How to Give Your Bathroom a Spa Feel

To give a bathroom a spa feel, keep the proportions calm, use one finish on every fitting and match the accessories to the taps. A spa feel comes from a room where nothing competes, not from adding more.

For designers and architects, it is a brief that rewards restraint. For homeowners, it is the difference between a bathroom you use and one you look forward to. Here are the four decisions that get you there.

Calm begins with space around things. Give the basin room on either side and keep the vanity long and low.

Let the bath or shower have a wall to itself rather than squeezing it into a corner. Where the plan allows, a freestanding bath set away from the wall does more for the room than any single fitting.

Then reduce what the eye has to read. Wall-mounted and concealed fittings take the plumbing off the counter, so the vanity becomes one clean surface and the shower wall carries a single control.

Large-format tile or stone with few joints keeps the room quiet. So does one material running from floor to wall.

Light matters as much as layout. Soft, indirect light behind a mirror or along a niche flatters stone and metal, and reads as warm rather than clinical.

Finally, plan for daily use. A hand shower beside the bath, a rose large enough to stand under and a basin mixer at the right height for the basin make a bathroom feel generous, not just good-looking.

Mixing metals by accident is the quickest way to make a bathroom feel restless. A chrome mixer, a black towel rail and a brass shower arm may each be good choices, but together they read as a room assembled over time.

Choose one finish and carry it through every fitting: basin mixer, shower mixer, shower rose and arm, bath mixer and accessories. The eye then reads the tapware as one line through the room, not as separate objects.

Satin Brass suits stone, timber and soft plaster, and brings the low, warm glow most people picture in a spa. Graphite and Double Black give a quieter, more architectural calm against pale walls.

Chrome and Brushed Stainless Steel stay bright and clean. Whichever you choose, the consistency is what creates the feeling.

Decide the finish early, with the stone and tile, not at the end of the project. One finish is far easier to hold through every fitting when it is in the specification from the first drawing.

Accessories are where a considered bathroom is most often let down. Towel rails, rings and holders tend to be chosen last, yet they sit at eye level where everyone sees them.

Meissen's accessory ranges are made to sit with its taps. Every Meissen bathroom product page shows a Complete the Bathroom selection of the accessories that belong with it.

Velina pairs with Attivo, and Avilo pairs with Vita.

Both accessory ranges come in the same five finishes as the taps. Specify them at the same time and in the same finish, and the towel rail beside the basin reads as part of the design, not an afterthought.

Finishes are hard to judge on a screen. Satin Brass changes with the light through the day, and Graphite reads warmer or cooler depending on the stone beside it.

Before you commit, see the taps and accessories side by side at a Meissen stockist. Take a tile or stone sample with you.

Specifying for a client? The Ready to Specify page gathers spec sheets and CAD files for Vita, Onex and Origo in one place.

For more on layout and materials, read our guide to spa bathroom design.