Home Design Find

No Comments »

Innovative Ways to Design Your Bathroom

Designing your bathroom not only adds a personal touch to your environment, but also increases the value of your home, if you ever plan to sell it. One of the most essential spaces in your house, where you spend time by yourself, the bathroom is often overlooked when it comes to personalization and design. Recent trends have directed focus to the bathroom, with design ideas and upgrade hacks. With a little help from professionals, some research and your own design preferences, you can transform your bathroom into a haven of personal comfort.

Things to consider

1. Finalizing your budget: Keeping in mind that the bathroom is probably the most used room in the house, it requires regular maintenance. So when you are setting up a budget for your bathroom design, it might involve a remodel as well. A remodel coupled with interior decoration proves to be more cost effective than financing the two projects separately. It also saves on time. Bathroom remodels could range anywhere between $2500 and $10,000, depending on how much you’re willing to spend.
2. Reading blogs: There are many blogs that review bathroom designs and trends. You will get a variety of design ideas from apps like Pinterest, which you can use in your bathroom. Explore different bathroom layouts, fixture ideas, design styles, colors and themes. Blogs often recommend professional designers and remodeling companies whom you could speak with.
3. Hiring a decorator: A professional decorator would be ideal, when you’re planning to redesign your bathroom. They take care of a lot of the grunt work, managing all your ideas, requirements and inputs, and delegating tasks to their team of designers. While this may be more expensive than a DIY project, it makes sense to invest this one time in a decorator so that your bathroom remodeling design ideas are executed well.
4. Sourcing materials: You can make a list along with your decorator, or by yourself, of all the design materials you will require, right from the tools required to break down walls to the kinds of tiles you’d want on your floor. Select bathroom fixtures like showerheads and faucets, wall tiles, towels and bathroom accessories, fittings and accents. Set aside a few days to find all the items on your list. Chances are, your decorator already knows where to purchase them.

Here are some design ideas you can take inspiration from:

1. Paint: Your bathroom wall decor can create quite an impact on the room and your state of mind, so painting the wall is a great way to set the tone for the entire bathroom’s design. There are different moisture-resistant wall paints available, with both glossy and matte finishes. You can pick light pastel tones for a cool, airy feel, or bright, rich colors for a splash of drama.

2. Lighting: Changing the lighting fixtures every few years is a good idea. And if you are changing them after a long time, it’s a good idea to upgrade the style as well. You go for bright mirror lights, cooler or warmer lighting, create a diffused light setting, or perhaps use twinkle lights from some extra coziness. LED lights are the best pick for energy-efficient lighting. You can always add a color filter of your choice. LED lights also make it easy on the pocket.

3. Tiles & Flooring: Depending on your budget and style preferences, the quality and quantity of tiles you need will vary. This may also determine whether the tiles are only for the floor or if they also go on walls and other parts of the bathroom. Tiles come in different shapes, sizes, textures and colors. You could go rustic with uneven natural stone or go elegant with marble. You could even go in between with ceramic. Your flooring should be durable, skid-proof and easy to clean. So when you are picking tile designs, consider functionality as well.

4. Hardware Upgrade: Upgrading the hardware like faucets, curtain rods, door handles, showerheads, towel bars and so on instantly elevates the look and feel of your bathroom. You can buy the latest showerheads which have more than one water pressure options. Faucets that produce hot and cold water immediately make for comfortable usage. Bathroom sinks can be a part of your design, with different shapes, sizes, colors and styles to choose from.

5. Storage: Consider providing for sufficient storage space in your bathroom, like drawers, cupboards, laundry bins or shelves. Depending on the amount of space you have to work with, you can choose a storage design that is space efficient, smart and functional. This takes care of clutter and gives space to move around. You could even consider putting your washer under the sink in your bathroom, if space and budget permit.

6. Art & Decor: Adorn walls with soothing pictures or paintings of your liking. You could even place small planters by the bathroom window or on the shelves, for some natural energy. Succulents are low maintenance, visually pleasing and easy to move around. Create an area for storing reading material, if reading is something you enjoy while having a warm soak in the tub.

No Comments »

Knitted Bricks Give New Life to a Forgotten Material

Young and innovative architecture firm Tropical Space in Vietnam shake up all the assumptions about dowdy old brick.

Termitary House in Da Nang City, Vietnam revolutionises how brick is used in buildings.

On the ground floor, directly inside the street entrance is the open plan living, cooking and dining area.

Leading out to a modest back courtyard, the brick is paired with generous bamboo french doors.

Although right on the street, there is a sense of privacy.

In their imaginative rethink, the architects envision brick knitted into a cooling screen for the ground floor living room.

The bright red brick is improbably paired with bamboo bookcases – and it works.

Even constructing a second floor, the knitted brick is used to create a breezy throughway for the most private rooms.

The same bamboo screen is used to conceal the street through the front door.

The multiple junctions between various treatments of brick creates graphic interest.

A double stairway is a gallery of knitted brick textures.

Altogether a rich and fascinating series of contrasts.

Along with the knitted brick screen wall, a screen door by the day bed also facilitates air flow.

The warmth of the brick is a real surprise.

Sunlight filters in from every wall.

In the double height central space an overhead skylight brings daylight down.

The result is an innovative and utterly porous house that is also completely private.

No Comments »

Sculptural Home for Art Collectors Includes Rooftop Pool

A three story home at Samosaguas on the outskirts of Madrid by A-cero Architects houses an art studio and pool on the top floor.

Who would suspect there is a reservoir-like swimming pool hiding in plain sight here at this sculptural entry suggesting natural stratified rock formation.

Yet almost the entire top floor, which also houses an art studio, is actually swimmable.

The architectural textured concrete swoop that appears to be pure art also conceals the swimmers from the street.

When lit from below, there is a hint of the very large scale of this body of water.

Housing a second children’s indoor pool inside, the exterior of the top floors is textured horizontally in the concrete formwork to appear like natural stratified rock.

The shapes of these swooping elements when reflected in the pool are pretty out there!

The shape of the house is highly unusual, but it is not quite as sci-fi looking as the reflection in the top floor pool suggests!

The home is designed to house a stunning art collection.

The beautiful swoop shape of the pool is repeated to very elegantly contain a different element – not water but fire.

Art fills the hallways and public spaces of the home.

To present the art in a gallery-like neutrality, huge white ceramic tiles are used throughout.

The sense of a gallery is reinforced by large expanses of white on the ground floor.

Even the furnishings like this dining table are conceived as art objects within the space.

When not in use, the dining room table and chairs closes up into a pure box shape.

Even the tiniest children get starter art in their own way.

The architects designed some of the exterior forms for repetition inside.

In this way, the very sculptural forms of the building exterior are continued seamlessly inside.

Custom-designed kitchen chairs slide under a cantilevered section of the kitchen prep zone.

The shape is repeated in the bedroom to create a sleeping platform.

From the stunning art collection on the lowest level, one can walk out to a nearby lake.

Looking back from here one really appreciates the choice of materials and shape which stacks naturally like a stratified rock formation, in complete harmony with the landscape.