Wash and Wear
Writer and stylist, Alexia Biggs, scouts for all that’s new in homewares and interiors. Her weekly page, The Source, can be found in Spectrum in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald.
First get the foundations right classic lines, quality fixtures and a neutral palette. Though white tiles are still the most in demand, bathroom design is now incorporating tiles placed in weaves and patterns that include circular and middle-eastern outlines, and we see fired earth ceramics in natural hues. Floor tiles are being used as large as possible, whilst wall tiles are being laid right to the ceiling throughout the whole room.
There's dedicated bathroom furniture with storage and other elements (think architectural fixtures such as integrated cabinets, shelves and basins), combined with occasional statement-piece furniture such as lounges, armchairs, tables and stools that help create a space in which to replenish and revive. Mirrors are oversized and free-standing.
Today it's about texture, pattern and a softer, less structured feel. Raw materials such as concrete and glass are contrasted with the softer textures of fabric and linen. Old-fashioned accessories such as apothecary glass jars and medicine cabinet vessels stacked onto exotic bone inlay trays, are matched with contemporary carrara marble bath accessories that balance timeless natural beauty with clean, contemporary style. Global pickings such as Turkish hand towels, natural sea sponges, pumice stones, and chunky extra olive oil soaps rest in bowls and dishes, or on roughly sawn wood bath caddies.
Oversized exotic bowls and natural, woven baskets contain everything from laundry to extra bathroom supplies and essentials.
Rooms are being dressed with plush, absorbent premium cotton towels in pewters, flax, and white colours that soothe and have that sophisticated hotel-like quality, pots of rich body cremes, and scented candles which imbue even the most modest of bathrooms with spa-like luxury.
It's all in the details, so splash out.