What is a bathroom?

What is a bathroom?

What is a bathroom? It really fulfils more functions that you might think. In some homes it doubles as utility room and boot room, or even a coat and shoe store. In others it has as much thought behind its design as any sitting room, and is dressed for maximum visual appeal.

Clearly, the first function of a bathroom is to provide a loo and somewhere to wash; the essential building blocks around which the room is conceived. Given that most homes didn’t get an indoor bathroom until the 1930’s, and then were not redecorated for another 20 or 30 years, our image of ‘older’ bathrooms often falls into these two eras. The first a slightly deco inspired space in black and white with maybe a hint of jade green. The second era a warmer brown and yellow space, with accents like cork tiling, avocado coloured suite and tiles in flower designs.

This utilitarian finish of the 30’s still holds much appeal today. When designing new additions for our bathroom collection we therefore looked back to this time of pared back functionality for inspiration. Often a room with this kind of look would be described as having an industrial style or feel. A simple aesthetic with form following function. We’ve juiced it up a bit this time though like in the image below.

Smithfield in Lemon Squeezy

By using panelling and wallpaper, this bathroom has a number of tactile elements to soften the overall feel, with the lovely basin being from our Smithfield series. Supplied in white, the Smithfield’s underside is in a matt finish available for painting on site in the client’s colour choice.

The same basin can be mounted on a stand from our collection to create a look that is even more reminiscent of a butler’s pantry. The stand is in powder coated black, and is complemented by the geometric layout of the wall tiling and the blush pink hue from the Claybrook paint portfolio.

Smithfield Basin and Washstand Smithfield Basin and Washstand with Smithfield Swan Neck tap and Spitalfields Mirror (Semaphore Hunley tiles, East Haven Marble and Kate Blush paint)

Heating of towels comes courtesy of our new collection of rails designed in both classic and more innovative shapes, as well as varying sizes. Gone are the days of an electric wall mounted bar heater poised to drop into the bath with a snap and sizzle. Although the rails are not the main intended heat source for larger bathrooms, they can often be sufficient to keep smaller bathrooms quite snug, as well as providing that enveloping towel warmth after a shower or bath.

Heated Towel RailsShelby Leaning Ladder heated towel rail

Bathrooms with an eclectic mix of older styles combined with fresh new colours and patterns will be a theme for a few years yet, so we will continue to design more statement-making pieces over the coming months.