How to make a statement bathroom

Luke solutions questions on design and trendy dwelling. Electronic mail him yours at lukeedward.hall@ft.com and observe him on Instagram @lukeedwardhall

In the summer season, we visited a pal in Somerset who has a form of darkish, quasi Moroccan-themed lavatory. It has inky partitions, a hammered copper sink, Moorish lanterns and an ornate mirror. I liked it however my spouse hated it. How would you make an announcement with a visitor lavatory?

I’m afraid to say I can be taking your spouse’s aspect. I’ve nothing towards rooms that commemorate concepts from different cultures, if executed effectively. I somewhat like Moorish lanterns when used as ceiling lights, if they’re of excellent high quality (there are various low-cost and nasty ones).

I like a very good theme sometimes too, however usually I discover the idea a bit dated. Until you’re truly within the place you’re referencing, I counsel selecting and mixing concepts.

I keep in mind visiting a home within the Scottish Highlands whose lavatory was adorned in a up to date banana-leaf wallpaper. I used to be torn as a result of on one hand, I approve of making one’s personal fantasy and forgetting guidelines, however on the opposite, it utterly jarred with the home’s age and thus didn’t actually work for me.

I’m not saying it ought to have been tartan wallpaper or nothing, however I do consider one ought to think about and take inspiration from one’s environment, to some extent.

So the place else to search for lavatory inspiration? I wrote about my love for the inside decorator Syrie Maugham again in late August. Within the Thirties, Maugham adorned a Georgian townhouse for Helen and George Hay Whigham: its luxurious tub/dressing room, together with the main bedroom, took up your entire second flooring of the home.

It has develop into a favorite room of mine, with its mirrored classical pilasters surrounding a sky-blue bathtub, chrome fire and white fluffy rugs. The general impact is strikingly fashionable and stylish: pure movie set. The Duchess of Argyll was reported to have stated that the room was so glamorous she might have held a cocktail get together in there.

Talking of vibrant bathtubs, I employed an analogous trick when adorning Hotel Les Deux Gares in Paris lately. Impressed by bogs of the Twenties and Thirties, I tracked down a producer of pastel-coloured bogs, sinks and bathtubs within the UK. The Daring Toilet Firm makes fantastic Artwork Deco and Edwardian-style fixtures.

I mixed pale blue, pink and pistachio-green bogs and sinks (though not in the identical room) with a monochrome tiled flooring and chrome pillar wall lights. These bogs received’t be for everybody, however I’m hoping they could put a smile on company’ faces. Maybe we’ve all seen sufficient cookie-cutter resort bogs dripping in costly white marble?

Mirrored partitions and a pink bathtub could possibly be too daring, I admit, though seeing as we’re discussing a visitor lavatory, why not create a enjoyable sanctuary for guests? Wallpaper is at all times a good suggestion for making an announcement.

The lavatory at inside designer Rita Konig’s farm in County Durham is an efficient working example, having been adorned in Le Manach’s placing Pommes de Pin wallpaper in celadon, out there from Pierre Frey.

One other designer recognized for her daring bogs is my pal Rachel Chudley. In an Islington townhouse, she hung an Alexander Calder-esque cell above a shower, and in her personal east London house, the bathtub is sunken right into a picket encompass, giving the room a decadent, luxurious feeling.

Considered one of hers I like is a cobalt-blue bathroom with tongue-and-groove panelling and Lioness & Palms wallpaper from CommonRoom. This 1918 design is by CFA Voysey and was based mostly on a watercolour drawing within the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Contemplate unconventional lighting: I’m an enormous fan of the Coral Wall Lights made by Balineum with plaster artist Viola Lanari (pictured under). Made in resin, these are available in six colors, however customized colors may be ordered too.

I’m glad you want to make an announcement, as a result of I reckon visitor bogs ought to be uplifting and shocking. One jumped out at me from a 1995 concern of The World of Interiors lately, belonging to the designer Colin Childerley and that includes multicoloured tiles organized in a random sample and a prison-like metal sink. It’s easy, surprising and show-stopping. What extra might you ask for?

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