Designing your Dream Bathroom

Designing your Dream Bathroom

Design experts share their top considerations

While we need our bathrooms to be a practical space, they also hold an emotional function – it's the place where we put ourselves together to face the day, and for many it's where we go to escape the world and relax as well. When designing a dream bathroom, whether undertaking a complete home renovation, or replacing bathroom fixtures to update the look, the latest tips from leading design experts can help narrow down those difficult decisions.

"Although your bathroom may be the smallest room in the house, it can also be the most complicated to create or remodel," says Andy Grigor, Head of Design and Innovation at Methven. "The design needs to accommodate all your bathroom activities as well as creating the look you desire. However, it does not to cost the earth with a well thought through design. Just knowing the defining features that make a bathroom feel luxurious and incorporating them in your design will achieve an amazing result."

"Everyone has different needs, budgets, values and personal styles they want reflected in their bathroom. When choosing bathroom fixtures and fittings, we would like you to consider three simple rules, being feeling, function and form. To help homeowners and renovators think about what you want from your fixtures, and your wider bathroom design."

"The feeling rule is considering how you want your finished bathroom to feel. Relaxing, fresh and welcoming? Modern and minimalist, or with some Hamptons detailed charm, and how this will fit in with the rest of your home," says Andy. The basin mixer is typically the hero of your tapware collection. Once you are happy with this choice, select your shower and bathroom accessories with complimentary shapes to complete your bathroom and create a cohesive look. Choosing versatile tapware such as Methven's Waipori Basin Mixer can suit a number of different styles from industrial through to modern.

"You need to get specific on how your bathroom will function. While this includes practicalities such as bath or no bath, it's also about the different functions your bathroom could perform during the course of a day – such as a place to move through quickly on your way to work in the morning, or the ability to become a relaxing zone when you take a soak in the tub." The Tūroa product collection, featuring tapware, showers and accessories by Methven, offers clean lines and an architectural aesthetic.

"And finally, form is deciding on the materials and textures you like to create the style you are after. Bring your personal style to play within the functional framework you've developed." While sharp, geometric forms have ruled interior spaces in the past couple of years, design trends are now shifting toward soft curves, and rounded edges. This trend inspires the feeling of comfort and encompasses a sense of welcome.

To create a high-end bathroom look, choose classic styles and a simple colour pallet, particularly with tiles and elements which are more complex & therefore costly to change. Spend your time on getting the layout and functionality of your bathroom right, supported by quality fittings you can rely on for years.

A great example of an integrated bathroom design that will stand the test of time well into the future is Sarah Waller Architecture's project called, The Tannum Sands Beach House. The design and style of the house has achieved a sense of timeless modernism in a relaxed and elegant way.

Located in the small coastal town of Tannum Sands on the Central East Coast of Queensland, the external architecture comprises of timeless, crisp features which are offset against the stunning natural backdrop of the beachfront location. Internally, the modern aesthetic takes on a slightly more industrial feel with a textural off-form concrete wall and black steel entry framework.

The minimal monochrome style is continued through the house with black tapware, a matt black vanity and black feature tiles which are offset against the crisp white walls and bathware. The space adopts a 'less-is-more' approach, and like the rest of the house has a sense of calmness throughout with neutral tones and a clean, paired-back aesthetic, whilst also exuding a sense of modern elegance.

"In keeping with the resort-style design philosophy, each of the bathrooms in the home are private relaxing spaces. They have the vibe of a luxury hotel – I wanted each bathroom to be a place to unwind after a busy day," says Sarah. "The shower is particularly important in my designs. I chose Methven's Aurajet Aio showers for every bathroom because apart from it being stylish, innovative and easy to clean, it's also extremely high performance delivering an invigorating shower experience."

Methven products are available through Bunnings Warehouse, Reece and plumbing stores and showrooms nation-wide. For more information, please got to www.methven.com