Creating an Environment
Using natural materials in bathrooms helps marry the indoors with the outside landscape, particularly effective in homes with natural settings. Choosing the right natural stone often drives the entire aesthetic for the room. It’s considered one of the most beautiful and high-quality finishes available.
Spotlight on Travertine
Travertine is a prominent choice for bathrooms, known for its endurance, warm and timeless colour, uniformity, and adaptability. Many classic travertines have been used in Italy for centuries and remain popular today. It is typically supplied unfilled, allowing the client to choose the colour of the fill when grouting. This approach helps create a consistent colour across joints and the stone’s natural holes, visually blurring the edges and proposing a feeling of softness in contrast to its solid tactility.
Clever Design Details
Incorporating stone design details can significantly enhance a bathroom. Stone niches are a beautiful feature, where the stone can be run up the shelf, across the back, and into the wall, carefully monitoring the joints. Angling the base plate slightly in niches allows water to run out easily. Strip drains, a common detail in Australian bathrooms, add class by allowing the entire shower floor to be tilted towards the drain line, avoiding a less attractive centralised floor waste. A built-in or Roman bath entirely created out of stone can also be a stunning centrepiece.
Mastering Material Combinations
Using multiple different materials and sizes in a specific technique is known as pilariana. This involves installing larger pieces first, then filling gaps with smaller pieces. Changing the colouration of the grouting to suit the surrounding material provides a fantastic finish and allows for subtle differences between spaces, even within the same project.
Maintenance is Key
Natural stone in a bathroom requires a higher maintenance obligation than materials like porcelain tiles. All natural stone needs to be sealed. The daily wet and dry cycles in a bathroom can diminish the sealer’s effectiveness over time, so it’s important to recognise this and reseal when needed.
Cleaning with Care
When cleaning natural stone in bathrooms, it is crucial to avoid most supermarket cleaners, as they can be acidic or caustic. These can attack the stone’s surface, removing the hone or polish, and reduce the sealer’s effectiveness. The best approach is to use pH neutral cleaners on stone surfaces. While some stones are incredibly strong and durable, choosing the right material for the specific application, such as a wet area, is key to ensuring it stands the test of time and maintains its beauty for years to come.