5 Brilliant Small Bathroom Layouts That Work in Any Home
CalFinder Blog
“It goes without saying: a bathroom is an important place in the house. The bathroom provides a huge percentage of your home’s functionality—and has to look great for when guests are over. But remodeling a small bathroom can be especially tough. You want a shower-with-vanity set-up, but limited space doesn’t seem to allow for that without feeling cramped. Well. Here are some bathroom ideas that make everything work, and with great style.”

Top Before and Afters of 2011
Hooked on Houses
Yes, we know — we’re 5 weeks past the New Year. But still, these are some great-looking projects. Too good to not share.

Imperfections Make It Perfect
Remodeling Guy
“But the thing that really made me stare for awhile was the authenticity of this look. It’s not easy for most people to pull-off. I’ll give you the secret… Mess Up On Purpose! I’ve built rooms like this and one of the biggest challenges, yet most important requirements, is to get the carpenters to go against their training.”

8 Colors for South-Facing Rooms
Houzz.com
“In many homes, the south-facing room is the sunniest spot in the house because windows that face south receive the most direct sunlight throughout the year. These sun-drenched spaces are warm and well-lit during the day which can be a blessing in the winter, but it can also be too much of good thing. South-facing rooms sometimes benefit from a drop in visual temperature. The best way to accomplish this is by using cool colors.”

Many cultures consider hospitality to be a sacred obligation. We all want to treat our guests well, but sometimes things fall through the cracks. It’s especially difficult when you have guests staying overnight or longer.

The ever-helpful House Beautiful offers some tips about “What Your Houseguests Won’t Tell You” that are awesome. Check them out, and here are some more from us.

If there’s anything about your bathroom that your guests need to know, just tell them. There’s no need to be delicate. If you have a septic system that doesn’t allow most things to be flushed, let your guests know. Put up small signs in the bathroom as well — it’s always helpful to have a reminder. Likewise, if the handle needs to be held down until the toilet is done flushing, the bathroom door knob needs to be jiggled to the left to lock, or the shower needs to run for a minute before there’s any kind of water pressure, don’t leave your guests guessing.

Sleep in your guestroom! You can do this when your room is being painted, but you should spend a night in there every so often — at least every six months and preferably quarterly. How else are you to know that the box spring squeaks when you turn over, or the bar on the sofa bed digs into your back, or that the radiator goes crazy at midnight and heats the room to 90 degrees? Don’t depend on your guests telling you; they’ll probably be too polite.

Ask about dietary needs. Providing meals for a vegetarian or someone with a gluten allergy might seem daunting at first, but most people want to help you out with food shopping and prep. And of course, you as a good host don’t want your guests to be hungry. Nothing ruins a visit faster than growling stomachs!

What are your tips for being a good host and making your guests comfortable?

Display Inspiration: Art in the Bathroom
Apartment Therapy
Prettify your potty with these ideas from Apartment Therapy.

5 Things To Consider When Buying A New Mattress
Charles and Hudson
“Here’s a few tips we picked up during the shopping and purchase process, and I thought I’d share them with you so that you, too, can enjoy a blissful night’s sleep and wake up with the energy to tackle your list of DIY projects.”

Engine Table 
Design Milk
“Currently on display at Decoratum Gallery in London, the Cylinder Radial Engine Table is made from a US Army Boeing-Stearman PT-13 engine acquired from the Canadian Museum of Flight, Langley, British Columbia. Constructed between 1936 and 1938, the innovative piece features a simple clear glass top so you can see through to the complex engine workings below.”

Two Ways to Reinvent a Serving Tray
Shelter Pop
Watch this video about reinventing or creating a serving tray!

DIY: Gemstone Cabinet Knobs
Casa Sugar
“Two decorating secrets in updating a kitchen on a dime are to change the color of the walls with a fresh coat of paint, and swap out dated cabinet knobs with new ones. In my kitchen, you don’t have to do the tedious task of unscrewing each knob to give them a fresh look. Upcycle your old knobs with a colorful collection of geodes, sea glass, or minerals and ultrapowerful glue.”

Here are a few cool products we’ve seen featured around the blogosphere. Share some of your recent favorites in the comments below!

The Pebble Collection from Karim Rashid (via Design Milk): Karim’s at it again with a fun new Post-It dispenser for 3M.

Want a super sleek-looking toilet or just want to save some space? Geberit’s tank goes inside the wall! (via Re-nest)

If you want a modern-looking garden, then you’ll like Terra Trellis’s cool shapes! (via Dwell)

The bathroom is probably the only room in the house that you absolutely can’t get along without. In addition to its practical uses, it has also become a sanctuary and haven from the busy world and some people prefer it to be as spa-like as possible.

For those reasons, the bathroom has a tendency to be one of the top items on a homeowner’s remodeling wish list. CalFinder has covered some ideas for when you want a bathroom upgrade but are short on cash. Here are a few of their ideas we especially like, and you can check out the rest of the post here.

• Try a quick fix: Maybe a coat of sky-blue paint on your white walls will give it that serene feeling you’ve been craving. And if it doesn’t? Then you can always look at more spendy ways to reach your goal.
• Leave some jobs to the pros: Plumbers know plumbing and electricians know electricity. Do you really want to deal with an exploding toilet because your knowledge of pipes is rudimentary? No matter how cheap your bathroom remodel is, save some money to hire experts for certain parts of the job.
• Reface the cabinets you already have–far less expensive than getting them entirely replaced!

Home design and decorating website DigsDigs does a great job of digging up some of the greatest finds in the world of modern design, interior decor and architecture. If you’re interested in modern style, you could spend hours clicking through the site’s many categories and photos and blog posts.

