Ever dreamt of having a hotel bathroom in your home?
If so, you're not alone.
Most hotel bathrooms are downright stunning, and even budget hotels usually have nice, well-designed bathrooms.
As such, it's no surprise that most homeowners dream of recreating that in their home.
So if that's the case, then why don't more people have hotel bathrooms in their houses?
Well, in theory, it’s as simple as engaging a reputable bathroom remodeling company like Denver Bathroom Pros and letting them take care of it.
For most people though, cost is one of the biggest obstacles. It’s not the only one either, so let’s start by going over what exactly is stopping most homeowners from having the bathroom of their dreams.
Understanding The Challenges
There are two main obstacles–cost and design know-how.
Most of the time, the materials and fixtures used are high-end, luxurious products, which is why hotel toilets can look so grand and feel so luxurious, which is just something that can't be faked.
Sure you could use ceramic to mimic marble or some other natural stone, but the exquisite beauty of natural stones isn't copied that easily.
So if you really want to create a hotel bathroom, you're going to have to go for the real deal, or at least a very close replica, which still won't be cheap.
The same applies for the fixtures and the rest of the bathroom. After all, how do you fake a freestanding bathtub or a double vanity and sink, or even the spaciousness of the bathroom itself?
There's just no substitute for the luxury fixtures used in hotel bathrooms, which only further pushes up the cost of trying to bring a hotel bathroom to your home.
Cost isn't the only issue either, as few homeowners have the knowledge and know-how to go about planning, designing, and bringing a luxury hotel bathroom to life.
Without this knowledge, many things could go wrong. Think clashing finishes and colors, awkward and cramped layouts, poor lighting, and so on.
The last thing you want is to spend a fortune on the remodel, only to find out that you messed up the design and planning.
At the end of the day, creating a hotel bathroom definitely won't be cheap.
However, it doesn't have to cost you a fortune.
You might not be able to create a grand, five-star-hotel-worthy bathroom on a medium-sized budget, but you can certainly have yourself a sleek, stylish bathroom that would fit right at home in a four-star hotel.
In this article, we'll be covering how to achieve that, as well as how to take it all the way and make it as luxurious as possible for those who have the cash to spare.
1. Materials And Colors
Hotel bathrooms are all about luxury and elegance, which means there’s only one material for the job–natural stone. This means marble, travertine, limestone, onyx, and so on and so forth for the walls and floor.
If you’re on a budget, your next best option is porcelain. Porcelain is a mid-tier option and will get you about 90% of the way there when trying to imitate natural stones, at just a fraction of the cost.
You won’t be able to fully recreate the look, as the depth of natural stones is just that hard to replicate. However, unless it’s a trained professional or someone was looking very closely, chances are, they wouldn’t know the difference.
If you’re on even more of a budget, ceramic can also imitate natural stones, though to a lesser extent–they can get about 70-75% of the look.
Ceramic isn’t as robust as porcelain is, so it’s less able to hold small, fine details, which is why it’s less convincing than porcelain when mimicking natural stones.
For the rest of your bathroom, generally, it’ll look great as long as you’re sticking with minimalist colors, i.e. mainly white, black, or any other neutral color like gray or different shades of white or black.
However, if you’re able to spend a little more, opting for materials like brushed metal and brass gold can add another layer of opulence and add more character to your bathroom.
Just make sure that you’re not trying to do too much by using too many different shades of colors or too many materials like brass gold that deviate from your minimalist aesthetic.
2. Fixtures
Next up are the fixtures. The main fixtures are going to be your vanity, bathtub, shower, and toilet.
Honestly, there really isn’t too much to it. Just look for luxury, minimalist fixtures.
For your vanity, this can be a double vanity, a vanity with a stone countertop, or even a floating vanity.
For bathtubs, this refers to freestanding tubs, hydrotherapy tubs, drop-in tubs, or even Japanese soaking tubs.
For your shower, just make sure you opt for glass enclosures.
And for your toilet, well, just get a large enough one. You can also opt for a smart toilet if you’re feeling rich, although that won’t affect your aesthetics too much, if even at all.
That’s really all there is to the fixtures for a hotel-worthy bathroom.
3. Concealed Storage
Hotel bathrooms are typically considered luxury bathrooms, but not all luxury bathrooms look like hotel bathrooms, right?
So what’s the difference?
Usually, the reason why a luxury bathroom, despite being grand and beautiful, still doesn’t feel like a hotel bathroom is because of the storage.
Think about it.
What do hotel bathrooms have? A towel, soap, maybe some toothbrushes, a vanity kit, and some cups.
That’s it.
No rows of soap bottles, no floss, no rows of skincare products, no makeup tools, etc etc.
The thing is, it doesn’t make sense to put all those essential products outside your bathroom and sacrifice personal comfort just for the sake of aesthetics.
That’s why for private residences, when you’re doing a hotel bathroom, concealed storage is one of the key elements to have.
This doesn’t just mean storage where you can keep these items out of sight, like cabinets or drawers. Even if these items are out of sight, that cabinet or drawer itself still takes up space and makes your bathroom less minimalist and hotel-like.
You need recessed storage, like recessed drawers and cabinets that don’t take up much space outside of the walls, to achieve the super minimalist hotel aesthetic.
Another alternative is storage that can blend in well and almost remain hidden from sight when you’re not paying attention. This can be mirrored cabinets, flat-front, handleless cabinetry, or even just normal storages that have the exact same color and finish as your walls and floor.
Conclusion
Creating a hotel bathroom really is this straightforward.
Remember how earlier we explained that know-how was one of the main obstacles stopping people from creating the hotel bathroom of their dreams?
Well, hopefully by now, you’ve figured out that it’s not exactly rocket science.
There are also ways to keep costs down and still achieve the look that you want, as we went over, so really, there should be nothing stopping you since we already removed the two main obstacles.
All that’s left now is to follow these three keys, start planning your hotel bathroom, and then bring it to life.
