Design Your Bathroom

Mix and Match Bathroom Suites for Eclectic Style

If you’re fed up of being sold matching sets for your home and want to break the mould, step away from the norm, and create a bathroom to your own tastes – don’t be scared!

Eclectic style is increasingly popular in bathrooms: designers are aiming here for a cohesive look, concentrating on colour, texture and/or shape to bring a style theme to a room. Coordination is avoided, however: matching ranges of furniture or sanitaryware are not looked upon favourably and you should choose from a range of
bathroom suites
or other furniture. If you feel this may be your look, read on…

Budding interior designers will have the confidence in their own vision to go their own way – but if this is your first time, it’s ok to take baby steps.

1. Choose pieces that complement each other. They don’t have to ‘go’ and they don’t have to have the same detailing – they just need to look right. So a close coupled toilet with a modern push button and a period style washstand aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive – choose a toilet that has some detailing on it, some edging on the cistern or round the base, that gives a nod back to the past. This will bring the piece in line with your traditionally styled washstand enough to look good. You don’t need to go the whole hog and spend a fortune on a toilet with a high-level cistern and pull chain.

2. The exception can prove the rule. You can put a traditional claw-footed cast iron bath in the centre of a defiantly contemporary bathroom – doing something like this plays with our preconceived notions about what is ‘right’ and looks all the better for it. Don’t go over the top, though: adding a different style to your room with every piece of bathroom furniture and sanitaryware you install will leave you with a room that looks as if it was designed by a committee.

3. If you’re not buying all your sanitaryware from the same range, don’t pick from ranges that are too similar. Buying two pieces of bathroom furniture that differ only slightly makes it look like you made a mistake when you placed the order; choosing styles or finishes that are obviously different means you’re making a statement.

4. Don’t feel you have to buy everything from new. Visiting auctions and second hand outlets means that your bathroom fittings will have their own style and history. If you choose items that you love, they’re more likely to look good together. Take photos of items you already have with you when you shop, to remind you of any style details and shades of colour that you might otherwise remember wrongly.

Helen Davies is a senior content writer for
Better Bathrooms
.

Creating Your Living Bathroom; Experiencing the Benefits of Hydrotherapy

Our House $9.99 A companion title to Majesco’s Our House: Party! for Wii, Our House for Nintendo DS is the only home building simulation available that lets players build and furnish the home of their dreams by completing home improvement contracts. Plan, design, build, remodel and decorate client residences, then use your earnings to construct and furnish your own home sweet home!Features include: •Keep tra…

Home Design 3D: Kitchen And Bath Edition $3.70 Home Design 3D lets you plan, design and visualise your dreamhome in photorealistic 3D. Simply place walls, doors, windows etc inthe 2D plan and view these in an interactive 3D environment. Designthe look and feel of your kitchen and bathroom with a combination ofobjects, colors, materials and styles.Features include: •2D plans to 3D models in a single clickEasy-to use interface for planning …

Candice Olson on Design: Inspiration and Ideas for Your Home $6.98 Candice’s fresh, honest approach to design shows readers how to create rooms that are beautiful and functional, perfectly geared to what they love and how they live.With her trademark humor and sense of fun, Candice shares design secrets, smart tips, and practical advice to help readers plan and execute successful room makeovers.24 dramatic before-and-after room transformations reinvent li…

Home Quick Planner: Reusable, Peel & Stick Furniture & Architectural Symbols $15.97 Be Your Own Designer – with reusable peel-and-stick furniture and architectural symbols! — Design your own home decorating, remodeling and building projects with 700 precut, 1/4″ scale, reusable pell-and-stick furniture and architectural symbols for every room in the house! — There are symbols for everything you need-from tables, chairs, couches, beds, desks and pianos to every standard kitchen …

Pottery Barn Living Rooms (Pottery Barn Design Library) $13.84 The traditional living room has increasingly given way to the idea of a “great room”–a space adaptable enough to entertain guests, encourage playful children, provide a comfortable place to view videos, and, yes, even accommodate the solitary reader. Pottery Barn Living Rooms leads such a reader through the basic issues and specific choices available to anyone wanting to re-do an existing space o…

Create Your Own Future $18.95 (270-page hard-cover book) How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success In this fast-moving book, full of practical, proven strategies and techniques for greater achievement, Brian Tracy explains the 12 factors that underlie success in every field.

Getting Rich Your Own Way $16.95 Achieve all your financial goals faster than you ever thought possible with this comprehensive wealth building book. From start to finish you’ll learn real-world principals for achieving the financial independence you’ve been dreaming of–no matter what you do or how little you have in the bank. And to further demonstrate the power of these principals, you’ll read real stories from people who started with nothing…but by using these same ideas took their wealth to incredible heights. Read how to accumulate and protect your wealth over the long term, and create a personal network of values and beliefs that support lasting success.

Make Your Own iPad 2 Custom Skin $39.99 You can upload your own image and add text to customize your own iPad 2 skin. Features : Premium and long-lasting protective film. Protects the back of your iPad from dirt and scratches. Easy to apply and bubble free. Leaves no residue on your iPad when removed.