Loos are getting bigger, with deep soaker tubs and two-person showers.
NKBA / Julie Wescott
What’s trending in residential bogs? 600 respondents to a web based survey – together with designers, sellers, producers, remodelers and designers – answered that query within the main business group’s just-released 2023 Design Developments research.
The Nationwide Kitchen & Bathtub Affiliation’s annual report offers insights to what householders are requesting and what professionals are delivering. These are the traits the affiliation and its respondents see for the brand new 12 months.
Overview
Like kitchens, “bogs are larger and extra concerned,” famous NKBA analysis director Tricia Zach. “Creating spa-like bogs that improve home-owner expertise whereas permitting seamless getting older in place” functionality was a serious focus of the responses, her report shared. As with kitchens, expertise to boost performance and luxury was a powerful associated pattern. So have been enlarged areas for extra accessibility and a calming really feel.
Opening House
“Prime lavatory traits contain opening area by eradicating bathtubs for bigger showers, taking down partitions and making a related dressing space,” the report famous. A stunning 77% of respondents have been eradicating tubs to extend bathe sizing. For these bogs nonetheless getting tubs, 74% are free-standing and 68% are deep soakers.
Eradicating partitions to extend the first lavatory’s footprint was a pattern for 63% of the replies. Connecting to a closet or dressing space (58%) or including a laundry area (34%) have been standard too. Further consolation options embody further seating, espresso stations, exercise areas and small fridges.
Sustainability Counts
Sustainability considerations reported within the kitchen traits part of the report carry into the toilet as effectively. That reveals up in a choice for all LED lighting (82%) and elevated pure gentle with bigger low-E doorways and home windows (55%). EPA WaterSense-rated taps, showerheads and bogs have been specified by 56% of respondents. Additionally exhibiting up within the sustainability column are EnergyStar licensed home equipment and air flow, in addition to recycled counter tops and flooring, and FSC licensed and formaldehyde-free cupboards.
Expertise Enhancements
“Householders are enthusiastic about heated flooring, temperature / moisture controls, voice / app controls, good bogs / bidets and good mirrors,” the research stories. Heated flooring that may be managed by telephone imply warming up the toilet in your manner house from a wintry hike or from beneath the covers within the morning and have been cited by 69% of respondents. Temperature controls for bathe and flooring have been standard with 67% and sensor humidity controls have been cited by 55% of the respondents.
Digital showering that lets a number of person program their most popular movement price, temperature and mode, in addition to probably controlling steam showering, was a 23% choice within the research, however a powerful 44% need the power to begin their bathe with their telephone. “Lighting and bodily remedy choices for showers – particularly for lively folks” was particularly famous within the responses.
Built-in lighting and web screens in lavatory mirrors for comfort have been talked about, as have been leak detectors, self-importance charging and towel warming.
Wellness Options
Wellness options overlap and are sometimes enabled with expertise enhancements. For instance, chromotherapy was chosen by 25%, preset lighting schemes for various instances of day acquired a 29% and the above-noted steam showering and bidet performance (45%) are all wellness-driven by wellness-focused respondents.
Low upkeep, nonporous quartz counter tops (82%) are additionally positively a wellness alternative. Floating vanities (71%) add accessibility, one other wellness side. Rest room taps mirror wellness concerns too with 61% choosing accessible lever handles, 48% selecting movement and 36% going for contact or faucet. A voice-activated faucet choice confirmed up at 12% and can seemingly improve as extra fashions grow to be accessible. (I’m hoping to see at the very least one producer provide a voice management lavatory faucet with temperature adjustment functionality at February’s Kitchen & Bathtub Trade Present; Moen launched this function to kitchen taps a number of KBIS expos in the past, however I nonetheless haven’t seen a toilet model.)
A really robust 75% of pattern research respondents are selecting heated flooring, with ceramic or porcelain tile being the floor chief (71%), greater than double the closest second, luxurious vinyl wooden plank (33%), alternative. LVP, because it’s typically known as, is softer underfoot, however some variations have had points with off-gassing dangers.
Giant format tile (59%) and slab (40%) – “requiring fewer grout traces and upkeep,” the report noticed — have been the highest tub and bathe encompass supplies, making life simpler for customers.
As famous above, showers are getting bigger, with 82% of survey respondents designing them for two-person use. They’re typically open (55%) with no door, or they’re a part of a moist room (35%) that may additionally embody a bathtub. Going for an aging-friendly spa really feel, these showers typically have a seat (79%), linear bathe drain (78%), hand-held bathe head (77%), zero clearance entry (66%), seize bars (65%), and a number of bathe heads (64%) with one in every of them being a rain head (58%). Steam reveals up for 41% of the areas, with physique sprays, music, heating and chromotherapy additionally enhancing them.
“Home windows above tubs (51%) and skylights (37%) could have excessive utilization to maximise pure gentle,” the pattern research observes. Ideally, they’ll have good controls for larger accessibility. Reaching a window above a soaker tub is not any straightforward feat for customers with higher physique weak spot or stability points.
