So you’ve splurged a few thousand of your hard-won dollars on an extremely stylish bathroom at last. That unsightly old suite is in the landfill site and you’ll never have to never have to use that terrible mirror again. What a step forward you’ve made! But for all its elegantly sculpted lines and gorgeous taps, it might still feel that something in the details is wrong. If so, it’s probably because you haven’t thought about your bathroom accessories.
But what do we mean by bathroom accessories? Well, this is the catch-all term for the little things that add practicality to your bathroom. Soap dishes. Robe hooks. Shaving mirrors. Toilet brush holders. All things that you need to make your bathroom usefully functional on a day to day basis. Because of their humble nature, these are things that often get overlooked when people are planning and designing their bathroom. Seduced by the swooping curves of the new bathroom suite, it’s difficult to get excited about a dressing gown holder.
However, the bathroom’s overall look is greatly affected by these things. A beautiful bathtub won’t look quite so nice with a shoddy soap basket balanced on it. And if your units are clean and elegant, they won’t appear anything like as cool if your sponge is kept in a piece of bland crockery.
So what should you look for when picking out those all-important bathroom accessories? Maybe the obvious defining factor is the colour. You might think it too obvious to point out, but the bath manufacturers don’t get involved in the whole accessories side of the business. So unless you’re buying pure white, you might find it hard to get a properly complimentary colour. Metals are even more important. Gold accessories should be used where you have gold fittings. It’s so common to come across a lovely bathroom with gold taps, where the look has been shattered with the needless addition of a silver soap dish.
Aside from the immediate issue of colour, there’s the general ‘style’ of the items you’re buying. If your bathroom suite is very modern, with clean unfussy lines and minimal frippery, then don’t buy accessories that are ‘olde-worlde’ such as ornately styled towel rails. The two simply don’t work together and can ruin the overall look.
In the end, there’s the actual functional need the accessory has to perform. You might be tempted to skimp on a dish for your soap, but bear in mind that should it fail to hold the soap properly you’ll end up with runny streaks down the side of your bathtub before you know it. Your toilet brush isn’t just an object you put there to let people know that you are a a leading light in matters of taste while they use the toilet – it has unsavoury but necessary uses, so don’t just think about what it will look like. All that functionality has to be backed up by durability. If you buy accessories that match, only to find that your towel rail breaks within weeks then you might have to buy a whole different set.
In summary, buying bathroom accessories is not a thing you should approach as anything less important than the care you took choosing your bathroom suite. But should you make the right choices, you’ll end up with the perfect bathroom suite.
I’ve been fascinated with bathroom accessories ever since I blew the thick end of £8000 on a suite and watched it get ruined by a leaking soap dispenser that I couldn’t replace like for like. It might seem a strange place to start a crusade, but that’s where we are 🙂
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