Discover Nature-Inspired Bathroom Design
The formal term is “biophilic design,” and it’s all about celebrating elements of the natural world by bringing them into our homes and letting them inspire us. Soothing and reassuring, the natural world can lift our spirits, ease anxiety, improve our focus, and even boost our body’s immunity to disease. Where better to create such an oasis in our homes than a nature-inspired bathroom?
Nature-inspired bathroom designs have the ability to bring the best of the natural world together with the best of the engineered world. With all of the options available today in home design, creating a rejuvenating nature-inspired bathroom can be as simple as starting with a few guidelines and finding the items that fit your individual style.
1. Bring in the Foliage
Live plants have been credited with all sorts of health benefits—from purifying air to improving our whole outlook on life. However, both plants and their pots also offer opportunities to introduce lots of natural colors, texture, interest, and depth. Bathrooms typically offer ideal humidity and temperatures for many common low-maintenance houseplants like pothos, dieffenbachia, bamboo, or begonia, for example. Sunnier spots may be able to support a shelf of healing aloes, a driftwood ladder of air plants, or a charming window-hung jumble of spider plants. If natural light is lacking, stylish grow lights can be mounted on a wall or staked in a pot.
The foliage doesn’t have to be restricted to live plants. Instead, look for nature-inspired bathroom decor that incorporates foliage or the vibe of greenery. Line a wall with botanical prints, for example, or paper a wall in a mural featuring your choice of flora. Choose bath mats or towels with a plant motif, or search out liquid soap dispensers and bathroom sets inlaid with leaves or wildflowers. Use a tile with a botanical visual or texture, or add cabinet hardware with a vine or leaf design. You can even find vanity lights and matching fixtures, for example, with shades made of natural plant fibers like cane, jute or rattan. Even hampers and wicker cabinetry lend themselves to a natural fiber design.
2. Use Some Natural Wood
Natural wood is a comfortable material easily recognizable by sight and touch. When we see it, we instantly think of the source tree. Cabinetry is one of the easiest ways to embrace the look of natural wood. Nature-inspired bathroom designs often feature wall and base units made of softly gleaming light-wood panels or lightly weathered vanities with a rustic yet clean feel. Some even have matching woodgrain countertops.
Another high-impact option is to face a wall or even the entire room in wood because it gives a space such a warm, organic feel that is both spa-like and timeless. Run boards vertically, horizontally, randomly, or in a pattern—whatever embodies your personal nature-inspired style. With today’s wood-look options, the wood aesthetic becomes a flooring—and even ceiling—option in bathrooms.
Wood can also be effective in smaller quantities as accent pieces. A compact teak stool, a slatted bamboo bath mat, wooden bathroom sets, wooden hampers, wood-framed mirrors, wooden bath trays, or even driftwood light fixtures all offer touches of warmth and the natural world.
When making decisions about wood furnishings and nature-inspired bathroom decor, keep in mind that humidity and moisture are common issues in any bathroom, so opt for woods that have finishes that are appropriate for the conditions. Many product lines offer engineered or synthetic options with realistic wood-look finishes that look and feel like natural wood but are waterproof or designed for high-moisture environments.
3. Let Nature Inspire the Color Palette
Color holds a key role in the sense of place—the relationship between people and the places they yearn to be. Nature-inspired color palettes can take us to those places—the beach in the morning versus a lake at sunset, a deciduous forest on a sun-dappled day versus a foggy mountain of pine and mist, a field of wheat against an azure sky dotted with puffy clouds versus a desert filled with cactus and scrub beneath an arid sky tinged with gold. Each setting is distinctly different and recognizable in various hues of the color spectrum.
Find your color palette in the natural places you love most, and carefully balance those three, four, five or more colors in the room where you’ll start and finish every day. Walls, counters, cabinetry, flooring, lighting, linens, accessories, and even fixtures and hardware can all serve as part of the nature-inspired color palette.
4. Feature the Gleam of Stone and Minerals and the Sparkle of Water
Water features are the focus of every bathroom, but not every bathroom fixture is nature-inspired. MTI, however, has a luxurious line of tubs, sinks, and shower bases that pair flawlessly with natural elements because they start with natural elements.
The Cosmopolitan Collection is made of cast-engineered stone, a nonporous mineral composite that is durable, easily maintained, and absolutely beautiful. The composite starts with finely ground organic dolomitic limestone combined with a high-grade casting resin. The mixture is poured into a mold coated with “a tough, state-of-the-art chemically-bonded luxe finish specially formulated for MTI.” For durability, MTI likens it to the “type of material used on the hulls of multi-million-dollar luxury yachts.” Then, each piece is hand-finished.
The result is a full collection of luxurious freestanding tubs, vessel sinks, and slab shower bases that are not only durable and easy to clean but also resistant to UV exposure, stains, mold, mildew, and shocks and impacts.
Cosmopolitan Collection Tubs
Cosmopolitan Collection tubs come in a number of freestanding models that encompass at least a dozen different styles, from the Magda’s clean angled lines, for example, to the gently flared lip of the Maricela to the easy rectangle of the Almaza. Tubs are available as soakers or therapeutic air baths. All feature ergonomic interiors as well as high-insulating properties to keep your bath water warm for the length of your bath or soak.
Cosmopolitan Collection Sinks
Cosmopolitan Collection sinks are designed to complement Cosmopolitan Collection tubs. Vessels mimic the form of the entire tub, while semi-recessed models match or are similar to the various tub rim styles. All are made of the same durable cast stone used in the tubs. Available in a number of styles, textures, sizes, and shapes, they pair beautifully with each other as well as other pieces from the Cosmopolitan Collection.
Cosmopolitan Collection Shower Bases
Cosmopolitan Collection shower bases are one-piece solid-construction shower floors that come in a number of sizes, colors, and stone composite textures. These low-profile slabs feature multiple thresholds, making it easy to pair them with glass shower doors or enclosures on every side. They also allow for zero-barrier recessed installation on the floor. The solid mineral-composite slab eliminates the problems associated with grout and standard shower tile floors.
MTI is a brand known for its artistry, quality and design-savvy products that work with any style, and it’s a brand we’re proud to carry at Coburn’s.
Nature-Inspired Bathroom Design at Coburn’s
If you’d like more information on creating a nature-inspired bathroom or nature-inspired bathroom design, schedule an appointment with your local Coburn’s Kitchen & Bath Showroom. We may not be able to start or finish every day in nature, but we can start and finish every day in a room inspired by it.