror used to be considered quite a vice. For vanity, it is said, is the step-sister of pride. With nothing more to the bathrooms of yesteryear than a sink, toilet, and mirror, we were offered little choice about where our focus should fall once through the bathroom door. And while Narcissus brought his own demise through excessive "self-reflection," we can probably be forgiven for rendering the bathroom mirror as our observation point of choice. The Afterthought After all, the bathroom used to be the afterthought of home building and design. Bathroom design kept to the basics: A toilet, sink-cabinet combo, and perhaps some tile. A little color matching, a couple of wall hangings, and of course, the mirror, and voila, your task was complete! In hindsight, designing yesterday's bathroom was really a simple and efficient process. In hindsight, creating such a bathroom was magnificently uninspiring, unimaginative, and dull. With limited choices, and prohibitive pricing, vanities of distinction rarely entered the equation for a homeowner without a numeral at the end of their name. Even for those with limitless means, such a task usually involved finding the right piece of furniture in the appropriate size before hiring a carpenter (to cut a hole into the top) and a plumber (to retrofit a sink and plumbing). It required resourcefulness, planning, lots of time, and even more cash. The Fine Furniture Revolution The rethinking of bathroom designs came with the increasing availability of reasonably-priced middle and high-end vanity sink chests. With foreign imports driving down the cost and increasing the availability of fine furniture for every room in the home, builders and consumers began to consider investing more design dollars in the room guests very often visit -- the powder room. By choosing vanity styles to coincide with their home's overall design genre, consumers have driven expansion in the vanity/sink chest market that produced a bevy of elegant and affordable products. Ball and Claw traditional vanities, French Provincial style sink chests, and hand-painted and hand-carved furniture sinks -- the vanity market has truly embraced the realm of fine furniture. Never before have vanity choices been so plentiful or bathroom sink design concepts so broad. It's not the usual sink and cabinet combo anymore; it's a whole new ball game. A Statement Piece - A Statement Place Forget about Narcissus, and make your vanity a virtue. Let your vanity make a statement about you. Keep the New Yorker and Reader's Digest, for sure, but let your bathrooms tell more about you than just your literary preferences. Make a gorgeous vanity the focal point of your bath, and with a painted canvas work of art, some carefully contemplated accessories, and perhaps even a beautiful chandelier, allow the bathroom to complement your taste and your commitment to design throughout your home. Don't reflect too long before deciding it's time for a beautiful furniture vanity in your fine home. I promise you'll love yourself for it!
Kimberly Lawn is the founding partner of Great Rooms, unique home & garden decor and furniture. Great Rooms specializes in distinctive fine furniture for the bath and home.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Bathroom Design Ideas The Average Mom Would Like To See In Their Own Bathrooms
Attention to all you bathroom design specialists. If you really want to please all the moms when it comes to their bathrooms then get busy designing and marketing these wonderful ideas. As mom's we don't ask for a lot but a few of these suggestions could go a long way in keeping our happy families happy!!
Okay when it comes to mirrors I don't see why they can't make them tooth paste repellent. It seems like every morning and night when I go look in the bathroom mirror I see little specks of toothpaste. I am sure it would be much easier to design mirrors like this rather than to teach my family to brush their teeth with their mouth closed, or heaven forbid wipe off the toothpaste when they are done.
How about a water rail you can flip up on the tub when a toddler or younger child is playing in the tub. Lots of children like to play in the bath tub and some fill up containers of water to set on the edge (that sometimes get knocked over onto the floor). If you had a waterproof rail you could flip up it could keep all the toys, water, and waves in the tub and make things much simpler.
Now this one will be tougher to design, and maybe it is something that needs to be taught in school, I know I have had more success teaching new math, world history, and physics than I have in teaching my family how to consistently change the toilet paper roll when it is empty. But if a design could be invented to help make this happen in homes with children that would be an amazing invention. Maybe a buzzer should go off when it is empty and the doors automatically lock. The only way the buzzer stops or the door unlocks is when the old roll has been replaced with a new one. I don't know, this is one for the experts.
The last bathroom design ideas is the biggee. If inventors can invent vehicles that sense when something is getting to close when you are backing up and they can invent moisture sensing windshield wipers I see no reason why those two technologies cannot be combined into making a smart toilet. Can't all you mothers imagine how much more pleasant cleaning the bathroom would be if your toilet was equipped with those two technologies? If this ever becomes a mainstay in bathroom plumbing you can bet it will be a mom that invents it!
Tip! The first popular trend in bathroom design is increasing the size of the bathroom. New homeowners are seeking models with a large bathroom layout and existing homeowners are knocking down walls to increase space.
Robin Reckard, co-founder of Jorbins.com Lifestyle Magazine, keeps busy producing, writing, and editing for the magazine as well as raising and enjoying her six year old daughter.
Visit Jorbins Home Improvement and Decorating section to read more great articles about bathroom design and decor.
Copyright 2006, Jorbins Inc. - Reprints of this article can be made as long as the article is in it's entirety, unchanged, and the resource box with links and urls remain unchanged.
Okay when it comes to mirrors I don't see why they can't make them tooth paste repellent. It seems like every morning and night when I go look in the bathroom mirror I see little specks of toothpaste. I am sure it would be much easier to design mirrors like this rather than to teach my family to brush their teeth with their mouth closed, or heaven forbid wipe off the toothpaste when they are done.
How about a water rail you can flip up on the tub when a toddler or younger child is playing in the tub. Lots of children like to play in the bath tub and some fill up containers of water to set on the edge (that sometimes get knocked over onto the floor). If you had a waterproof rail you could flip up it could keep all the toys, water, and waves in the tub and make things much simpler.
Now this one will be tougher to design, and maybe it is something that needs to be taught in school, I know I have had more success teaching new math, world history, and physics than I have in teaching my family how to consistently change the toilet paper roll when it is empty. But if a design could be invented to help make this happen in homes with children that would be an amazing invention. Maybe a buzzer should go off when it is empty and the doors automatically lock. The only way the buzzer stops or the door unlocks is when the old roll has been replaced with a new one. I don't know, this is one for the experts.
The last bathroom design ideas is the biggee. If inventors can invent vehicles that sense when something is getting to close when you are backing up and they can invent moisture sensing windshield wipers I see no reason why those two technologies cannot be combined into making a smart toilet. Can't all you mothers imagine how much more pleasant cleaning the bathroom would be if your toilet was equipped with those two technologies? If this ever becomes a mainstay in bathroom plumbing you can bet it will be a mom that invents it!
Tip! The first popular trend in bathroom design is increasing the size of the bathroom. New homeowners are seeking models with a large bathroom layout and existing homeowners are knocking down walls to increase space.
Robin Reckard, co-founder of Jorbins.com Lifestyle Magazine, keeps busy producing, writing, and editing for the magazine as well as raising and enjoying her six year old daughter.
Visit Jorbins Home Improvement and Decorating section to read more great articles about bathroom design and decor.
Copyright 2006, Jorbins Inc. - Reprints of this article can be made as long as the article is in it's entirety, unchanged, and the resource box with links and urls remain unchanged.
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