By Home Ideas Editor, Tammy Crosby
When it comes time to designing your bathroom, you’ll want to create a space that complements your taste, style, needs and budget. A growing trend in master baths is to incorporate the same luxurious amenities found in fine hotels so homeowners can pamper themselves.
Start with adding some warmth to your bathroom design by incorporating simple upgrades like heated towel racks, radiant flooring and warming lamps.
A towel warmer is a great, affordable way to add a touch of luxury to your bath experience. There’s nothing better than the feeling of walking out of your shower on a cold, damp morning and wrapping yourself in a fluffy heated towel. And they’ll dry damp towels quickly so you can use them again right away, which cuts back on energy usage from operating your washer and dryer. They’ll even heat a small bathroom.
Would you like to heat your master bath floor? Now, you can do it for less than 16 cents per day, with radiant flooring. Programmable controls allow custom settings for different times of the day, turning off the floor when not needed. You can even zone your floor by installing individual, separate heating mats under your tile, stone or hardwood. Mats are flexible, easy to install and distribute heat evenly to eliminate cold spots. Nuheat® offers standard mats in 60 different sizes, which make them ideal for most bathroom layouts.
A great way to increase the value and appeal of your home is to use natural stone, porcelain or ceramic tiles in your shower. Natural stones like marble, granite and travertine remain favorites for creating a luxurious, spa-like experience, and have become more affordable due in part to competition from manufacturers of high-end ceramic and porcelain tile.
Another benefit to using stone and tiles vs. fiberglass in showers (besides appearance), is that they are extremely durable and can be easily repaired if one tile gets cracked.
You can create a spa shower by using a simple multi function rainshower showerhead or installing a full vertical spa system.