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The Mirrored Bath

10 sure-fire design ideas for using the space in your bath

By Pamela Heyne, AIA

Our grandparents were satisfied with small mirrored medicine cabinets in their bathrooms. Today, however, mirror transcends the merely functional. It is a larger canvas, one that conveys images of our faces and forms, views of space, and glimpses of nature. Here are 10 design ideas to make its use as successful as possible.

1. Think about the size of your reflection: Most people are amazed to learn that when they are standing in front of the bathroom mirror their reflected image is half of the actual size of their face. This means that grooming is difficult; people are continually leaning over the sink to shave or apply make-up. Solutions: Install a lighted concave mirror nearby such as in the beautiful marbled Portland bathroom by Kathleen Donohue (above, right). Or install a narrow grooming ledge.

Mirrors and Clutter
2. Very often, designers like the look of expansive mirrors over the sink. But with today's copious amounts of grooming and medicinal products, storage systems are also necessary to avoid the reflection of numerous bottles, jars, and toothbrushes. Increasingly, mirrored medicine cabinets are fabricated in modular fashion so that they can resemble a flush wall.

Angled Mirrors
3. "I want to see the back of my hair" is a common request of clients. This has been solved by Margie Little's California bath. Three mirrors form a gentle arc around the sink, allowing multiple views. One can install flush medicine cabinets ganged together with opposing doors and achieve the same result.

Mirrors at 90°
4. Mirrors installed at 90°-angles can be glamorous. Note the picture of the men's room from La Folie Restaurant in New York (right). However, in a serious grooming area, they result in annoying split reflections. (An owner of a wedding dress store once had such mirrors in the dressing rooms and had to remove them because patrons could not see the rear and sides of their beautiful dresses.) Some designers get rid of the 90° problem by stopping the mirrors just short of the corners.

Lighting
5. Whenever possible in grooming areas, position mirrors so that natural daylight can illuminate the face, such as in the picture of the Kathleen Donohue bathroom (opposite page, above). Small mirrors can even be mounted directly in front of windows. Some bath cabinetry companies such as Robern provide modular lighting.

Other Design Opportunities
6. Take a cue from the art deco period, and install mirror in a niche at the bath tub. You could be creative and have a design sandblasted on the mirror, such as flowers, birds, or exotic fish. Perhaps you would like to experiment with tinted mirror. Peach is popular in European dressing and bathing areas. Or, you could rim the room with a mirrored" clerestory," a linear window above the height of the door. A painted ceiling with blue sky and clouds will seem to go on forever in the clerestory. Other locations for mirror are on bath- room doors, closet doors, or base cabinet doors and drawers.

Mirrors at the Window
7. Not a pretty view from the bathroom? Grab a better one with an angled mirrored bay window. Mirroring deep window frames will also convey unexpected lateral views.

Decorative Mirrors
8. Increasingly popular are pedestal sinks, particularly in powder rooms. There, traditionally framed mirrors, art deco stepped designs, or modern freeform concepts are popular.

De-misting
9. Very often, misting occurs on mirrors after a shower because the surface of the mirror is colder than the warm, moist air. There are products available with a heating element installed behind the mirror that warms the glass surface. Robern also has optional de-misting systems that work with its bath cabinetry.

Black Edge
10. Sounds like a plague, doesn't it? This is what happens when water penetrates the back of the mirror and attacks the silver backing. The French Embassy in Washington, D.C., has a beautiful ladies' room with vases of flowers in front of the mirror; however, the flowers do not conceal the corrosion of the silver. In this case, metal moulding was installed in the shape of a "j" at the mirror bottom that trapped water. Mirror has been called the chameleon of architecture because of its changeability. However, it is a chameleon that you can control in order to create beautiful, inviting, and functional bathing environments.

Pamela Heyne, AIA is author of the award winning book, Mirror By Design; available at 1-800-CALL-WILEY. Ms. Heyne's e-mail address is pamelaheyne@msn.com.

Source: Contemporary Bath Enclosures.