Bathroom: Going with the Flow

Many guests compulsively check the bathroom as soon as they walk in the room and nothing delights the heart more than a well proportioned, properly equipped and personalized bathroom that is attached with the room in the hotel

It is the bathroom that qualifies the room from being just functional to a place of luxurious repose.

However busy a day might be, the room of the hotel with its clean and soft bed is the personal haven a guest returns to. And the delights of the bathroom, the comfortable and often spacious bathtub is what marks out an ordinary room of a run of the mill hotel from that exceptional experience of a good soak in the bath, either running the day's events through your head or planning and plotting the next day's schedule.

The modern bathroom is a retreat throw in a takeaway menu and a bed and you wouldn't want to leave. Needless to say, bathrooms are getting a makeover. They are now emerging as the ultimate comfort zone. And in a high profile hotel, they are now an extension of the bedrooms with showers, soaking tubs, granite countertops and vanities, makeup lights over the vanities and artwork on the walls, to include the least.

There is new glitzy, digital technology available to jazz up the bathrooms. You can have tropical rain effect showers, waterproof plasma screens and sound systems powered by infrared.

 

The Looks

Natural stone for bathroom tiles is coming back. Natural is in for countertops, too. Some hotels are using a crystallized glass finish, a hard stone with natural stone chips, rather than granite. 

When the natural stone cost is too high, many hotels are choosing high-end porcelain tiles from Europe and Spain. Some have a grey or metallic wash or finish to them, which is going into contemporary products. Contemporary hotels also are trying more glass tiles, behind lavatories and in showers.

Using colour in a bathroom is a simple way to modernize the space. Even a room that is based on designs of the past can have a relevant place in contemporary design when colour is used.