Jagvir Goyal
No bathroom is considered complete for its best use unless it is fitted with bathroom accessories. A Shower, a Wash basin and a Water closet are essential features of every bathroom. But in addition, a bathroom needs certain accessories to make it perfect for relaxing, rejuvenating, revitalization and refreshing. These accessories help in making available essential toiletries, towels and other items to the user. Let’s enlist some of the bathroom accessories;
1. Soap Dishes
2. Towel Rails
3. Shelves
4. Toilet paper holder
5. Soap dispenser
6. Tooth brush/paste holder
7. Coat hooks
8. Towel rack
9. Magnifying mirror
Of the above listed items, first seven items are essentially required while the items at Sr. 8 & 9 are optional.
Material: The bathroom accessories under use these days are either Chromium Plated (CP) steel fittings or made in acrylic material. CP fittings of good quality and brand are 5 to 6 times costlier than acrylic fittings. However, preference is given to CP fittings as these match the CP faucets, showers, stop cocks, diverters etc provided in the bathroom. Acrylic fittings are produced in multiple colours but mostly, white coloured fittings are chosen by the people, matching them with chinaware. However, in case acrylic fittings are the choice due to cost constraints or personal tastes, transparent acrylic fittings of good quality should be chosen.
Soap Dishes: Each bathroom requires at least two soap dishes, one near the wash basin and the other near the shower. Soap dish near the wash basin can be avoided if liquid soap is used by the house owner and soap dispenser is provided near the wash basin. The soap dishes should be trough type with a hole at the centre to drain out water or a sponge placed in the trough. Otherwise the trough should be removable and washable.
Towel Rails: Towel rails provided in the bathrooms should be 24 inch long for full spread of bath towel over them. These can consist of two brackets fitted on the wall and the rail inserted in these brackets. Here, distance between the brackets should be carefully kept to avoid removal and refitting of second bracket, causing unnecessary extra drilling of screw holes in the walls. Both the brackets should be perfectly in level. Otherwise single piece towel rail, bent into flanges at both ends makes perfect choice. In this case, height of towel rail above the floor should be carefully chosen and marked on the wall for rod to be perfectly horizontal. Even a slightest slant in towel rail becomes noticeable and looks ugly. Near the wash basins, either swivel towel rings with wall flange or 12 inch long towel rails can be provided for keeping the hand towel.
Towel rails should leave a minimum of 1.5 inch space between the wall and the rail for easy hanging of towels. Provision of towel rings should be avoided and wherever possible, a 12 inch towel rail should be preferred over a ring as a ring never allows a towel to dry up while moisture from a well spread hand towel over the towel rail evaporates easily.
Shelves: Shelves are provided in the bathroom below the wash basin mirror and near the shower for storage of toiletries like shampoo, face cleanser, body cleanser, hair oil, body lotion, soap dish and so on. These days, vanities are provided in the bathrooms to accommodate wash basins and are serving as platforms to provide toiletries. In such cases, provision of shelf below the wash basin mirror is avoided. It is best to choose corner shelves near the shower. These corner shelves cause minimum hindrance in bathroom movement and their projection beyond wall face is hardly noticeable. These help in storage of maximum items. These can be provided as a set of three, one above the other. In acrylic, corner shelves are produced in different sizes and are supplied as a set of three, the topmost piece is smallest and lower most is largest. In CP and glass, these are produced in one size only. While the wall brackets to hold the glass are in CP, the glass of shelf is normally 8 mm thick toughened glass. The front railing of each shelf is also in CP. (See photograph)
Toilet Paper Holders: Every bathroom needs one toilet paper holder, provided near the water closet. The Toilet paper holders are produced in multiple designs, with or without a flap. Care should be taken to choose a simple paper holder over which, it is easy to slide the paper roll. U shaped toilet paper holders are cheap and best ones. In large bathrooms, spare toilet paper holders are also provided by the people, just to keep a standby roll. However, their provision should be avoided and extra paper rolls can be stored in the wash basin vanity. Location of paper holder should be carefully decided to avoid damage to tissue paper due to sprinkling of water on them during bathing or during the use of health shower near the water closet.
Soap Dispensers: Many people don’t like to use the already used soap cake kept near the wash basin for washing of hands. They readily use a fresh and unused soap cake but avoid using an already used piece. In such cases, it is better to avoid provision of a soap dish near the wash basin and a liquid soap dispenser should be used. These soap dispensers are available in multiple designs. Swivel type soap dispensers are rotated at 180 degree to draw soap liquid out of them and when released, these gain their original position. Otherwise, bottle type soap dispensers produced in metal or glass emit liquid soap when the top knob is pressed. These are provided with wall flanges and can be fitted on the walls.
Tooth Brush, Paste Holders: These are provided near the wash basin to store the tooth brushes, toothpaste, tongue cleaners etc. These should preferably be provided on the left side of wash basin while the soap dish or soap dispenser should be provided on the right side. A tooth brush and paste holder should be fairly deep to avoid falling out of an item. These may have slots to hang the tooth brushes. These may also have a tumbler which is removable from its bracket and can be used for shaving or any other purpose.
Coat Hooks: Every bathroom should be provided with sufficient number of coat hooks to hang the clothes used during bathing. These hooks should however never be used for permanent hanging of clothes which look ugly and steal the attraction of your otherwise tastefully furnished bathroom. Use CP hooks matching in curve and style with other CP fittings. Though essential number is to be provided yet try to restrict their number to essential minimum number. Keep their height accessible for all bathroom users.
Towel Racks: Towel racks are provided in the bathrooms to store towels above them. These should be chosen as 24 inch long so that at least two towels are stored on them. These may have lower hangers for hanging the towel or other clothes. Towel racks are available both with or without lower hangers and one may make his choice as per his requirement. Further, the lower hanger may be with or without hooks. Both options are available. However, these hooks are hardly successful for Indian garments. Before buying towel racks, the layout of the bathroom should be carefully studied and location of towel rack should be decided in advance. Sometimes, you may not find a suitable location for towel rack and in such case their purchase shall go waste.
Magnifying Mirrors: Swivel type magnifying mirrors are also made available by bathroom accessories producers. These mirrors have plain mirror on one side and about 3 times magnifying mirror on reverse side. These can be swivelled easily to choose the side you want to use. Magnifying side can be used for fine dying of hair or close shave purpose. The mirrors are either simply swivel type or provided with arms to protrude them to convenient distance from the wall. These are wall mounted and can be suitably located for their best use by the owner. However, their users have opined that these are scantily used by them and remain unused as most of bathroom users prefer to use wall mounted mirrors above wash basins only.
CP fittings & Screws: Hundreds of Makes are available in the market in CP fittings. The main drawback of most of these fittings is that their chromium plating is not of good quality. These lose
shine and turn greenish very quickly. The CP accessories chosen must be of a reputed brand with a guarantee that shine of the fittings shall remain intact for years together. Further, care should be taken in choice of screws used in fixing these accessories to the walls. Most of the screws get rusted with time as these just carry a coating of shiny material that doesn’t protect the screws from rusting. Rusting occurs quickly due to presence of moisture in the bathrooms. Only genuine quality stainless steel screws should be used.
More fittings: Manufacturers have invented countless accessories to choose from for the bathrooms. One should be careful to restrict the number of these items to minimum. Bathrooms shouldn’t look like stores. Add an accessory after thinking twice and only if essentially required.