Today, though, we’re going to focus on just one small segment of DigsDigs’ modern tastes, sharing some highlights of the site’s finds in for the bathroom. Specifically, we wanted to share some of the great modern tubs and showers the site has featured.

For starters, check out this shower and bath combo from Twinline2. It’s certainly stylish, but it also deploys a rather simple element of universal design: a full-length door that eliminates the need to step over the high tub wall, a common cause of bathroom accident.

This freestanding oval-shaped tub from Castello certainly looks elegant, but that’s arguably more due to the color — sleek, shiny black — than the shape. As DigsDigs writes, “Black bathtubs always look very elegant and refined. Such bathtubs attract an attention and make people to dream about bathing in them.”

For fun, here’s a rather similar tub in bright, bold red, and another made of wood but with a pattern that makes it look like black marble.

This white tub with a wood “skirt” does a great job of marrying sleek, modern elegance with a more traditional (by way of the wood) feel that’d fit just about anywhere.

Speaking of wood tubs, here’s something from the funkier side: a wardrobe combined with a bathtub. DigsDigs explains: “Thanks to the specially designed joints that expand when they become wet the bath closet remains fully watertight. The wood, taken from a single larch tree, can be used in combination with water and gives out a pleasing pine aroma when the bath is filled.”

Could you ever see yourself using something like this?

Thanks to DigsDigs for digging up all of this great stuff!

While perusing the latest news on Apartment Therapy, we saw their beautiful slideshow of cool bathrooms. You should check it out! One picture in particular captivated us:

It’s a modern and chic take onthe bathroom, with what appears to be slate floors and walls, lots of natural light and a monochromatic look accentuated with pops of color.

But it’s the bath-shower that really draws attention. We love the curved showerhead that allows water to pour down like a waterfall and we especially love the sunken tub. It makes the bathroom look 10 times bigger. The eye barely registers that it is a tub-shower combination.

The one thing we wonder though: Is it safe? Without any (visible) handrails, could stepping down into the tub be more of a falling risk? What do you think? Is a sunken tub-shower combination a fresh new look for the bathroom?

Ah, the great outdoors. There’s nothing like spending time outside, including — bathroom time? That’s right, there is such a thing as an outdoor bathroom (and no, we don’t mean a porta-potty). You’ve heard of fabulous outdoor kitchens to take your alfresco dining beyond grilling, or even outdoor showers, but have you can also expand your outdoor living to bathrooms?

Apartment Therapy recently featured some gorgeous outdoor bathrooms, and we have included two of our favorites below. It’s a different concept — the entire bathroom outdoors. An outside shower could be an unusual luxury, or a necessity if it was designed for rinsing off after swimming. But using the toilet outdoors? Brushing your teeth in the breeze? It might take some getting used to.

Needless to say, before you call your builder to build an outside bathroom, bear in mind that these are probably best for homes with lots of land and privacy. No one wants to see their next-door neighbor showering on the other side of the picket fence!

What do you think of outdoor bathrooms? Make sure to check out the rest of Apartment Therapy’s round-up of outdoor bathrooms!

Images courtesy of Apartment Therapy.

Everyone loves a clean house, but it can be so hard to achieve and maintain. Between work, family, friends, and social and volunteer activities, the last thing most people want to spend their precious free time doing is cleaning. But there’s nothing like the serenity of a perfectly clean house where everything is in its place.

Shelterpop offered up a list of cleaning tips for every room in the house. Here are our favorite tips of theirs for each room.

• Create an inbox in the entryway. This can serve as a repository for bills and other mail to take care of — no more mail strewn on the kitchen table! Don’t forget to recycle junk mail and toss unwanted credit card solicitations and the like in the shredder as soon as they arrive.
• Recycle all those magazines and newspapers in your living room. Unless you are a collector, you probably will never read old magazines. Clip or scan articles you find interesting and get rid of the rest.
• Pare down the “bag of bags” in the kitchen. Whether they are paper or plastic, trust us: there are more where they came from.
• Sleep stuff only in the bedroom. Shelterpop suggests removing “anything that doesn’t relate to your nocturnal life.” It’s a tall order, but really, what do you need in your bedroom? A bed, of course. Drawers and closets for storing clothes. A bedside table for a few  necessities. A chair or bench maybe. Keeping your bedroom clutter-free can only improve your sleeping.
• Streamline your products in the bathroom. Got through drawers and shelves and only keep the stuff that you use on a regular basis. Toss old or expired makeup, use up the lotion bottles that have just a tiny bit of lotion in them and ask your friends if they want that styling creme you bought at the salon a few months ago and only used once.

Check out Shelterpop to read the rest of their tips!

The bathroom may qualify as the most used room in the house — certainly the most necessary! Due to this, it seems like many homeowners  want to add on another bathroom (no more morning shower rush!) or remodel an existing bathroom (no more orange and purple tile!).

Via the New York Times, we found this cool product: it’s a bathroom in a box! From Bath Simple, it’s designed to take  the guesswork out of bathroom building and remodeling.

“Designing a bathroom takes an inordinate amount of time,” said John Crowley, a designer in Berkeley, Calif. “You have to get different pieces from a lot of different vendors.”

Mr. Crowley’s answer is a “bathroom in a box,” with every item needed for the job — paint, tile, fixtures, tub — arriving in one crate, ready to install. Customers of Mr. Crowley’s new online company, Bath Simple, answer a few questions about style and budget, enter measurements, then choose all items needed for anything from a simple powder room to an elaborate master bath.

Almost everything you need is in the box, from appliances to paint. The site allows you to make some choices regarding appliances and design and ships it to you, ready for your building professional to install.

It’s simple and perfect for a quick bathroom solution. What do you think?