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For the best home, garden, and design coverage in Western New York, welcome to Buffalo Spree Home, a NEW specialty magazine that surveys trends, products, designers, do-it-yourself, development, landscaping, and everything else Home. Beautiful photography and savvy writing complete the package, making Home the first place to look for ideas and inspiration.
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The building boom of the 1920s gave birth to the indoor bathroom, generally a five-by-eight room big enough for a toilet, sink, and tub—and later, a shower/tub combo. My childhood home, a fifties-built Cape Cod, had one of these, and while one was generally considered enough for the average family, my three siblings and I all have memories of triage bathroom use (brushing teeth was the lowest priority), cries of “Hurry up in there!” and the relief we felt when a second bathroom was added—even if it was in the basement.
The one-bath trend lasted, surprisingly, until the next building boom. Sixties builders, perhaps prompted by big family experiences of their own, had no qualms about designing homes with additional bathrooms. But they didn’t make them bigger, and they were often only half baths—even if they were off the master bedroom. Five-by-eight was still all the space necessary for the necessary. (These bathrooms are so rare today that builders call them three-quarter baths.)
Bathrooms became gradually larger in the seventies, and exploded into full-blown status symbols in the eighties. What started as vanity areas became glamour baths became spa baths and today, as you can see from this issue’s featured bathrooms, there is no limit to what a client and designer can imagine and implement. It may be the rare home that actually has the $6390 Kohler toilet, but there’s probably not a reader among you who doesn’t think it would be fun to have one. With multi-head steam showers, infinity tubs, televisions, and sound systems, and marble and granite all around, anybody can have a luxury spa experience every morning.
There is, fortunately, a practical side to all of this that enables even the most sensible homeowner to rationalize making bathroom fantasies a reality. Because bathrooms have become so important, upgrading yours—whether to make it bigger, greener, or closer to the retreat of your dreams—will not only make your home more efficient and enjoyable, but also will give you the biggest resale return investment of any home improvement, as high as ninety-two percent, according to some studies.
So whether you’ve been thinking about pebble floors or massage showers, there’s no better time than now. And if you’re still in the dream phase, we hope this issue provides inspiration.
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