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Creating a safer bath
Bathrooms make a splash with high-tech luxury
Upscale baths take their cues from plush hotels
Rethinking bathroom surfaces
Goodbye Whirlpool Tub
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Upscale baths take their cues from plush hotels
Bringing luxury home
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When luxury bathroom designer Mary Bell sets up her first client meeting, she tells them to bring pictures of what they want. While styles and finishes vary from one client to the next, their ideas seem to come from just one place. "About 90 percent of my clients bring me pictures of baths in luxury hotels,"says Bell, who is the founder and president of BellReed Designs in Houston.
On the surface, homeowners may think they're responding to architectural style they like or an invigorating shower they once used, but what they're really trying to do is to capture that luxury hotel sense of relaxation. "It's the get-away factor,"says Jennifer Nawracaj, director of project management and design services for Accolade Construction Group in Manhattan. "They want the pristine feel of a hotel, designed to make you feel special and pampered."
Baths are now central elements of defining a hotel's brand, not just utilitarian spaces, says Maria P. Arango, department leader for the sanitary division of Corona, the international parent company of Mansfield Plumbing. Her department works with hotels around the world. "Hotels never used to put a picture of their bathroom in their brochures, but they do now,"Arango says. "They're paying a lot more attention to the details.”
Those details translate into a host of options that builders can offer as upgrades. Model merchandising ideas for the master bath should resonate with a generation of home buyers who are well-traveled and well-read. Design trends from upscale hotels include:
- Sophisticated vanities with contemporary styling, with granite countertops and undermount sinks or vessel sinks.
- Soothing upscale colors, such as whites, grays, browns and greens. They invoke a spa-like feel, says Denver-based interior designer Angela Haney, president of Trio Interiors.
- Natural stone or travertine marble. These have replaced the institutional white tile on floors. Stone and tile also go from floor to ceiling on shower walls, and feature shelves, ledges and niches for candles, towels and spa goodies.
- Better lighting and controls. Dimmer switches to create the mood of a soothing retreat or switch to warm natural light for applying makeup, or wall sconces on either side of upscale mirrors for accent lighting.
- Upgraded finish packages. Touches such as brushed chrome, oil-rubbed bronze or polished nickel can really dial up the elegance in a bath. "A polished nickel faucet looks like a piece of jewelry,"says Bell, who recommends the ShowHouse by Moen® line to clients because all the fixtures come in a package — ensuring that all elements work together and coordinate with faucets and other fixtures. "It makes it easy to show to a client,"she says.
And while garden tubs and separate showers once were a given in master baths, builders now need look no further than the hospitality industry to find tubs completely replaced by spacious, walk-in showers with glass walls instead of shower curtains. "There is more and more migration toward showers,"Arango points out. "I visited Mexico City recently and stayed at a brand-new property. All the rooms had only showers."
Now, if you could only offer room service to make homeowners feel like they're at a hotel in their own baths.
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