Home Improvement – Real Estate

Professional bathroom designers are masterful at merging both function and form to create breathtaking results. In this eight-part series which I call “Understanding Bathroom Design,” I draw on my experience working with some of London’s top bathroom designers to explain this exciting field. This sixth article focuses on the vessel-style washbasin – a true designer delight!

The vessel-style washbasin has been around for many centuries. It originated not in London but in Ancient China, before the existence of piped water or water treatment facilities, when people simply needed a vessel in which to hold water that had been drawn from the local well. But in the context of bathroom design, today’s vessel-style basin is free-standing and sits directly atop a bathroom counter or similar furniture unit. The London Interior Designer can source all sorts of different styles, dimensions and appearances, to match almost any bathroom design imaginable. One can select from a wide array of standard materials, including metal, glass, and semiprecious stone, or – for super-luxury bathroom designs – one may turn to gemstone-embedded or jewelled models.

What are the advantages of a vessel-style washbasin over a more traditional model? These basins aren’t constrained to slide into a regular-sized hole within a standard counter. Accordingly, London’s top bathroom designers can benefit from much more creative designs and shapes, with non-symmetric detailing and unusual footprints adding visual interest. Many vessel-style basins are taller in the back than in the front – a big boost for a smaller London bathroom design that needs a “touch of flair” but that has no space for a rear splashback.

Clients often tell me they have fallen in love with a standalone basin but just can’t figure out where it should go, perhaps because it doesn’t quite fit in their existing bathroom design. In such cases I may recommend the basin be installed in a London powder room, where it will serve mainly for handwashing – instead of shaving, brushing one’s teeth and giving the household chihuahua a bath.

In the next article in my series “Understanding Bathroom Design,” I’ll return to eco-friendly bathroom designs in London and discuss how to clean and maintain your bathroom in a way that helps protect the environment.

Professional bathroom designers are masterful at merging both function and form to create breathtaking results. In this eight-part series which I call “Understanding Bathroom Design,” I draw on my experience working with some of London’s top bathroom designers to explain this exciting field. This seventh article returns to eco-friendly design.

The use of recycled or recyclable materials is a real trend with some of London’s best-known bathroom designers today. Recycled options such as glass or rubber can be a great alternative to non-renewables. Another important element of eco-friendly bathroom design involves wise positioning of windows. Installing windows in exactly the right places can help control bills by allowing sunshine to wash into the bathroom during the day or encouraging fresh breezes during the night. Bathroom designers know that pleated curtains made from recycled materials can help with seasonal variations – especially in a city like London where summer temperatures can warm up unexpectedly and rapidly.

Did you know that London’s Heathrow Airport has the worst air pollution in the UK? Eco-friendly bathroom designs always use paints that are low in volatile organics. This helps reduce indoor pollution – after all, if London’s outside air is polluted enough, why should you want your indoor air anything less than the cleanest it can be? Along with low-emissions paints, many modern bathroom designers will focus on fluorescent or LED lighting options. These are much more energy-efficient than filament-based alternatives, and have the additional benefit of guaranteeing a much longer operating life.

The last part of eco-friendly bathroom design is mostly about what people do in the finished bathroom itself. I recommend the use of ecologically sensitive cleaning products like vinegar, salt and sodium bicarbonate – all of which are available at any of London’s many small corner shops or convenience stores. These products break down naturally once they are flushed down the toilet, and are therefore environmentally very benign. A green bathroom design can only go so far – ultimately it’s up to the consumer to make sure they fix dripping taps, recycle lavatory paper and other recyclables, and only flush when absolutely necessary.

In the next and final article in my series “Understanding Bathroom Design,” I’ll finish with a summary of the psychology of London Bathroom Design today – “Designing for Happiness.”

Professional interior designers are expertly trained in the use of lighting features to create breathtaking results. In this four-part series which I call “Colour Me Brightly: Understanding Light in Interior Design,” I draw on my experience in London’s interior design community to explain this fascinating subject. This second article talks about how to create patterns using illuminated materials.

Any perforated textile, when lit from the back or from the inside, will speckle adjacent forms with pattern, from point strips and pirouettes to constellations and dazzling laser specks. The professional interior designer can use the trim of a window covering to create fabulous banding across a shiny floor covering in the London summer. Some interior design firms love to use ornamental metal lanterns to paint fiery asteroids on walls and furniture, while light projected through a sculpted screen can create magnificent abstract outlines in expressive contemporary interior design schemes. A factory-inspired metal stairwell with perforated treads – of the type often reinterpreted for ultra-modern interior design schemes – can throw tiny checkmarks of light onto local furniture when exposed to a bright London sky in springtime. A fabulous option with a wooden staircase would require the interior designer to specify a grit-washed tread, to deliberately throw stunning shadows from the rail onto the adjacent wall. Abstract wire-mesh sculptures by local London artists can engender powerful interior design emotions, with the pattern even becoming more important than the object itself! Interior designers can expressively use perspective to distort the pattern from complete realism, when lit front-on, to Baconesque abstract enchantment when illuminated at an acute angle. The same effect can be created by using mirrors to refocus natural light from bay windows in some of the more luxurious London residences.

Glass is another popular tool for patterns. A frosted glass table can be lit from above with a halogen downlighter to cast intricate outlines of reflected light onto the ceiling, and the interior designer can even use positioning to cause refracted light to splash abstract patterns onto the floor underneath the table. I have seen some London Interior Design consultancies deliberately illuminate trophy-style glassware on display shelves from the front so that the etching on the glass throws deep shadows that recapitulate a core design theme.

In the next (third) article in this series called “Colour Me Brightly!” I will reveal another secret of London’s interior design community: how to create patterns with opaque objects.

Professional interior designers are expertly trained in the use of lighting features to create breathtaking results. In this four-part series which I call “Colour Me Brightly: Understanding Light in Interior Design,” I draw on my experience in London’s interior design community to explain this fascinating subject. This fourth article concludes my series.

Linear light patterns can focus on either the horizontal or the vertical metrics of a room. A given wall-light technique can create an immersing halo effect, if the interior designer uses concentrated super-bright light at high level that gradually fades out towards the base. Some London Interior Design consultancies specialise in choosing continuous sources, such as a miniature tungsten rack for a soft light or overlapping fluorescents for a cooler light. This is an effect that works very well in contemporary interior designs, where light can be concealed between the wall and the ceiling in a crevice in order to take the place of the traditional cornice.

The best method of illumination for interior designers to use when creating patterns will depend on the interior, and also on the direction of windows (natural light in London can be very seasonal). A smoothly plastered wall can jump into existence with a dappled arc wave from closed-offset down-lighters but if the interior design feature lies in the texture and in the structure or hue of the wall, then a more uniform spray of light will emphasise the wall’s best perspectives. A splashback tile solution at the rear of a shower or bath is a good interior design choice for the arc wave effect, as is a Venetian blind in a London kitchen. A wood-panelled hall or study is often a compelling interior design feature, and accordingly it would be better lit with an even light that does not detract from the feel of the wood.

Shifting from instant to instant and from a London dawn to a dappled full seasonal moonrise, the impacts of illumination and shadow are phenomena we almost disregard. But London’s top interior designers know that patterns of light can actually transform our emotions with respect to the interior forms that engulf us. By bringing to life walls, floors and ceilings with light-focused interior designs, pattern-making is yet another realm of illumination that can brighten our spaces and enhance our quality of life.