Time to get rough and ready in the bathroom with unexpected salvage
I’VE said it before, but we are braver design animals in the bathroom than anywhere else in the house.
With domestic ‘rough luxury’ determined as on trend for 2017 (decadent sophistication set against the conceit of ragged, aged walls and floors), there’s a rising tide of interest in the inclusion of raw, naturally distressed and repurposed materials in contemporary bathroom design.
Keep in mind this is designer dereliction — a distilled atmosphere not suggesting real ruination — it is silvered plate mirrors with a flattering soft reflection, oxidised metal panels sealed for safety and encasing a bath. It is soft, mute, more weathered vintage than antiqued out and it has a gentled Scandinavian look this year.
The structural bones of the building can be left proudly on show as part of the edge.
Exposed trusses cradled in metal braces and riveted plates, even revealed pipe-work and rugged plaster, bring all that glossy immaculate, perfectly performing bathroom ware into vivid focus.
The next time you wander around a salvage yard or eclectic auction, open yourself up to unexpected materials and vintage finds — reclaimed tiles for a harlequin splash-back or reclaimed brick or timber blocks to make a feature wall (left ‘in the paint’ and sealed as they are).
Scaffolding planks? Go straight to the galleries of Pinterest for counters, shelving and more in toffee soft timber.
For inspiration in visually roughing things up, look up bathroom and interiors images of the work of architect and designer Rabih Hage, including The Rough Luxe Hotel, in Camden, London, a hymn of praise to the tension of scrubbed, rusted and lightly decayed inclusions contrasted to silken comfort c 2008.
The G-Rough Hotel in Rome also marries glamour and bruised modernist architecture, g-rough.com. Take pictures of jaded textures and materials you find everywhere, even out walking, and show them to your architect or interior designer for their look book.
Putting mirror glass into an old steel window frame is safely up the walls, but be alert to the vulnerability of bare skin in a bathroom if you’re doing anything usual or off-standard.
Splinters, sharp edges, eccentric plumbing and slippery materials underfoot are intolerable and potentially dangerous. To dial back to a commercial solution look for character dark grey and black driftwood laminates in storage furniture and keep the room spare with a scheme on the grey side of neutral.
Take a look at shelving in Veronica Shaw or Pantry Bliss in reclaimed wood and hand threaded gun barrel steel from Irish makers Barrell & Gunn, from €154.50, barrellandgunn.com.
If your taste in bathroom ware remains with the classics, carefully chosen and sympathetically staged period pieces in the bathroom offer a timeless final finish.
Good examples of authentic Victorian and Art Deco suites and stately singles remain highly sought-after and consequently heavily reproduced in glittering perfection. Placed against everything from Italian marble to split slate or poured and honed concrete, old ceramic beauties can hold their own.
The top salvage yards in Ireland, offer quality reproduction alongside authentic pieces, reflecting consumer demand for period looks without period quirks.
Why install an old bath or basin at all, when you can probably source one awash with 21st century inclusions from standard tap and traps sizings to massaging jets? With a century past the prow, there are compromises with many antique baths — a fully reconditioned example can run from €1,000 for a solid Edwardian to €2,500 up for a French bateau or slipper.
Only buy a bath ‘as is’ if you have a direct line to a restorer. Water marks around the plug hole or a tide mark caused by rusty standing water or the use of a bath as a trough, are not unusual.
For all its beauty, cast iron is hard, cold and extremely heavy with a passenger aboard compared to acrylic or fibreglass. Ensure a structural engineer checks your joists if you don’t have concrete upper floors for your ancient vessel.
Light crazing is not unusual in old basins and you may have to tolerate a small chip or two in a raised apron, before sourcing the skills of an independent cabinetmaker to hold it up.
All this practicality can be confounded by one word: charm. These are quality survivors of the rough waters of demolition and years of redundant dry-docking.
There’s that metaphysical pull to the old, unique thing. Re-enamelled, the curves of a single or double ended roll-top remain exquisite. The imperfect exterior texture of blasted cast iron, left mottled for added interest, delivers a fascinating relief. Crazing (not cracks) in the porcelain basins can vie nicely with satin smooth glass, resin and laminate timber surfacing.
No foot, no horse, and in the case of a footed or pedestal bath, stable, level supports are vital.
Ensure there is no flaking to the surface of a tub and that reconditioned taps are in perfect working order (my advice would be to buy new where compatible taps are on offer unless the brassware is exceptional).
Choose a basin, bath and loo with similar lines from a single era, and if you do throw in a reproduction piece (for the love of God, no 1980s rope edges) study that the shade of white is a good marriage to your vintage pieces.
Ensure counters, storage and shelving can stand up to a humid atmosphere.
Recycling antique furniture, brown hardwood and painted pieces (primed wood topped with acrylic paint or water based oils) have a fair chance in a well ventilated bathroom where they are not repeatedly soaked down.
My money is on the range of Thomas Crapper ware, and yes you did read that correctly. Stocked at Wilsons Yard, Hillsborough, Co Down, the Crapper Washbasins on Stand (25” and 26”) are very pretty on their chrome tip-toes, and the complete high cistern WC sets a cheery hoot. wilsonsyard.com.
For Art Deco elegance (again wildly feted for 2017) the Twyford Clarice range from Sonas has angles without being fussed up. From €320 for pedestals and basins, sonasbathrooms.com.
Vintage suites
With 1970s and even 1980s kitsch in play, could you shake things up with a vintage coloured suite?
They remain a shade of all too recent embarrassment for most of us, and unlikely to wow the salvage market here in Ireland.
Still avocado, peach and even brown bathrooms do have a surprising and enthusiastic younger audience.
Specialist restorers HM James in the UK stocks, restores and sourcing tanks and tubs for every imaginable shade of obsolete bathroom, from harvest gold to mink, hmjames.co.uk.
If you are tearing out a better ceramic bathroom in a colour, ask the contractor to take some care, and before you dump it, test it in the classifieds under ‘retro’ for a couple of hundred euro.
Some dealers do carry a regular of coloured salvaged suites, including Macs Warehouse, Islandbridge, Dublin, macswarehouse.ie
Hot stuff
AquaReturn has a mechanism that stops water flowing from the tap until it has reached an optimal temperature.
Tired of running clean water down the drain as it cycles through to hot? Interested in saving up to 10,000 litres of water per person every year?
Fitting below a sink, including bathroom sinks, the new AquaReturn from Spanish designer Alfonso Cuervo-Arango, recirculates water around your water pipes until the desired temperature (35º) is reached.
To activate AquaReturn, simply turn the hot-water or mixer tap on, and then off, at one washbasin.
The appliance has a mechanism that stops water flowing from the tap until it has reached an optimal temperature. Once the water is hot enough, a beep will tell you that hot water is now available from any of the taps in the bathroom, so good for a His and Hers counter situation.
Yes, it’s beyond me too — sounds like a project for a real plumber. To find out more including comprehensive FAQs, go to the well-illustrated AquaReturn website.
AquaReturn gives 5% of its profits to charity (Cáritas). €297, aquareturn.com.
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