Bathrooms

I've just been looking at pictures of bathrooms. This is all Fine Homebuilding's fault.

The last issue of FH had an interesting article about a company that prefabricates houses, building them in sections that are then fitted together on a job site. I have never really thought too much about a prefab as the kind of house we'd want, but looking at this stuff made me think again -- and then to think a little about the design of rooms, and in particular bathrooms.

It seems to me that most people (even the person that I am related to who is quite wealthy) have basic bathrooms -- the usual devices, varying only in the elegance of the walls and such. No one has bathrooms like the ones that show up in design journals, intended to be 'luxurious home spas, redolent of scented air and with lushly growing greenery'. They're rooms for going in, doing the necessary, and thats it. The most that anyone uses the room for, at length, is to lie and soak, perhaps reading while they do it.

When we build a house -- if we build a house -- I'd like it to be more than that, but not a lot more. I want it to work well, and I don't care if it doesn't win any design awards. Its okay with me if the cabinetry doesn't look like fine woods (though the cabinets in two of our bathrooms do, it's not necessary, and they were, thank you, Woodmode, way too expensive). The lighting doesn't have to be from a fine crystal chandelier (it can be a chandelier, but the chandelier will be glass or plastic, not exquisite crystal). And much as I like the images of the Kohler all-in-one saunas (they use much more evocative phrases), I can't see myself using such a thing. Somebody else wants to fund one, fine with me. The water coming into the tub doesn't have to tumble down a rocky glen, or arc in a shimmery spray, it just has to be copious and quick.

So, here's what I want.

Lots of warm water, quickly -- to the point that I'd consider putting in a separate water heater just for the bathroom(s).

Easy access to the tub -- no stepstools, no step-over-the-wide-ledge to get in.

Big tub. Big sink, too.

Television, preferably with a DVD or video feed (though I think the feed ought to come from another room, with remote control.)

Lots of storage - and nothing stored over the john (I've never dropped anything in, but I've come close.)

Lots of light.

Non skid floor. Heated would be nice.

Window near the tub, but not for public displays -- high up on the wall.

Comfortable feeling.

Okay, that should do it.

One more thing, not directly related -- big, fluffy towels. Lots of them.