Showered with choice over modern bathroom design

With the bathroom becoming an extension of our living spaces, the emphasis is on raising comfort levels and creating a hotel-inspired finish, despite often limited square meterage. Here we look at some of the latest trends in shower design that can help installers achieve challenging client briefs.

The bathroom has become one of the most important rooms in the home and somewhere where homeowners go to, to relax, unwind and to escape for a while. Although now far from the purely practical space of its origins, the bathroom is getting smaller. With house extensions on the increase, second and third bathrooms are on the increase, without the square footage of properties necessarily being extended. An effective way of increasing a property’s value, additional bathrooms are also popular for those households embracing multi-generational living, a trend that looks certain to grow further still in the future.  

An open-plan, wet room style showering area is a popular option, as it is accessible yet taps into the hotel-inspired look that will also make a property desirable among house hunters. Creating a spa-like impression, a frameless shower enclosure, once really only seen in the most contemporary and high-end of properties, is now a staple feature of many a bathroom, regardless of the style or décor. Gone are the days of bulky shower enclosures encroaching on space and creating a visual obstacle.

Thanks to the latest technological innovations, modern frameless enclosures are available in a vast range of configurations that can be worked to the room’s advantage. From a steam room with floor to ceiling all-glass panels fixed by u-channels and connected with hinges and clamps, to a simple sliding door system or fixed glass panel supported by a stabilisation bar, the options are endless, enabling installers to create a bespoke shower area in practically any space.

As well as visual appeal, such solutions will also have practical advantages as the population ages. With one in six people in the UK now aged 65 or over, bathrooms need to be easy to access, with tripping hazards reduced. A walk-in shower area with frameless enclosure is an ideal solution as it can be constructed at the same level as the floor making access simple.

Hygiene and ease of cleaning are also key factors. While framed shower enclosures have many intricate corners where dirt, moist and mildew can accumulate, the minimalistic design of frameless showers does not allow deposits of dirt to build up. This creates a hygienic solution in moist and humid environments and are more durable, while also reducing water retention.

Even in bathrooms where space isn’t so much of an issue, the trend is towards a minimal finish that is neat, uncluttered and creates a high-end look and feel. Frameless glass enclosures with as little in the way of hardware on show as possible is the current direction of the shower market, where less is more.

An alternative solution, which works particularly well in the smaller bathroom, is to opt for a sliding shower door such as the CRL Serenity system. This solution keeps architectural hardware to an absolute minimum for a really neat finish, with only the header support bar and track holder being visible. Where support bars and brackets are on show, ensuring they fit with the overall style of the bathroom is key, and again less is more. Where it is visible, shower hardware trends are now leaning towards finishes such as matte black and brushed bronze.

Such solutions leave the consumer with a neat, uncluttered and bespoke finish.