The Bathroom Idea Book (Idea Books) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As its name suggests, The Bathroom Idea Book is all about ideas. In fact, anyone who views the book's 400 color photos will have clearer ideas about what they absolutely love, simply appreciate and definitely detest in bathroom design. Andrew Wormer has done an excellent job of covering enough ground to make this book useful for both the do-it-yourselfer and the homeowner who wants to paint a clear picture for an architect or a builder. Just about every bathroom style and option is covered and beautifully photographed, from antique fixtures (pedestal sinks, clawfoot tubs), to modern luxuries (a shower with a bubbling footbath and eight adjustable body and hydromassage jets), to high-tech touches (a cascading waterfall shower digitally controlled by a thermostatic valve and 10 massaging body jets), to the low-frill and durable (installing an acrylic liner over your old, battered tub). The book would be even more useful if Wormer devoted additional space to the costs of the sometimes sensible, sometimes spacious and sometimes glorious bathrooms we see. He does offer a few paragraphs on general price ranges and helps the reader understand what drives up costs (moving fixtures and walls), but this book ultimately is about dreaming, not budgeting. Read it to imagine how your bathroom could look, then worry about the price. This is not to suggest that the book lacks helpful planning tips. Overhead drawings on many pages give you a sense of the rest of the bathroom that can't be captured in a photo. And Wormer offers options for one of the trickier challenges when trying to improve the most frequently remodeled room in the house--finding more space. Among his ideas is annexing space from an adjoining area, such as a closet or hallway. Readers of The Bathroom Idea Book will find that even if their dream bathroom isn't pictured, they will be able to mix-and-match and combine features from various photos to get a good idea of what they can do. --John Russell

From Library Journal

Wormer, a remodeler and contributing editor to Fine Homebuilding, explains how to create a bathroom designed specifically with the user in mind--families with kids, working couples, or the physically challenged. Beautifully photographed bathrooms by top designers demonstrate the huge range of possibilities available to remodelers. Materials, fixtures, and storage options are also discussed. (LJ 9/15/99)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Taunton (October 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561583138
• ISBN-13: 978-1561583133
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #665,214 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NO IDEAS, September 17, 2002

By	JAYBIRD "jayr11" (Pelham, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Being in the home improvement business, I felt odd needing ideas when it came time to upgrade the bathrooms in my own home. Perhaps making a living building the bathroom of everyone elses dreams helped to fog the picture of what I wanted my own to be. Taunton Publishing puts out a trade magazine that I swear by. So when I decided to purchase a book on bathrooms I thought I couldnt go wrong with this one. How wrong I was.
This book is little more than a collection of photographs of high end and ultra high end bathrooms. Here in my neck of the woods a complete bath renovation ranges in cost from between ten and fifteen thousand dollars for an average bath. Very few of the rooms displayed in this book would make that budget.
Aside from the introduction there is almost no text to assist the "reader" in understanding requirements or even necessaties pryor to planning a bath remodel. Perhaps the fact that I am in this line of work colors my opinion of the book, but if photos qualify as ideas, Id recomend picking up a few magazines on bath remodeling and get a fuller picture.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting place for design, August 10, 2000

By	David Wihowski (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is has a lot of photos of bathrooms. Very many styles and sizes of bathrooms are featured. Many different color/decor schemes are pictured. Many different fixtures, baths, showers, etc. can be seen on these pages. What I found most inspiring were the less traditional bathrooms (even some rather tiny ones) that really showed some creative design aspects.

The text is rather average for this sort of book, basically it explains the many options that are available. It's nice to have this info in one place, but there were no radical insights. This book is chiefly a picture/idea book.

I was very pleased that Universal Design got more than a nod by the author. Several baths featuring universal design principles were pictured and diagrammed! Being a wheelchair user myself, I wish more people who built homes thought even for a few minutes about incorporating a little universal design into their homes.

I wish there were more bathroom plan examples. I wish there were more diagrams indicating possible and practical dimensions for standard bathroom layouts. There is no how-to install or remodel information in the book (but that's OK because it is supposed to be an "idea" book).

I'm building a new house and I keep returning to this book to scan the pages for ideas, color schemes, etc. I just wish there was a bit more technical information to make some of the final design decisions easier. I had to consult other books and the internet on a number of issues before I made the final floor-plan layout decisions. So, if you want ideas, this book is a great(!) starting point. If you want more technical details you may need to look elsewhere.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great ideas, March 26, 2000

By A Customer

We are building a new house and this is the best book I have found on bathrooms. It is full of great ideas for every one -- master suite, powder room, guest bath. I take it with me as I talk with builders and subs to show them what I want in the finished look. It has been very helpful.