Bathrooms are among the trickiest spaces in the house to design: they need to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing, offer plenty of storage and be able to withstand a fair amount of wear and tear. What’s more, they are often the smallest room in the house, making each of these things all the more difficult to perfect. We turn to the experts in bathroom design – those who create rooms ranging from traditional to contemporary – to find out what we should all be incorporating into our bathrooms now.
Natural shapes
Gone are the days of harsh, angular shapes in the bathroom. According to Alfie Guard, an in-house designer at multi-brand bathroom shop Ripples, ‘it’s all about softer, more natural shapes. We rarely sell square accessories or furniture anymore; people prefer pebble shaped mirrors and rounded, freestanding bathtubs and sinks’. Among these fluid, curved lines, a current favourite is the arch. A popular architectural motif, arches are now appearing in accessories and smaller details, such as shower screens, nooks and mirrors (one of Ripples’ most popular is The Oslo mirror from Origins Living). ‘An arch is a nice midpoint between square and round,’ explains Alfie. ‘It picks up on the angular shapes of radiators and tiles often found in a bathroom, but with a bit of an organic, soft curve’.
It’s not just the arch though: across the board curved lines are becoming a fast favourite. Over at C.P. Hart’s showroom in Waterloo, the latest collection from bathroom brand Buto, called ‘Galiano’, has rejected angles in favour of soft bends and fluted finishes. And if you find yourself in Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour be sure to take a look at the new, very enviable ‘Seros’ bathtub from Victoria + Albert, whose waved, anthropomorphic shape is designed for maximum relaxation (though it’s also very pleasing to look at).
A touch of craft
A recent trip to the Catchpole & Rye showroom on Fulham Road made one thing very clear: our love of craft and all things handmade certainly has a place in the bathroom. This was evidenced by its most recent launch, a marble-topped washbasin with geometric metal legs made using brass, nickel, chrome or copper. The metal elements of the basin are all hand finished by artisans in the company's workshop in Kent. The basin is named the ‘Charleston’ after the former house of Bloomsbury Group members Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and incorporated nods to Bell and Grant’s ethos, which, according to Catchpole & Rye founder Tony O’Donnell, was characterised by ‘bold, simplified forms as a reaction against sober Victorianism’.
If you’re after a quick artisanal addition to your bathroom (and can’t quite spring for a new sink), try a woven lampshade, like those from Matilda Goad & Co., a basket or a vintage rug, which makes a great alternative to a bathmat, and is a useful vehicle for pattern and colour.
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Soft lighting
Ask any interior designer what the most important element of a room is and most of them will say lighting. Good, flattering bathroom lighting, therefore, is crucial. Yet so often does the bright, white glow from an overhead spotlight leave the bathroom feeling like the coldest, most clinical room in the house. The answer, according to Alfie, is ambient lighting instead of directional. ‘We used to sell lots of pendants and wall lights, but now people want to create softer pools of light using shadow gaps (a strip light hidden discreetly in a recess, such as between the wall and the ceiling), and floor lights, which create more of an atmosphere in the room and feels less functional’.
In a similar vein, many interior designers like to use a couple of wall lanterns either side of the mirror, topped with a pretty lampshade which not only helps to bring a bit of a decorative embellishment to the space, but also provides a welcome alternative to the dreaded spotlight.
Brushed finishes
There seems to be a common thread emerging here and that is that none of us want our bathrooms to feel too stark. We want texture, movement, colour and warmth. One way that designers are doing this is through hardware such as taps, handles and metal finishes.
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A brushed-finish, which once upon a time was a popular counterpart to brass hardware but was rarely available for other metals, is now a widely available alternative for most metals, and acts as an antidote to the more done-up look created by polished hardware. Not only is this a more contemporary option, but, according to Alfie, it also is the more practical one too. ‘A brushed finish is a bit more forgiving’, he says. ‘You won’t see fingerprints as much on a piece of brushed metal and so it needs less cleaning’.
A mini-spa
A home spa is high on all of our fantasy bathroom wish lists, but it is unfortunately rather unattainable for most of us. A ‘mini-spa’, however, is perhaps within reach. ‘Not everyone has the space or means for a full spa in their home, but there are a few small changes you can make to emulate the experience of a spa’, says Yousef Mansuri, Director of Design at C.P. Hart. His suggestions include a small steam generator which sits discreetly within a stud wall of a shower, transforming it into your own miniature sauna. A rather smart one designed by Effe comes in either transparent glass or a ‘camouflage’ version, which can be clad in the same stone as the shower.
Another favourite among those who want to incorporate wellness into their bathrooms is a Sunshower unit, which looks a bit like a panel of light stuck onto the wall inside your shower, and projects a combination of infrared light and low-dose UV light. They are designed to give you a little boost of sunlight while you shower, which is suggested to have wonderful effects on our health, both mental and physical.
