Decker Black - The Complete Guide to Bathrooms: Dazzling Upgrades & Hardworking Improvements You Can Do Yourself

The Complete Guide to

Updated 5th Edition

Dazzling Upgrades & Hardworking Improvements You Can Do Yourself

W ant to increase the value of your home? Remodel your bathroom. Renovating and updating a bathroom continues to be one of the best investments you can make in improving a home, in terms of resale price. But even more than the objective value, youll be making your life immeasurably more pleasant by adding comfort, efficiency, and a pleasing appearance to a room most homeowners use multiple times a day.

Although trends in bathroom design come and go more frequently than they do in any other room in the house, indicators of style and luxury remain the same. Even though the trend in tiles is toward more ornate, hand-painted surfaces, tiles themselves remain a go-to material in bathroom renovations. They are easy to install and easy to keep clean, look fantastic, and offer a mind-boggling number of options. Pick just about any color or pattern you can dream up, and choose a size that complements the room itself.

And tiles are just the tip of the iceberg of bathroom-design options.

These days, you can choose mirrors with built-in LED lighting (see ) and shower and bath fixtures that continue to evolve in both function and form.

Functionespecially function in service of comfort and convenienceis an ongoing focus of bathroom design. New showerheads with more comfortable grip handles are now widely offered in every finish and style that faucets are. Youll even find showerheads with built-in colored LED lights, to change up the look of the shower and indulge users in beneficial chromatherapy.

The story of bathroom design is not written in game-changing technological advances, but is more about modest improvements. Fairly recent innovations such as hands-free faucets are growing in popularity and subsequently being refined in design and function. The basic low-flow, water-conserving toilet remains the same, but you will find incremental changes that make your life easier, such as new self-cleaning toilets.

Nowhere are small changes having a bigger impact than in the growth and refinement of universal design elements. Universal design is all about accessibility for everyone, including the elderly, young children, and especially anyone with mobility and balance issues or disabilities. It used to be that features such as safety grab bars or a walk-in bath looked sterile and clinical. It was hard to find universal design accessories that had any real style. Thats no longer the case.

In todays marketplace, youll find many beautiful walk-in tubs. These are designed to be right at home in a luxury bathroom and give the homeowner a chance to build universal design elements into an upscale bathroom renovation. Put in an eye-catching walk-in soaking tub while youre young and agile, and the tub may well serve you right through your golden years. You can also pick from a range of grab bars in distinctive finishes to match just about any bathroom style, with flair that will complement other fixtures in the room.

All this adds up to one reality: these days, you can have exactly the bathroom function you want, in exactly the look you crave. Current bathroom fixtures, features, finishes, and accessories provide a perfect meeting of seamless, convenient function and beautiful, stylish form. All thats left is to sift through the options in the chapters that follow and get started on your own spa-worthy, accessible, and delightful new bathroom design.

T his is the golden age of mix-and-match elements in the bathroom. The range and selection of different features and fixtures for home bathrooms has never been greater. All those options present exciting designand functionalternatives for any homeowner who is looking to update his or her bathroom. But they can also represent a daunting number of confusing choices.

The gallery in the pages that follow will help you cut through the choices and hone down to just the features, appearances, and styles that make the most sense for you, your family, and your home. But more than that, this is a dream guide. Never considered the library look for your master bath? Now you can, without committing to the high-dollar cabinetry and dark colors it takes to create that look. Think a walk-in shower stall might be a better alternative to the cramped, shallow, four-foot bathtub in the guest bathroom? The pictures in the pages that follow should give a clear idea of how a walk-in shower stall could look in your space.

Even as you peruse some of the flashier fixtures in these photos, pay attention to the small details. Maybe youre not ready for a full-blown bathroom remodel, but you can still find the perfect faucet, mirror, or shelf to accent your current bathroom. After all, changing a bathrooms look doesnt necessarily mean gutting the room and starting from scratch.

Whatever the case, the diversity of styles, room sizes, features, and fixtures presented here should give you a wonderful starting point for planning your bathroom project. Then, its just a matter of rolling up your sleeves and getting to work.

Create a custom-built appearance with carefully selected cabinetry. The cabinets here are manufacturer produced, but with the inset door panels and incredible cove molding, they look like the work of a master craftsman. The gray color and marble vanity top are the perfect complements to the elegant and sophisticated storage features.

Combine functionality with sleek, streamlined, clutter-free panache by choosing European-styled fixtures and design elements. The blond flooring and wall-mounted vanity scream Scandinavia, and the urbane, upscale toilet and vessel sink reinforce that impression. Both the toilet and the vanity-sink combo can be mounted at a custom height to better accommodate a wheelchair user.